Varied Senate Membership Amendment [Debating]

[President Marokai]

Varied Senate Membership Amendment

Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution shall be amended with the following clause:

"8. No person shall be elected, in a special election or general election, to the Senate more than three times, consecutively."

(Slot 1: General)


Sponsor: Marokai Blue

[President Marokai]

Before any of the deliberate misinformation begins (as it's begun every time this issue is brought up) this is a consecutive term limit, and one that takes a full year of service before going into effect.

We've been doing a lot of talking lately about a "new era" in Atlasian politics, with new parties and new activity, but part of going forward is safeguarding our future against the very real possibility that we could fall right back into the ditch of the last year and ahalf prior to now. Everyone is becoming a little naive in our hopes that now that dissolution has happened, everything is super right and awesome and could never go wrong again, and I don't want to get complacent, I want to continue to implement changes like this that will provide the rails against that sort of crash, however modest those "rails" are.

Part of the problem became, in our previous "era" that too many of the same people were dominating the process. We reached a point in Atlasia where it became incredibly top heavy, and many of the newbies joining in were either not getting elected with the same frequency that newbies used to be elected, or were getting bullied out by the old guard vigorously defending their positions.

The prolonged effect of that phenomenon is what causes apathy that leads to a lazy two-party system. To prevent that, we need to make sure in the fairest way possible that we're getting new people in this system and that the crusty old guard can't become unbeatable and elected in perpetuity with no interruptions. A full year of service is a very long time for Atlasia, and a length that I think is suitable for anyone to be in the Senate for one period at a time.

Right now is the real test for if we mean what we say when it comes to a new era, and if we're going to continue putting the rubber to the road after dissolution. Making sure new people get elected with some frequency to the Senate is imperative, and it's a change I believe we absolutely must make if we're serious about having a truly different and sustainable era of new politics.

[Pacific Councillor Big Wiggly Style]

Aye. We need to encourage activity from more people. Great idea.

[Senator Napoleon]

Terrible idea.

[Jayhawker]

At the end of the day, it should be the people who decide whether or not there Senator has served long enough, not a law.

[bgwah]

Who would this really affect? Me & Yankee? Do you guys really think the Senate would function better without us? I'm retiring in a week or two, of course, but I'm at the end of my sixth term.

Though Yankee has hogged the SE Senate for a ridiculously long time, I suppose. How about a nine term limit...?

[Senator Ben]

Terrible idea.

Agreed.  I'm always against term limits.

[President Marokai]

Who would this really affect? Me & Yankee? Do you guys really think the Senate would function better without us? I'm retiring in a week or two, of course, but I'm at the end of my sixth term.

Though Yankee has hogged the SE Senate for a ridiculously long time, I suppose. How about a nine term limit...?

I believe it would've also affected Duke, before his retirement, and MOPolitico and I would only have one more term left in us after our re-election a week ago, assuming we make this Amendment affect current Senators.

[Governor Scott]

I strongly oppose this.  If the people believe a Senator has served for too many terms and want to see someone new representing them, they are free to vote him out for that reason.  This amendment would take that decision away from the people, which is very undemocratic.

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The problem isn't that I have ran 9 times. The problem is that only once did anyone actually try to run against me in a serious fashion (Though I did make it incredibly easy that cycle ). I can't "prop up" my opponents, though I did try to do that also. I am not sure if it is the "closeness" of people in this game or the fear of a primary/general challenges causing permenent animousities, but for some reason, people are reluctant to challenge incumbents in this game, beyond what one would naturally expect from "strength of incumbents" and "name recognition".

[President Marokai]

The problem isn't that I have ran 9 times. The problem is that only once did anyone actually try to run against me in a serious fashion (Though I did make it incredibly easy that cycle ). I can't "prop up" my opponents, though I did try to do that also. I am not sure if it is the "closeness" of people in this game or the fear of a primary/general challenges causing permenent animousities, but for some reason, people are reluctant to challenge incumbents in this game, beyond what one would naturally expect from "strength of incumbents" and "name recognition".

People are reluctant to challenge incumbents in this game because that almost always means they will lose. Ironically, this doesn't extend to Presidential elections, because lately it seems like no one ever wants to run for more than one term at a time, which is perhaps one of my least favorite new trends around here, but that's off-subject.

People will run for office if they believe they have a shot. You guys in the South are currently forming some sort of southern Bloc party. Do you expect anyone to challenge that? You aren't helping the situation by basically encouraging the turn of the region into an official one-party state.

Running and losing ruins reputations, and creates new ones where the person is just a repeat loser. Who would want to subject themselves to that?

[Senator North Carolina Yankee]

But unless you ban consecutive terms in general, you will have an issue with competative elections where someone is running. This effort mainly seems to be interested in narrowing the problem rather then fixing it. Competative elections also an incentive in the direction of competence. And again, unless you ban all forms of reelection, this will persist with any term limit policy. And such a ban would go to far and create more problems with not enough candidates and such.

We need to change that mentality about reputations and winning. It is patently ridiculous.

