The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[JerryArkansas]

Aye

[Velasco]

Nothing against, so yes... I mean, aye.

[Zanas]

[X] Yes.

By a vote of 5 In Favor, the Official Snacks of the South have passed the Legislature !

Who said everything was partisan and polarized in the South ! ^^

Awaiting signature into law or veto by PiT, still our Emperor until early May if I get this straight. We'll now be moving on.

[Zanas]

So here's the legislative docket as of now.

-The Creating Job Opportunities Act of 2013

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-Consolidated IDS Legislature Rules and Procedures
-IDS Empress / Tsaritsa Act

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-Safe and Inclusive Schools Act



-Annexation of the states of Coahuila and Tamaulipas : kept in the back of the queue

I acknowledged your request regarding order of business, Hash, but I think that maybe I could introduce both the minimum wage lowering bill and the Tsarina one for discussion before we got on to your procedures, which is a huge thing to get through and which we should probably be discussing alone. On that subject, I think we ought to discuss our whole constitution actually. If we're going to do that, I'm not sure if we should be discussing your bill only, then the rest of the constitution. Alas, there is no provision in our constitution for a constitutional convention, so we have to do this by usual legislative debate. I'm hoping for the next Emperor's momentum and leadership to start those discussions. For the time being, I'll try to propose things for the next articles, since I proposed some for Article I in my office thread.

So discussions are open on minimum wage and Tsarina : what is the minimum wage now anyway ? And also, if we're going to drop the imperial rhetorics, won't the Tsarina bill be outdated ? Well I guess we can switch back to Republic and have an honourary Empress, I wouldn't mind.

[Dereich]

The minimum wage right now is $12.00. While I really think its a debate we should have and one I'm happy to fight, I'd appreciate if you'd push the minimum wage bill back a bit. The senate is getting ready to vote on some weird new law to push up the minimum wage and I'll admit that I don't fully understand it yet. Could we just work on something else until the dust settles in the senate and I know whether or not to re-write the bill?

[Dereich]

And Zanas, it sounds like you really DO want a full constitutional convention over a piecemeal amendment process. If you consider it that necessary, we could probably legislate one into existence.

[Associate Justice PiT]

    I don't care too much about bretzels, but cornbread is a traditional Southern dish and highly deserving of this recognition.



     On the Official Snacks of the South Act: by the powers vested in me as Emperor of this region, I thus sign it into law.

     Be it resolved, X Emperor PiT

[Zanas]

The minimum wage right now is $12.00. While I really think its a debate we should have and one I'm happy to fight, I'd appreciate if you'd push the minimum wage bill back a bit. The senate is getting ready to vote on some weird new law to push up the minimum wage and I'll admit that I don't fully understand it yet. Could we just work on something else until the dust settles in the senate and I know whether or not to re-write the bill?

There's nothing simpler, my dear Dereich. I will consider your message as a withdrawn sponsor, and if nobody sponsors it immediately to force it into discussion, which I don't think will happen for the reasons you stated, I'll drag it at the end of the queue.

And Zanas, it sounds like you really DO want a full constitutional convention over a piecemeal amendment process. If you consider it that necessary, we could probably legislate one into existence.

Yes, we could indeed be voting a constitutional provision for a constitutional convention here, then move on to a true convention. That would be a bit twisted, but hey wth ? I'll probably wait to see if the other Legislators and Sjoyce have the same in mind. We've already agreed on the fact that we should be a bit ambitious in our rewriting, and I even agreed not to be too touchy in the Bill of Rights part that could easily end up in unending debates...

So, we're left with only the Tsarina Act on the floor, so I'll probably be adding another one for discussion. While Hash wanted his procedural bill to be discussed before his educational one, I think many of the topics in the procedural one are actually constitutional ones, and maybe we should wait until we get fully started on constitutional discussion for that.

So if it's alright, I'll be introducing the Safe schools Act along with the Tsarina one.

My two cents on the Tsarina one : we already implemented a formal celebration of Aliya Mustafina Day on September 30th, why not making her our Honorary Tsarina, which would just be another step in the same direction ? Sportswomanship, animation and feminine grace are values we can all agree on, right ?

[Velasco]

PiT gave some reasons why a convention might create more problems than it might solve and I tend to agree. We have around 40 people registered in the region, how many would participate? I think a simpler solution would be having a debate here, in the House, open to anybody who wanted to give ideas and discuss. We could open a specific thread on the subject as well, without getting into the inherent organizational messes that such events always carry out.

