SENATE BILL: The Bicameral Birthing Amendment of 2014 (sent to the Regions?)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The two biggest blowhards of the Senate rambling on and going back and forth is scaring off the rest of the Senators from the discussion.

Dude, this is the Senate. They rarely discuss anything, it would be impossible to scare off what does not exist.

[Lumine]

After some consultation, I'll offer an amendment based on the earlier Duke Plan:

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2. Article 1, Section 4 of the Third Constitution of Atlasia is amended to read:

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Section 3: The Addition of the House

1. Article 1, Section 8 of the Third Constitution shall be entitled “The House” and shall read:
   

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Section 4: House Districts and Elections

1. Article 1, Section 9 of the Third Constitution shall be entitled “Elections to the House” and shall read:

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[/quote]

On the practical sense, eleven representatives is just too much for the activity levels we have now, so eight seems far more reasonable to me. On the political sense, I believe this strikes a reasonable compromise for game reform enthusiasts like myself and supporters of an increased role by the regions, as we need support from both sides if we actually want to get this passed. There might be some confusion over both classes of Senators being pretty much the same (but with different election dates), any thoughts?

[Adam Griffin]

Amendment is hostile.

I'll give on giving the Senate to the regions before I acquiesce to an eight-member second chamber. I understand the activity argument - believe me - but the creation of what would essentially be a second Senate by those numbers and that would only be different based on chamber procedures is rather pointless in my opinion.

[bore]

Lumine, it needs to be remembered that we would only get an 11 seat second chamber after shaving off two regions and 4 senate seats- there would actually be a net reduction in offices under Griffin's plan.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

wait

haven't you guys forgotten something

you might want to, y'know, give the house some sort of actual power

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A vote can be opened in just under two and a half hours on the amendment.


Granted, there will need to be subsequent amendments to the subsequent portions of the text, but I am fine with Lumine's amendment as a starting point.

I don't really have a problem with any particular size in the House, though I do think that smaller would increase the net office reduction further.


And yes, A person is right, we need to establish which branch is going to be doing what and to what extent. Article 1 is going to look much different I imagine.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lumine, it needs to be remembered that we would only get an 11 seat second chamber after shaving off two regions and 4 senate seats- there would actually be a net reduction in offices under Griffin's plan.

If the net reduction is the key, wouldn't the larger reduction in offices be more preferable towards assuring success of consolidation?

[Lumine]

Lumine, it needs to be remembered that we would only get an 11 seat second chamber after shaving off two regions and 4 senate seats- there would actually be a net reduction in offices under Griffin's plan.

Oh, I understand, but I'm trying to look at it on the most practical way possible. I believe it's better if we have elections that are really competitive, as currently we virtually have a shortage of candidates for many regional elections. Sure, by achieving Griffin's intended reduction the elections should be more contested and competitive, but I figured eliminating those three seats could prove a benefit in this sense. On another note, and even if know very well that the Senate with ten members can work very well provided there's activity, but it seemed more practical to start with a more manageable number (As Butaly pointed out, we still haven't decided that is the House supposed to do).

[Adam Griffin]

wait

haven't you guys forgotten something

you might want to, y'know, give the house some sort of actual power

This is obviously needed. The bill as introduced was already quite large; I didn't want to spend any more time crafting a starting point with too many details that would ultimately be haggled over and/or eliminated.

[Adam Griffin]

Lumine, it needs to be remembered that we would only get an 11 seat second chamber after shaving off two regions and 4 senate seats- there would actually be a net reduction in offices under Griffin's plan.

If the net reduction is the key, wouldn't the larger reduction in offices be more preferable towards assuring success of consolidation?

We could just not have a second chamber at all and eliminate these excess regional offices, by that logic.

In my opinion, there needs to be lots of contrast between the two chambers. Not only in terms of procedure, but in terms of how the bodies are perceived by players. As it stands, the only jumping board for newer players is to get involved with regions. An eight-member House will not change that; it'll be as effectively contested in terms of the experience of many candidates for office as the Senate. It should in essence be an issue of quantity versus quality, though not in its purest form - kind of like the regions versus the federal government.

Like I said before, a 3:1 ratio would be ideal to me, but only something that could be done if we eliminated regional offices altogether. I personally think we could handle 11, and I recall that in our initial discussions on the game mechanics of the matter all those months ago, that such numbers seemed feasible based on some analysis that several of us did. Also, are we going to make the House like the Senate in terms of tiebreaking? I'd really prefer the House had an odd number of representatives so that we don't have to craft specific provisions for that that are the rule rather than the exception.