[Junkie]

I would say that in the real world I am against term limits, but in terms of the game, it is worthy of discussion.  If we force open elections, it might (and I stress might, because I am not totally sold on the idea) foster competitive elections.  Although the idea may have meant more when we had only two real parties.  Now with a plethora of parties, we may have more competitive elections.  But the recent regional elections seems to go against that.  I would say I would like to see how the at-large elections go before we start messing with this.

So I guess, put me down as probably against.

[Yelnoc]

The problem isn't that I have ran 9 times. The problem is that only once did anyone actually try to run against me in a serious fashion (Though I did make it incredibly easy that cycle ). I can't "prop up" my opponents, though I did try to do that also. I am not sure if it is the "closeness" of people in this game or the fear of a primary/general challenges causing permenent animousities, but for some reason, people are reluctant to challenge incumbents in this game, beyond what one would naturally expect from "strength of incumbents" and "name recognition".

People are reluctant to challenge incumbents in this game because that almost always means they will lose. Ironically, this doesn't extend to Presidential elections, because lately it seems like no one ever wants to run for more than one term at a time, which is perhaps one of my least favorite new trends around here, but that's off-subject.

People will run for office if they believe they have a shot. You guys in the South are currently forming some sort of southern Bloc party. Do you expect anyone to challenge that? You aren't helping the situation by basically encouraging the turn of the region into an official one-party state.

Running and losing ruins reputations, and creates new ones where the person is just a repeat loser. Who would want to subject themselves to that?

The idea is actually a lot more complex then that.  The south has a regional registration board; my hope was that the regional bloc would dominate at a federal level, and people would divide themselves into factions based on the different houses.  The Imperial Senate would be contested, but by two or three people within the same organization.

And the problem with finding a challenger for Yankee is simple.  PiT and I have to scrape around to keep the regional posts full, and our other active posters are already involved in the federal government.  If there were more active people, finding challengers to incumbents wouldn't be a problem.  Hell, if I thought I could leave the regional government to its own devices, I might run just to shake things up.  Eh, maybe not.  Don't know that I would want this job.  And Yankee does do a good job.

[asexual trans victimologist]

Would this amendment apply to Senators moving from one seat to another? For example, I was elected to my At-Large seat in a special election in November 2011, reelected in the general election in December 2011, and have declared for the general election in April 2012. If I wanted to vacate my At-Large seat and run for the Northeast seat in June 2012, could I under the terms of this amendment? Because if so that's a fairly obvious loophole in the intentions of the amendment. The text of the amendment (saying simply 'the Senate') indicates that the answer is no, but it admits of slight ambiguity concerning the meaning of 'consecutive'.

May I introduce an amendment to read

"8. No person shall be elected, in a special election or general election, in any seat, to the Senate more than three times, consecutively."

[President Marokai]

I accept as friendly. Senators have 24 hours to object.

[bgwah]

I proposed having three regions but nobody liked that idea.

[Yelnoc]

I proposed having three regions but nobody liked that idea.

That's been talked about a lot, actually.  Enlarge the south and west to their proper sizes and create a northern region.  We had a poll a while back that showed the majority supported it, if I remember correctly.

[bgwah]

I proposed having three regions but nobody liked that idea.

That's been talked about a lot, actually.  Enlarge the south and west to their proper sizes and create a northern region.  We had a poll a while back that showed the majority supported it, if I remember correctly.

The NE already has about 1/3 of the population and shouldn't be changed too much. Combining the SE/ME and PA/MW might work, though those would be somewhat wacky borders.

[Pacific Councillor Big Wiggly Style]

I would support having three regions. Combining the Midwest and Pacific and the Mideast and the South seems reasonable, but add a state or two to the Northeast

[Senator Napoleon]

I would support having three regions. Combining the Midwest and Pacific and the Mideast and the South seems reasonable, but add a state or two to the Northeast

It seems reasonable if you absolutely hate competitive elections. Why combine overwhelmingly right wing regions into an overwhelmingly right wing super region (and same for the left)?

[Jayhawker]

I would support having three regions. Combining the Midwest and Pacific and the Mideast and the South seems reasonable, but add a state or two to the Northeast

It seems reasonable if you absolutely hate competitive elections. Why combine overwhelmingly right wing regions into an overwhelmingly right wing super region (and same for the left)?

People complain that we don't have competitive elections - the only region that has somewhat competitive elections is the Northeast. The solution apparently is to combine the two non-competitive conservative regions with the two non-competitive liberal regions.

The only thing this will do is boost regional government, simply because we'll only be spread out in 3 governments instead of 5. It'll do absolutely nothing to create competitive elections.

[bgwah]

You could have liberal vs. liberal and conservative vs. conservative races.

[Secretary Polnut]

I'm honestly not exactly thrilled by this idea.

[TJ in Wisco]

I think this could make the game a little more interesting by putting different people in the senate on occasion, though I'm somewhat split on the idea since it would seemingly only serve to affect a couple individuals, often those who contribute greatly to the function of the senate.

In real life, I am wholeheartedly against term limits since their purpose is to prevent people from making a career of government and all it really does is force them to play musical chairs.