SENATE BILL: Efficient Referenda Amendment (Failed)

[Cincinnatus]

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Sponsor: bore

[Adam Griffin]

I definitely support the use of the DoFE when holding regional votes, but I can't support repealing the 17th in its entirety. Its presence presents too many opportunities for fun. I remember when Marokai fought for the passage of this bill, and at the time I was against it, but hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, something to the effect of allowing the DoFE to administer the first vote by region on any amendment - with the regional government dealing with subsequent attempts at passage - would be more desirable. I suppose I'm leading the charge for regional rights on this, then?

[bore]

Cincy asked me to introduce this, so if he wants to elaborate he can, but I fully agree with the amendment. Simply put, our current system is useless. Not only is it sometimes a problem even holding the votes, there is no real method of ascertaining which amendments have been ratified. Since the wiki has last been edited, 5 amendments have been ratified but no one would know, and no one is keeping track. If the SOFE was administering them, we would know for certain whether an amendment had been ratified.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The lack of knowing which amendments have passed is once again, the effect of a lack of organized media presence. In the old days they were be tracked by such operations, now we are lucky to just get a single tracker for the At-Large elections every four months.

I definitely support the use of the DoFE when holding regional votes, but I can't support repealing the 17th in its entirety. Its presence presents too many opportunities for fun. I remember when Marokai fought for the passage of this bill, and at the time I was against it, but hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, something to the effect of allowing the DoFE to administer the first vote by region on any amendment - with the regional government dealing with subsequent attempts at passage - would be more desirable. I suppose I'm leading the charge for regional rights on this, then?

It is one thing to call tongue in cheek, attempt to rob peter to pay paul on the issue an advocancy for regional rights like you did a campaign a few weeks back. However, I don't even see that opportunity here either.

I am reluctant to see the 17th amendment gone myself. I think if a Region wants to be able to delegate ito a council like the Pacific did, they should be able to. They shouldn't do it obviously, but there is no reason to deny a region the right to be stupid as long as it isn't in some way to deny the people their ability to change it back later as certain folks tried to do at one point in a certain region. The answer of course is for the regional constitution to enshrine a solid process behind the wall of a threshold that is too high to be able to be hijacked by any such cabal.

[bore]

I definitely support the use of the DoFE when holding regional votes, but I can't support repealing the 17th in its entirety. Its presence presents too many opportunities for fun. I remember when Marokai fought for the passage of this bill, and at the time I was against it, but hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, something to the effect of allowing the DoFE to administer the first vote by region on any amendment - with the regional government dealing with subsequent attempts at passage - would be more desirable. I suppose I'm leading the charge for regional rights on this, then?

What does this mean? Something like the DoFE holding the first vote on an amendment, but if that fails, and the senate passes it again, allowing the regions to administer that? Or the DOFE opens one booth, but the governor certifies each result?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I definitely support the use of the DoFE when holding regional votes, but I can't support repealing the 17th in its entirety. Its presence presents too many opportunities for fun. I remember when Marokai fought for the passage of this bill, and at the time I was against it, but hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, something to the effect of allowing the DoFE to administer the first vote by region on any amendment - with the regional government dealing with subsequent attempts at passage - would be more desirable. I suppose I'm leading the charge for regional rights on this, then?

What does this mean? Something like the DoFE holding the first vote on an amendment, but if that fails, and the senate passes it again, allowing the regions to administer that? Or the DOFE opens one booth, but the governor certifies each result?

THe DoFE holds the first vote and Region the subsequent re-attempts if the first one were to fail.

[bore]

I definitely support the use of the DoFE when holding regional votes, but I can't support repealing the 17th in its entirety. Its presence presents too many opportunities for fun. I remember when Marokai fought for the passage of this bill, and at the time I was against it, but hindsight is 20/20.

In my opinion, something to the effect of allowing the DoFE to administer the first vote by region on any amendment - with the regional government dealing with subsequent attempts at passage - would be more desirable. I suppose I'm leading the charge for regional rights on this, then?

What does this mean? Something like the DoFE holding the first vote on an amendment, but if that fails, and the senate passes it again, allowing the regions to administer that? Or the DOFE opens one booth, but the governor certifies each result?

THe DoFE holds the first vote and Region the subsequent re-attempts if the first one were to fail.

A failure of the amendment or a failure of the administration of the vote? If it's the former, isn't that entirely arbitrary, like allowing the regions to hold all the votes on amendments passed on dates which are also prime numbers, but not on any others?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Uh what?

