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

[Adam Griffin]

I think my intention behind this is fairly evident: I want to revive the plans that our current President had for a bicameral legislature ("the Duke Plan"), in part because I believe this may be the most realistic and healthy type of major reform we can achieve currently.

While there wasn't an exact piece of legislation ever introduced, I was able to glean from a rough draft version elements that are crucial to such an objective.

This is obviously a huge undertaking as a piece of legislation and would require tons of changes, but it probably has a better shot than a complete overhaul of the Constitution, total regional elimination, statute reboots or any other item of the sort.

By actually creating something new, rather than just eliminating old and flawed elements of the game, we can legitimately stir up interest in the game once again. A bicameral legislature would be a hugely exciting concept that would no doubt transform the dynamic of the federal legislative process.

Since one of the original tenants of the proposed Duke Plan was to reduce the number of regions to three (as a way to balance out adding new offices, since the game unarguably already has too many offices), I have designed the initial framework to be something that would go into effect upon ratification of the Fix the Regions Amendment by two of the three regions that have yet to ratify it (NE, IDS & ME) and any subsequent necessary measures pertaining to consolidation. In essence, it could be adopted and ratified now, where it would lie in wait until the prerequisites from other efforts are fulfilled.

[Adam Griffin]

The obvious problem that strikes me here is this can only work with fewer regions, otherwise we will simply have too many offices. Yet this would go into effect on passage of the fix the regions, which doesn't actually change the number of regions, only provides a method of doing so. So we would have a bicameral senate and 5 regions straight away.

As best I can tell, the way it was introduced covers that:

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Perhaps the way it is currently worded makes it sound as if once it and the Fix the Regions Amendment are ratified, that this amendment goes into effect and consent then begins. Ideally, I was trying to draft it as this goes into effect after it and the FTR Amendment are ratified AND after the consent process has been completed.   

[Adam Griffin]

The Duke Plan preserved the balance in the legislative branch by giving Regions the entirety of the Senate whilst the House was Proportional. This does not do that at present.

Yes Yankee, I know that this doesn't perfectly fit your ideological purity test for some perceived need of balance.

[Adam Griffin]

The Duke Plan preserved the balance in the legislative branch by giving Regions the entirety of the Senate whilst the House was Proportional. This does not do that at present.

Yes Yankee, I know that this doesn't perfectly fit your ideological purity test for some perceived need of balance.

Now Adam, has that attitude, or should I say approach, brought you any degree of success so far in these matters?

I would vote for an amendment like this that was based on the Duke plan's legislative structure.

I'm failing to really see here how this is drastically different than the outline of the original plan, except for that balance argument that a large majority of the game doesn't care for. Maybe I'd agree with you if the regions in this game weren't a faltering institution that merited proposals like this in the first place. Sure, let's give them more election booths to manage and more candidates to find exclusively within their own borders. We don't even know if consolidation itself will solve the problems it aims to, so I'd prefer not stacking the deck against it even more by filling the void of eliminated offices with more offices.

The only real difference is the size of the lower chamber and the name of it; I don't see any reason to create a House that is essentially the same size as the Senate. The bill itself would ultimately be so large that I didn't bother adding elements such as which chambers can introduce which types of bills and the like, so there's no disagreement there.  After all, why waste any more time on the initial version when I knew there'd be all of this pushback no matter what?

And it's not like I haven't compromised in this bill or on other areas of this broader agenda, and what has that attitude/approach got me? Face it: you're the easiest path to the 7th vote on matters like this and your obstruction on the matter makes you individually more responsible for continuing to derail any proposal like this than anyone else in the game. FTRA failed by the margin that it did because it was winter break and turnout for that vote was among some of the lowest that I've seen in the game, but we've already been over that. We all know how low turnout phenomena work in this game and in real-life.

You can choose to compromise in a process like this like everyone else has, or you can choose to continue sinking the leader of your party's ideas and make him the only modern President not to achieve any major piece of reform. My tone has absolutely nothing to do with your decisions.

Sweet Dukey: you would've done better to cum with the Labor. I remember you were afraid of them sinking your plans if you angered them. I can't really tell a difference at this point: are they mad at you right now?

[Adam Griffin]

Every time I see the title of this thread I think of Jessica Raine.

How did you come up with 11 House members?

