For the President:Game Reform Committee Interim Report
August 16th, 2011
Over the last month, the Game Reform Committee,
commissioned by President Polnut on July 3rd, 2011, has determined the important topics of the day regarding Game Reform and the shared our own personal feelings on what could, or should, be done.
We have since determined the following areas of interest for proposing structural changes: Senate Elections. The Vice Presidency. The Wiki. Regional government authority. The Senate itself. The state of the political parties.
For the purposes of the Interim Report, we present to you all proposals we will seriously consider prior to the final report, where we aim to finalize our proposals. We welcome the contributions and simple comments of others to that end.
Senate Elections:We have several proposals on this front. The first and simplest, is the one openly proposed by Marokai Blue and Cincinnatus; giving regions the ability to administer and alter the voting system of their regional Senate elections.
Yelnoc presents multiple proposals himself: A return to redistricting, abolishing at-large Senate elections and electing two Senators per region, or making all Senate seats elected at-large. Belgiansocialist is intrigued by a return redistricting, and proposes simply changing the voting system for at-large elections to a variant of FPTP or any other system.
Nevertheless, Jbrase's current effort at altering the way regions elect their Senators has
no opposition from the committee, and the expressed endorsement of at least two of our members.
The Vice Presidency:We seem to have at least one area of unanimous agreement: Give the Vice Presidency relevance or abolish the position outright. The Game Reform Committee as a whole believes there is utterly no point to having the position without giving it additional responsibilities.
To that end, we are currently debating over numerous proposals. The first, is giving the Vice President the full powers of a Senator. (Marokai Blue and Belgiansocialist) The second, is giving the Vice President a cabinet office of his choosing, similar to parliamentary systems. (Cincinnatus and Yelnoc) Both proposals receive the support of half of the committee, and this will doubtless be the point of most debate moving forward.
Marokai Blue also proposed electing the Vice Presidency separate.
The Wiki:The Game Reform Committee seems to have another area of unanimous agreement here. We all agree that the best way forward for the Wiki is increased participation from
everyone. How to do this, is, we believe, the biggest problem.
Cincinnatus seems to suggest that regional governments should set up individual outreach programs to raise awareness in their region for wiki-editing. Yelnoc proposes asking the Attorney General to create "law summary" pages, that allows statute to be summed up, thus, improving readability.
Marokai Blue proposes a contest system, setting up multiple rewards to be given to the top wiki editors, in the form of temporary honorary positions, the ability to determine one GM article, etc, on a regular (perhaps monthly) basis. Belgiansocialist proposes raising awareness and finding ways to allow people to contribute without necessarily creating an account themselves.
Regional Government Authority:There seems to be a consensus in the committee for, at least, expanding regional power.
Cincinnatus and Yelnoc both propose allowing the regions to function more as individual countries on their own, loosely bound by the federal government ala Articles of Confederation.
Marokai Blue and Belgiansocialist propose allowing the regions to have a greatly expanded role in ratification of Constitutional Amendments through an "Americanization" of the process.
The Senate:The committee remains conflicted in how we can actually improve the inner machinations of the Senate itself. Nevertheless, we endeavor to find a way.
Marokai Blue and Belgiansocialist support the idea of "activity requirements" for individual Senators, mandating a certain number of posts, votes, or legislative proposals, or risk expulsion.
Cincinnatus proposes that the Senate start focusing on rooting out and/or condensing old legislation gumming up the works.
Political Parties:The committee recognizes the need for individual responsibility on this front, and that political parties must,
themselves, change. Cincinnatus implores political parties to "move outside their comfort zones" in seeking to change.
Marokai Blue proposes legally mandated party primaries and the legal infrastructure for the establishment of caucuses within parties, that would appear on voting ballots similar to how party labels to, such as "Bgwah (JCP, Social Liberal Caucus)", "Napoleon (JCP, Libertarian Caucus) or "Cincinnatus (CID, Reformist Caucus)" etc.
Belgiansocialist (also) supports the introduction of legally mandated primaries for political office as well. The goal of both proposals is the legal infrastructure for inner-party politics alongside the usual politics. (As recently, Bgwah, leader of the JCP, has said he would like to see become the new stage for political "drama", as it were.)
Though the Committee remains without a single voice on most issues, we endeavor to find more refined proposals by the final report. In the coming weeks, we will debate each topic, and settle on a final one or two proposals that can garner the support of the entire, or most of, the Game Reform Committee.
We do believe, however, that we have at least made our initial offerings of proposals that we each individually prefer. We also believe that we have identified the "problem areas" to be targeted by supporters of game reform in general.
The Committee remains open outside commentary at all times, and we greatly thank the President for the creation of this Committee in the first place, as we all believe it's time we got serious about actually changing the game. We see problems in Atlasia, and we have been convened to propose solutions. We will do our best.
