SENATE BILL: Fair Amendment Procedure Amendment (Failed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor: TNF

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The sponsor has 24 hours to commence advocacy for this.

[bore]

This has my complete support.

[TNF]

This will streamline the electoral process and give us one, instead of five, amendment voting booths. It is a common sense reform.

[homelycooking]

I support the amendment. If any Regions or Regional Executives feel aggrieved by this, the Senate may wish to consider delegating the administration of Regional Senate elections to them in place of ratification of Constitutional amendments.

[ZuWo]

Just FTR, a less radical proposal (the "Ratification Amendment") was rejected by three of the five regions and a majority of the people voting barely two months ago. There is absolutely no need for the Senate to pass this, especially because this amendment is clearly anti-region.

[TNF]

Just FTR, a less radical proposal (the "Ratification Amendment") was rejected by three of the five regions and a majority of the people voting barely two months ago. There is absolutely no need for the Senate to pass this, especially because this amendment is clearly anti-region.

And?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I will never support any amendment that reduces the standard necessary to ratify amendments to the Constitution, more or less to one that removes the regions entirely and replaces them with whatever the simplest of national majorities fancies at that present moment. Considering the same people who support this also want to remove the Regions completely in their ideal scenario, and thus by extension the Regional Senate seats, this will lead to a completely free hand to the wildest excesses of the temporary popular majority being imprinted on the Constitution without the slightest check or balance.

Those who will support this may claim it as a measure to gard against the kind of Regional excess as it pertains to the ratification of amendments such as that we have seen this past summer; however, the perpetuation of the never ending golden goose of an anti-Regionalist Xanatos gambit that Operation Rimjob turned into, falls short in my opinion in terms of offering sufficient justification. If anything, the sheer reduction in the standards necessary to amend the Consitution presented here is the most stark example of the history of that event being ignored and thus should be even more reason for the defeat of this amendment.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I helped Antonio with one that had "4/5ths of the regions or 3/4ths of all voting citizens." back in the day. Was deated in the regions. That is my floor man. 


Also, I would point out that if I consider this to be an emergency I can get another TNF bill on the floor, which I thus did. Since becoming a Senator there has been no greater emergency then attempts to enact too low standards for amending the Constitution.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think I meant 2/3rds.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Nix you know full well I tried to fix those problems with the 17th Amendment, twice as I recall.

For months Emperor Dereich has been contacting all IDS residents about amendments brought up for ratification.  The problem has almost invariably been in the Pacific and or the Midwest with the low turnouts you mention. In the Pacific, they have not had popular ratification since just before Rimjob, which is part of why we failed those times to fix the 17th. As I recall, they just had in the Pacfic squeaker elections fo both the Senate and Governorship, and people are working towards going back to the popular ratification. I would point out that the Region's themselves can require that their Governors open amendment votes under the very 17th Amendment and appoint seconds and thirds to take over in case it doesn't happen.

I plan to use the very PAC I used to petition the IDS and on the Senate this Amendment, to push for those very things in the other four regions, once I have organized a structure that includes people from those regions to take the lead.

We also need to get more public advocacies for or against the Amendments,
1) So people understand what they are about
2) Will be more motivated to pick a side.
Both will increase turnout.

As for holding them concurrently with Federal Elections, that may lead to too big a pile to be ratified and exceed the ability to have informed voters on them.

As for the last one 67% is my floor as I meant to say before. Jeez that was a one hell of a number fail on my part there.

[tmthforu94]

One thing I have supported in the past is keeping the requirements the same but have the SoFE administer the election. I believe it was opposed by Homely, though.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I remember when a bill like this was brought to the floor 3 years ago. I really haven't changed my viewpoint on the matter. Amendments are not supposed to be easy to pass. The constitution was not designed to be amended 400 times. It makes a nightmare for lawmakers and the courts alike. Amendments =/ legislation, so we shouldn't be passing amendments all the time like we do legislation.

If we are going to insist on something like this, we must have a floor of at least 60% if not higher. A simple majority will make amendments jokes and no different than legislation. If I had my way, the regional legislatures would be the ones who ratified them, not a referendum. Carry on...

[homelycooking]

One thing I have supported in the past is keeping the requirements the same but have the SoFE administer the election. I believe it was opposed by Homely, though.

Homely supports it:

I, for one, do not have a high regard of farming out the administration of those votes (on amendments to the Federal Constitution) to regional executives who open and close the polls at different times and cause their region's voters to have very different experiences from the other regions'.

I don't understand why we couldn't even do that. If that failed, then this too will surely fail.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Then why not retry having the SoFE open and close the ratification booth rather than eliminating regions entirely from the process? It would solve two of the three problems that allegedly exist.

[DemPGH]

I urge the Senate to approve this with a reasonable percentage (something higher than just a majority) of the voters needed for ratification.

Having been the A.G. for two terms, I can observe that the current methodology is clunky, involves too many people in too many different locations, dreadfully lacks communication, and is highly inefficient. In addition, you can have a fiasco like what went down in the Pacific over the summer and which more or less shuts down the process. Leaving this to the regions increases the likelihood of human error.

I don't see that this curtails regional authority either. It's not as if there aren't groups of people who don't vote together anyway!

[TNF]

Except for the extreme reactionaries who would let the Regions write all the laws of Atlasia if they had their way, I cannot fathom opposition to this bill. It is democratic, it is fair, and it is equitable. I ask the Senate to give this amendment a chance.

[Maxwell]

Except for the extreme reactionaries who would let the Regions write all the laws of Atlasia if they had their way, I cannot fathom opposition to this bill. It is democratic, it is fair, and it is equitable. I ask the Senate to give this amendment a chance.

[tmthforu94]

Except for the extreme reactionaries who would let the Regions write all the laws of Atlasia if they had their way, I cannot fathom opposition to this bill. It is democratic, it is fair, and it is equitable. I ask the Senate to give this amendment a chance.

Based on your usual reactions, I don't think you can fathom why anyone would oppose anything you introduce.

And for the record, I don't know of one person who is trying to abolish the federal government.

[Napoleon]

I'm firmly opposed to this. We know the voters are stupid (read: the party bosses who tell the zombie voters how to vote are stupid), look at how they ratified the "We Need More Political Parties" Amendment and other worthless, gimmicky proposals. The more barriers the better.

[Napoleon]

Amendment:

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[President Tyrion]

Objection

[TNF]

Amendment is HOSTILE.

[President Tyrion]

For the record, I do think it's reasonable to have some process to protect a minority from the excesses of the majority (which I assume is part of Yankee's point, especially since we all know he likes the Federalist papers ). I don't necessarily think that the regions do much to protect any minority but the regions themselves, though. I think that if there was reasonable grounds to state that a minority is being disenfranchised or discriminated against, the Supreme Court should be the body to protect the minority (through an immediate stay on the amendment, perhaps, and then careful deliberation on the case). However, no framework really exists for the Supreme Court to review the constitution, and perhaps we could change that.

[tmthforu94]

A friendly reminder to those advocating for this amendment that it still has to pass the current requirements in order to become part of the Constitution. Because as it currently stands, this amendment has no chance at passing the Senate, let alone a public vote.