I stated before that I have nothing against having our Honorary Tsarina (or Empress). Sportswomanship, grace and animation are values that should be promoted and it would be a good thing for our own promotion abroad. However, I'd like to know if it was in the intention of the promoters of the bill the honorific nature of the title. Also, I want to know the opinion of our Federalist legislators.

[Hash]

My procedural bill goes beyond what is/should be in the Constitution. The constitution is for the organization of powers, specifying stuff like number of seats, terms, appointments, elections, vacancies and speakership. My procedural bill includes a bunch of nuts and bolts (debate time, sponsors, amendments, votes etc) dealing with the day-to-day working which should not be included in the constitution unless we're Alabama. I hope you guys don't reject it out of hand, it's only a serious proposal to get things moving and make the legislature more efficient. I'm open to amendments and proposals as long as they still make the legislature more efficient. If you guys want to debate it last, I guess I can't object but I don't know how long I'll be a legislator so...

As for the Tsarina bill, it's pretty obvious and self-explanatory: Aliya Mustafina is one of the greatest persons alive today, and she's one of the best if not the absolute best female gymnast in the world. And it would send a strong signal against misogyny.

[Zanas]

My procedural bill goes beyond what is/should be in the Constitution. The constitution is for the organization of powers, specifying stuff like number of seats, terms, appointments, elections, vacancies and speakership. My procedural bill includes a bunch of nuts and bolts (debate time, sponsors, amendments, votes etc) dealing with the day-to-day working which should not be included in the constitution unless we're Alabama. I hope you guys don't reject it out of hand, it's only a serious proposal to get things moving and make the legislature more efficient. I'm open to amendments and proposals as long as they still make the legislature more efficient. If you guys want to debate it last, I guess I can't object but I don't know how long I'll be a legislator so...

Well, I am Alabama, so...

Alright, I guess I can bring this forward to discuss. I'm just a little afraid we would be getting our hands and legs too much hogtied if we implemented the whole of it. Granted, we may not be the most effective Legislature in Atlasia, but the supple way we do things also has its assets. I'm not sure we could really be capable of following very strict procedural regulations if we implemented them...

If you don't mind, I'll only bring a couple sections at a time, since it is very long. Whole text can be read here.

First two sections are the following :

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I'm waiting on Dereich's and jerry' views on our Tsarina, and moving on then.

[Dereich]

Aliya Mustafina is the best; one of the greatest living persons and probably the best/one of the best female gymnasts today. However, I don't care one bit about making her Empress or not and will be happy to see this bill done with.

I also think that Velasco's idea of keeping the normal amendment process but having a new thread for constitutional issues is an excellent one.

[Zanas]

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Let's get things moving.

Please vote :
[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] One Direction's brains

[Dereich]

Well, as I said I literally don't care either way. But in the end...

Aye don't want to incur Xahar and Hash's wrath.

[Hash]

(that's an Aye obviously)

[JerryArkansas]

nay

[Velasco]

Aye.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

When will this body begin the discussions to to remove all this silly imperial paraphernalia from our lovely region?

[Hash]

nay

 

Please die in a fire.

[Dereich]

So...shouldn't we move on?

[Dereich]

So did debate begin on Hash's procedures? I'll assume it did since Zanas said he was bringing it to the floor. I think that codifying rules and procedures is an excellent idea; the way the legislature runs now isn't exactly consistent. Although I worry about some of the later provisions about time limits (the current inactivity makes me worry that it'd be hard to enforce) I see no problems at all in these first few provisions Zanas has put up for debate.

[Associate Justice PiT]

    The Mustafina bill seems to have passed, though Zanas hasn't said anything. I check out tomorrow though, so I suppose SJoyce will get to sign that one.

[Zanas]

Sorry, I had had the intention of declaring a leave of absence for a week, while I was in a rough RL week of moving, (yeah I'm perpetually moving), buying furniture and building them, but I thought I did it and did not.

So here I am now, back in the track. Of course debate is open on Hash's procedural bill, and not just the first two articles that I had pasted here, on all of it. It was just more convenient to put small bits of it at a time.

Also, Yes on the Tsarina bill.
So with 3 votes In Favor, 1 Against, and 1 Abstention, this bill has passed and may well be Sjoyce's first bill to sign or veto.

Let's keep moving on procedures. Dereich said he did not have any troubles with the first articles, I'd like to hear the two cents of Velasco and jerry on these.

I'll be back in debate today.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I'm still Emperor for about 7.5 more hours, so I'll sign this one. Sorry, SJoyce, you'll have to wait a little bit.



     On the IDS Empress / Tsaritsa Act: by the powers vested in me as Emperor of this region, I thus sign it into law.

     Be it resolved, X Emperor PiT

[JerryArkansas]

I have no problem with it.