[bore]

What would it mean for the first vote to fail?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Under Adam's suggestion the Regions can then hold a vote on it at later date under their own administration to try again.

[bore]

Right, but would a first vote failing mean that it was rejected by the regions but then passed again by the senate?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Where is there an implication that Senate would need to pass it again?

[bore]

So, if a particular region, say, the IDS were to originally vote against an amendment, Adam's saying, if the governor wanted to, he could open that vote again and see if there was a different vote?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Yes, I think so.

[bore]

Yes, I think so.

Glad we got there eventually

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Its not the destination, its the journey.

If more people took that approach, this place would be whole lot less boring.

[Goldwater]

I'm inclined to vote against this. I typically don't like laws that centralize the Government and diminish the role of the Regions. I really don't understand why some regional executives are too inactive to open up a voting booth.

[President Tyrion]

I'm inclined to vote against this. I typically don't like laws that centralize the Government and diminish the role of the Regions. I really don't understand why some regional executives are too inactive to open up a voting booth.

Not understanding it means you would choose to enable it?

[Lumine]

Well, I'd say this is a pretty good idea. I would trust the DoFE as an effective way to handle the booths, and it doesn't make a lot of difference for "regional rights", only from a merely symbolic point of view. Besides, and speaking from my experience as a Governor who always opened the booths late (and closed them days after when supposed to), it's better to leave this to something or someone responsible enough to do it.

[Adam Griffin]

Has anyone read the Seventeenth Amendment?

In regards to bore's line of questions: yes, the Seventeenth Amendment currently allows for any amendment that has passed the Senate once to be brought up for a vote as many times as needed by a regional body once it has passed the Senate. Each regional body can choose to set the method of ratification of an amendment as a public vote of citizens of the region, or as a majority of the region's legislature. Yankee also more or less answered how I'd deal with the public vote: I would like the DoFE to administer the voting booth on the first vote of any amendment for all of the regions, and subsequent attempts would be handled by the regions.

Repealing the Seventeenth as-is would also present a huge, new problem that we haven't had to consider for over a year: if an amendment fails to pass in four regions on the first go, then the entire process would have to head back to the Senate in order to be voted on again. That's ridiculous. I also have wondered from time to time what percentage of the game actually is aware that when a proposed amendment fails to garner support in four out of five regions on the first vote, that it can be voted on again and again by that region.

Even if a clause were added to ensure that amendments don't have to work their way back through the Senate each time they are proposed to the voters, I also like the idea of each region being able to change the method of ratification. It adds a bit of spice to the game and allows for more fun - again, assuming people are actually aware of it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I read it last year several times, when I twice tried to repeal or amend the damn thing.


Of course that was while ago, perhaps posting it will help the others.

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I think the hope behind Maroduke+Nix+myself and all five other ayes was that it would allow regions to combine their ballots with Regional legislative elections for instance to increase turnout for each other of the elections.

Also they wanted to decentralize the Regional Senate elections as well to further achieve the same objective, but that fizzeled out of impracticallity and lack of sufficient support.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'm inclined to vote against this. I typically don't like laws that centralize the Government and diminish the role of the Regions. I really don't understand why some regional executives are too inactive to open up a voting booth.

Not understanding it means you would choose to enable it?

One could argue that removal of responsbility, will also enable/encourage inactivity on the part of Regional executives.

[Goldwater]

I'm inclined to vote against this. I typically don't like laws that centralize the Government and diminish the role of the Regions. I really don't understand why some regional executives are too inactive to open up a voting booth.

Not understanding it means you would choose to enable it?

One could argue that removal of responsbility, will also enable/encourage inactivity on the part of Regional executives.

Yeah, this is what I was trying to say. I think the solution should be for Regions to elect more active executives, not to eliminate this responsibility from their jobs.

[Cincinnatus]

How is eliminating this responsibility encouraging inactivity?  Jesus guys, this is about making the process efficient and not delegated out to five different actors, which obviously, increases chances for human error/failure to open the damn booth. 

Half the Governors haven't even certified the most recent amendment, which, in and of itself isn't a huge deal, just telling.  By some miracle during that last amendment ALL the Governor's opened a booth within a day, largely because I sent a PM threatening to have Superique drone their homes.  This is not about preserving or eliminating regional rights.  This is about making the procedure for federal amendments, federally administered. 

I also understand the hesitation regarding the elimination of the prescribed amendment.  I get it, really.  If we want to discuss that as the issue, fine.  Let's just acknowledge that the process by which we run doesn't work.  Letting the SOFE administer this process provides direct responsibility and accountability.