Bicameral Legislature?

[KEmperor]

I would love to see a bicameral legislature. Perhaps we can divide the senate in half, and make the people who represent districts as House members, and the ones who represent the regions we keep as Senators. We could enlargen the house over time, and eventually make 2 senators per region once again.

We have more than enough positions as it is.  We do not need any expansion of government.

[Gabu]

I'm having trouble figuring out what making our legislature structure bicameral would do.  For something to pass right now, it needs 6 votes: 6 votes in the Senate.  For something to pass with a bicameral legislature, it would still need 6 votes: 3 votes in the House and 3 votes in the Senate.

This would help us... how?

I suppose it would make constitutional amendments harder to pass, as they would need 8 votes instead of the current 7, but beyond that, this would not exactly change a whole lot.

[Platypus]

How about, keep the senate as is, but introduce a HoR that includes ALL Atlasians, excluding those in the senate, executive, the GM, etc. Only the senate could propose legislation, but the HoR would also have to vote on it.

Basical;ly, you wouldn't need a majority of members of the HoR, just a majority of voters in a 48-hour period. So, after a bill is passed, the SoFA would create a HoR thread for that bill, and close it in 48 hours. A majority of members wouldn't be neccesary, just a majority of those who vote, so if 25 people vote you'd need 13.


Whilst i'm not a huge fan of a bicameral legislature, this' be the method I believe would work best, plus it gives newbies a chance to really shine in the HoR.

[Peter]

You are partially correct: In a 5-5 split bicameral legislature, a piece of leglislation could receive 7 votes (5 in one House and 2 in the other), yet still not pass.

If we were to actually pursue bicameralism, I would advocate a 10-5 split, with the Lower House representing districts and Upper House, the Regions, but I continue to have a problem believing that we could find the members to have competitive elections in all these races.

[Peter]

How about, keep the senate as is, but introduce a HoR that includes ALL Atlasians, excluding those in the senate, executive, the GM, etc. Only the senate could propose legislation, but the HoR would also have to vote on it.

Basical;ly, you wouldn't need a majority of members of the HoR, just a majority of voters in a 48-hour period. So, after a bill is passed, the SoFA would create a HoR thread for that bill, and close it in 48 hours. A majority of members wouldn't be neccesary, just a majority of those who vote, so if 25 people vote you'd need 13.

This would effectively remove the last smidgen of power the President has: A President garners his legitimacy to veto from a sense that he has a public mandate from election. If the people vote for something in this fashion, the President can never claim the public mandate in vetoing.

[Platypus]

which is a bad thing because?

[Colin]

The only way I can see that we can do this sort of thing now is have an upper house comprised of the Regional Governors while the lower house would be the same as the current Senate. This, though, gives way too much power to the Governors while decreasing the power of the elected legislators. I currently like the unicameral system that we have and someone would have to give me a good argument why it is not a good system for Atlasia.

[Bono]

The only way I can see that we can do this sort of thing now is have an upper house comprised of the Regional Governors while the lower house would be the same as the current Senate. This, though, gives way too much power to the Governors while decreasing the power of the elected legislators. I currently like the unicameral system that we have and someone would have to give me a good argument why it is not a good system for Atlasia.

Yes, because governors are not elected or anything.

[JohnFKennedy]

which is a bad thing because?

Tyranny of the majority .

[Gabu]

You are partially correct: In a 5-5 split bicameral legislature, a piece of leglislation could receive 7 votes (5 in one House and 2 in the other), yet still not pass.

Yes, I suppose that's true.

I still don't really see the point of having a bicameral legislature other than for the sake of having a bicameral legislature, though.

[Colin]

The only way I can see that we can do this sort of thing now is have an upper house comprised of the Regional Governors while the lower house would be the same as the current Senate. This, though, gives way too much power to the Governors while decreasing the power of the elected legislators. I currently like the unicameral system that we have and someone would have to give me a good argument why it is not a good system for Atlasia.

Yes, because governors are not elected or anything.

Well they wouldn't be directly elected for that position. I thought you would be against people who were elected to serve one purpose doing another instead.