Adam Griffin Senate Campaign HQ - Chattanooga, TN - The Southern Candidate

[Associate Justice PiT]

     It's great to see somebody going to the trouble of campaigning for the Legislature. Good luck, man.

[Associate Justice PiT]

This will be the most contested election since I was embattled with that rape joke scandal and nearly lost to Xahar's sock!

     What about the election that Daniel Adams lost to Xahar?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I probably should address all of your platform points together, but the special election point particularly intrigues me, so I will feel free to talk about it now.

     Back when we had the post of Viceroy, we were required to hold special elections for vacancies. They were rather dreadful affairs, and along with monthly regular elections contributed to a sense of election fatigue. I think the increase in partisanship now would lead to more interesting special elections, but I do think that there can be too much of a good thing, and that applies to elections too.

     The issue I see is that regional executive has been a traditionally useless post in Atlasia. The advent of the elected legislature has helped in this regard, but I've still had to work to make the post be as relevant as possible. A nice upside of legislative appointments is that it makes executive control play a role in legislative control, as the Emperor has the power to tip the scales of the Legislature in his favor. With the fast timescale that transitions of power can occur on in this regional government, appointment gives the executive a precious opportunity to implement his agenda, whereas special election is more of a double-edged sword.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I do agree that special elections work better with more people. They are not really conducive to getting new members elected, though fundamentally neither is appointment. Both systems depend on the people with power having the guts to try new, untested faces to reach their true utility. Historically, elections with large electorates have tended to enforce an old boy's club in Atlasia, where only well-known, well-respected candidates have a shot at winning. I acknowledge that that does not always have to be the case, and I posit that we can help ensure that that is not the case by creating more opportunity to advance.

     Along those lines, your comment about "We will continue to have the same number of offices" made me think. It occured to me that, as our region grows, we may want to increase the size of the Legislature further. In the November elections, we had 23 people vote. That's 23 people who have the potential for activity. Despite this, we only have seven regional offices. Some of those people hold federal offices as well, but many are just voters with no current office to hold.

     In order to keep people active for the long-term, you have to keep people interested. Getting them running and into office is an excellent way to do this. I think that we could easily increase the number of seats and find the candidates to have competitive elections. More people and more offices leads to a richer discourse both on the campaign trail and in the Legislature, and also positions the region to better sustain its current population growth.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I agree that differentiated offices are a better goal than adding more Legislative seats and, if done right, would greatly add to the richness of the regional government. In my time in Atlasia, I have been a consistent proponent of more variety and more experiences available to the citizenry. When some people wanted to eliminate the regions and replace them with a universal lower house, I allied with Marokai and Purple State to stop that from happening.

     The inherent problem that I see is making these differentiated offices interesting. In the past couple years we abolished the Viceroy and also created and abolished the IDS Attorney General, because both offices were generally uninteresting and few people were willing to take them on. The Viceroy was left to watch Legislative business and not take active part in it, and I sensed that holding the position in fact caused many Atlasians to tend towards inactivity rather than activity. IDS Attorney General, a precursor to the Defender of the Realm, was an elected position with few responsibilities, and generally proved to be useless. As it happened, we were not sued often enough to sustain interest.

     Ultimately, it would be nice to have new and unique offices that people could run for. However, many options for such offices would be counterproductive and useless, whereas more Legislative seats is a surer recipe for success. In the time it takes to try out different ideas, we could end up losing several citizens to inactivity that we wouldn't otherwise. Electing an Imperial Scribe is an interesting idea, though I will point out that it's a purely ministerial position and would have limited potential for ideological use, making it a typically boring race where there is no reason for one party to contest another party's control of the office. It wouldn't be useless by any means, but it would all too likely end up on the backburner and largely forgotten.

     In the end, I would love to see that sort of idea be implemented, but I warn that it will be difficult. Many good efforts to make it happen have failed in the past and years of Atlasian history at both the regional and federal levels seem to suggest that the legislative branch is simply the most interesting branch of government.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I'd like to apologize for not being active the past couple of days. This time of the year always proves to be busy and time-consuming, so I do not feel that bad when I see that most of Atlasia seems slower than normal.

Or, maybe the absence of the magnanimity of The People has caused this realm to silence itself.

     It's alright, I've been busy with school myself...or maybe we're both just too busy working for the good of the region to actually campaign.