I roughly estimated how many offices we could expect to lose in the process of consolidating to three regions (which was 11; coincidence). I then added to that the 4 Senate seats (2 from each to please Mr. Balance). All along, I figured that the size of the House should be roughly equivalent to two-thirds of the seats removed in the process, so that's basically how I came up with it. It needed to be an odd number, in my opinion, so 11 worked best from that perspective.

I also wanted there to be more of a variance between the sizes of the two bodies than in the original plan linked above. 8 versus 6 essentially gives you two chambers where a person's vote is of similar value. Because of this, I was willing to dial back the net number of eliminated offices just a bit. This way, the House would be nearly twice the size of the Senate. I'd really like a 3:1 ratio, but I don't see how that's possible given the objective of minimizing offices in a game that can't keep them filled and active as-is.

[Adam Griffin]

Dear sweet God, please stop breaking down replies into splintered, meaningless quotes. I'm putting your replies back together, as they should be.

What are you talking about? It is still a substantial reduction in the number of offices combned with a consolidation from five to three regions and a four personal smaller Senate. I don't see how proceeding with the Duke Plan's structure stacks the deck against success in this regard. Also what is this "original plan" you are speaking of? Fix the regions was originally formed under Nix to facilitate the consolidation and left the gov't structure as a big question mark, which remained a hinderance to the passing of the Fix the regions' Amendment to the end. Nix had his own plan for the post consolidation legislature design that contained only one chamber that was also balanced 6 and 6, I would point out. That would I think be best termed "the original plan", would it not? I am beginning to think you are not even familiar with the contents of the Duke plan in this regard.

Again what is this "initial version". Fix the Regions was a process established to facilitate the consolidation, which would then not go into effect until the post Consolidation legislative structure had been agreed to. I am not sure what you are comparing against. The Duke Plan's legislative structure was never voted on. If their was opposition to it, it was probably mainly centered on the opposition to bicameralism but it was never tested.  

Really? It was all about turnout? I think your absence from the forum has hurt you in this regard. What about all the reformists who voted against it? What about the anti-regionalists who voted against it? Turnout might have flipped the Northeast but not the IDS And ME where turnout was about normal or just slightly down as I recall, so no it would not have changed the result. There were also the numerous voters mentioned above that would have further reduced the nationwide support levels regardless, which could very well have been extrapolated to those similar types who didn't vote if they had turned out, thus preserving a similar such nationwide margin.  

You seem to be intent on picking a fight where none has to exist and thereby ensuring nothing gets done on this. You could pass this amendment with the Duke Plan and stand a far better shot at getting this passed in the regions then with what you have now. With a settled post-consolidation gov't plan that is reasonable with regards to the region, you stand a better chance at flipping some of those nay voters that could change the result in the fourth region (presuming the NE was all about turnout).

Continue to fail? We haven't voted on it since December and as I recall, the first time it failed in the Senate because three people you helped put there didn't bother to vote on it, including its own sponsor. Your people did far more to obstruct that Amendment in the Senate by not voting then anything I did. I actually worked constructively and tried to find a structure that I would vote for. You make it sound like I filibustered the damn thing.

I did compromise when I supported the government structure's of the Nix and Duke plan.

Yes your approach does matter, if you purposely refused to go with a plan that contains a provision that no one supposedly cares about as you said, for no obvious reason except your own intransigence, yes I would say it has plenty to do with it.

You are not going to imitidate me into embracing a plan I think is bad. If you want Duke to have a success then I will trust you will join me in voting for the Duke plan's gov't structure as opposed to this. How does Duke even fit into this Amendment? He didn't make this structure, you did and President's don't sign amendments. So how exactly are you not, if anything, pushing Duke aside as opposed to supporting him against my alleged opposition. You are attacking his plan, you are the one critizing his plan whilst I am promoting it, and yet it is me who is underming him? Man you live in such a world of contortion and conspiracy, Griffin.

I must have missed all the laborite support for Duke's domestic agenda or imagined all the railing against so called TPP-Federalist corporatism and his favoring the filty rich. You have opposed far more of Duke's agenda then I have.

Duke's party membership would not have changed the outcome back in December, nor would it have made it more likely to get through any time since then. It would have stiffled his domestic agenda though out of the necessity of party unity and caused him to lose even more of his agenda.

Giving jurisdiction to these elected offices to regions is a bad idea - that's what I mean by stacking the deck. For some need of "balance", we're going to put the (presumably) management of election booths and the jurisdiction of the Senators themselves in the hands of the same institutions that currently aren't performing how they need to in those areas. It's easy to find at-large Senators; I worry about not finding two interesting souls to run for Senate from a region (not now, but it's very possible that that could have happened without an incumbent several months ago in one region or another).

