Senate Committees Resolution [debating]

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm really "meh" on the idea of Senate committees. I don't like the idea of slowing down legislating even more, and I extra don't like the idea of politicizing more elements of the Senate. Mostly though I just don't think the Senate is big enough to warrant it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

As I've said before, Senate Committees are something that I support. Ideally, each Committee would deal with a specific subsection of the game, ranging from foreign policy to forum affairs. Each bill would be introduced into the appropriate Committee, where it must be debated and passed before being introduced into the Senate at-large. The members of the Committees would be elected by the Senate, and chaired by someone chosen from within that Committee. I also see Presidential appointments having to first clear the right Committee before they could be voted on by the rest of the Senate. Depending upon the number of Committees and how many bills they are allowed to debate, adopting Committees could also actually increase the number of bills being debated by the Senate at any one time.

Okay, I get that.  My only concerns are will it slow down legislation.  I ask because I would be worried that it might cause frustration and then hurt activity.  Also, I am a little unclear as to how people get selected for a committee.  In the US, each party gets so many spots for committee, but here it the says the Senate as a whole.  Then how do we pick them?  Is the dominant party the chair of each committee? How many committees does each Senator sit on? And what about the size?  You would need unequal numbers to avoid ties.  If it is 3, and we are 2 or 3 committees, we are talking a big number.  If it is five, that's half the Senate, so the committee seems a little moot.

I am not saying I won't support it, but I would want to see specifics as to what we are talking about creating before we just blindly do it.

^^^ This is exactly my opinion. If we have more than one committee, we're taking up half or more of the Senate. We have such low turnover in the Senate already, that most people would probably be on the committees forever and ever, also because the number of active Senators that would actually be interested in such a thing is certainly less than the overall number of Senators.

Even setting aside concerns about how this adds an extra unnecessary step to legislating that will only crowd this board and slow things down with no added benefit, the Senate is not big enough to accommodate this sort of change. If we had 15 members, that would be less of an issue.

Also I honestly just fail to see what this proposal adds as a positive change. What do we gain from this? If someone could tell me that, I would greatly appreciate it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I might also be more in favor of this if the composition of the committee and the chairman were selected by the PPT.  First it would be quicker than voting and it would make the PPT election very important.  Also, if my hopes come true and we dissolve, the PPT election becomes very interesting.

idk. the PPT position seems to have worked well enough. Politicizing it that much may backfire.

I agree. I don't like the idea of making the PPT position a more politicized one than it already is.

[Marokai Backbeat]

There has been no debate in the last 48 hours on this resolution, so I'm opening up a final vote. Please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Nay.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Current vote is 4 Ayes, 4 Nays, and 1 Abstention.

I must say I'm surprised this is getting any ayes at all outside of one or two. No one can really argue how it's workable in it's current form or any sort of benefit, nor have any of my concerns been addressed.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This resolution is now failing. 24 hours to change votes.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This resolution is now failing. 24 hours to change votes.

By a vote of 5 Nays, 3 Ayes, and 1 Abstention, this resolution has been rejected.