[President Tyrion]

Are we willing to have a bicameral legislature with a 5 region setup?

I understand that the major issue is that we don't want a net creation of offices, but I'm not sure how we could pass this while tying it to the (very necessary) regional reduction.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Lumine, it needs to be remembered that we would only get an 11 seat second chamber after shaving off two regions and 4 senate seats- there would actually be a net reduction in offices under Griffin's plan.

If the net reduction is the key, wouldn't the larger reduction in offices be more preferable towards assuring success of consolidation?

We could just not have a second chamber at all and eliminate these excess regional offices, by that logic.

A question of extent. The second chamber is meant to create something interesting and new I belive, which is why Duke embraced. The second chamber is unnecessary to preserve my priorities, which the Nix plan also did, but with just one chamber as I recall.

In my opinion, there needs to be lots of contrast between the two chambers. Not only in terms of procedure, but in terms of how the bodies are perceived by players. As it stands, the only jumping board for newer players is to get involved with regions. An eight-member House will not change that; it'll be as effectively contested in terms of the experience of many candidates for office as the Senate. It should in essence be an issue of quantity versus quality, though not in its purest form - kind of like the regions versus the federal government.

So basically you want a substitute to get people started that those Regional legislative positions presently serve, though with less competativeness in order to facilitate that.

Like I said before, a 3:1 ratio would be ideal to me, but only something that could be done if we eliminated regional offices altogether. I personally think we could handle 11, and I recall that in our initial discussions on the game mechanics of the matter all those months ago, that such numbers seemed feasible based on some analysis that several of us did. Also, are we going to make the House like the Senate in terms of tiebreaking? I'd really prefer the House had an odd number of representatives so that we don't have to craft specific provisions for that that are the rule rather than the exception.

Yes we did have discussion before on the number of offices and I do recall we agreed to a large extend on the numbers, but I might be mistaken.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Are we willing to have a bicameral legislature with a 5 region setup?

I understand that the major issue is that we don't want a net creation of offices, but I'm not sure how we could pass this while tying it to the (very necessary) regional reduction.

The purpose of this underlying amendment as I see it, and though it got lost in our little scuffle on the other page, I do praise Adam for crafting the strategy even if the details are at issue, is that you create the gov't structure for a post consolidation game ahead of time so people know what they are getting to some extent afterwards and thus with fewer question marks more people would be willing to vote for Fix the Regions in the Ratification process.

I don't think the intent is for this to pass solely for itself and it would not go into effect even once ratified unless consolidation were to be ratified subsequently at some point.

As to your question you could remove the AT-Large Senate seats and thereby minize the net increase to three (assuming it is the Duke Plan's/Lumine's Amendment's numbers for the house), from creating a People's House, but yes you could do bicameralism with the present setup.

[Cincinnatus]

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2. Article 1, Section 4 of the Third Constitution of Atlasia is amended to read:

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Section 3: The Addition of the House

1. Article 1, Section 8 of the Third Constitution shall be entitled “The House” and shall read:
   

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Section 4: House Districts and Elections

1. Article 1, Section 9 of the Third Constitution shall be entitled “Elections to the House” and shall read:

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[/quote]

Feedback: Hostile
Status:  A vote is now open on the aforementioned amendment.  Please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

Nay.

[Adam Griffin]

Nay

I'm not even voting against the whole region thing that we spent the first page going back and forth on, but rather, a House with an even-numbered group of Representatives that is fewer than 10.

[President Tyrion]

Nay

[bore]

Nay , because of the reduction in the size of the house- I would not mind a fully regional senate.

[DC Al Fine]

Aye

[TNF]

NAY

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

If we want to have 10 house seats, i am okay with that too. I think we need an even number so we can have the fun of tie breaking votes.

I merely put 8 in my original proposal because I wanted most of the elections to be competitive since we don't always have that these days.

EDIT: Actually, we need an odd number because there isn't a president of the house to break the tie.... ignore my last comment. Carry on.

[Cincinnatus]

I mean, you can give me even more tie breaking votes, but it isn't exactly traditional.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

AYE

[Lumine]

Aye.

[Goldwater]

AYE