The initial version I referred to was this bill that I introduced; I didn't want to put any more work into it knowing these kind of debates would pop up. I'm comparing against the framework Google Doc for the plan itself; the only real difference other than federalism is the number of people in the lower chamber.

And yes, failure of FTRA was predominantly about turnout. There were people who voted against it who I didn't expect to - both because it didn't go far enough and because they bailed on the idea toward the end - but it was much more an issue of people not turning out to vote. How do I know? Because I really didn't push people to come out and vote. I thought there was enough excitement about it, honestly, but the combination of the holidays and my lack of engagement proved me wrong. Yes, it would have never passed in 4 regions on the first go and I didn't expect for it to - 3 would have been different, though. Had it, the IDS would probably still be on fire right now. But thanks to the 17th Amendment, the real success is achieved when it leaves the Senate, no? We have an infinite amount of time to change the course of destiny.

And yep, there has been no fight up until this point, and that's the whole point. You, Duke, Cinci or someone else aligned with the latest rendition of this rather old plan (we're now calling it "The Duke Plan") hasn't been willing it seems to introduce a framework to actually get this process rolling. I have, so yeah...arguing is my trademark of sorts. You're going to need to learn how to effectively argue to deal with the components of this game who oppose this plan, so you can practice on me, I suppose. I highly doubt IDS voters are magically going to come along with this plan, especially after the statements made about how it was abandoned due to lack of support. I tell you what: if you can put together a petition of the majority of the residents of that region who support this, I'll step aside completely on the matter. Otherwise, I'm not prepared to negotiate with people who don't negotiate.

My approach again is not important: there's a way around this, of course. You most likely have 5 Senators who are ready to support the majority of what Duke initially asked for - maybe 6 -  but that one provision is going to keep you firmly rooted against it, I suppose. A provision that is a tenet of 30% of the Senate. At this point, the balance of resistance isn't what it was last year. And at the end of the day, all of these plans have in essence been evolutions of the original one I helped hatch in IRC in late April/early May 2013 (which is why I'm so offended when it's suggested that I have not compromised immensely).

You think the plan is "bad" because we're not giving the least reliable aspect of the game as much say as you'd like. The plan itself is the same that Duke outlined, with the exception of that. You won't compromise, and frankly, you haven't had to compromise on much on this series of debates, seeing as how you found the broader arguments of consolidation to be convincing in and of themselves. We've walked from regional elimination to three regions drawn independently to three regions drawn by Governors with a variety of other provisions mixed in. I remember us having a similar conversation in the FTRA thread way back when, where I backed off about something to do with balance. I've compromised plenty. So I suppose after pushing the rock up against the wall, you can blame the rock for not moving any more.

And anything we've sunk of Duke's on policy pertains to small-ball economic and social policy that doesn't actually leave a lasting mark on the game (which everyone knows). The President's tenure is measured by his ability to change the structure of the game, and on that front, you guys have been by far the obstructionists.

[Adam Griffin]

But yeah, go ahead and introduce your amendment and we'll go from there. 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Adam Griffin]

Bore's amendment is friendly.

[Adam Griffin]

Adam is my above amendment friendly?

This one?

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Edit: Fixed a copy and paste induced mistake.
[/quote]

If so, amendment is friendly.

Sorry for being MIA for the past couple of days; I'll get back in here later tonight with some more thoughts.

[Adam Griffin]

So I haven't had a lot of time to think about what differences would exist; as I said before, I didn't spend much time contemplating/trying to draft ideas ahead of the basic framework that was proposed because debate would need to occur, anyway.

I would definitely like to see a majority/minority leader system in place, where a party or parties will have to build a coalition in order to govern. We may not be in a two-party system forever.

Here's a cheat-sheet for us to consider if we're to go with a standard that mimics real life:

[Adam Griffin]

Amendment is friendly.

[Adam Griffin]

What if the vacant seat does not belong to member of an organized party?

We can deal with this in several different ways.

We of course could just have an election for the seat in question.

We could allow the House to vote on a list of declared candidates, whom will have one week or so after the vacancy occurs to make their intent to run known.

We could even allow the Governor of the region of the person who has vacated the seat to make an appointment, though I find myself opposed to the idea of giving regions any say in this chamber's affairs.

[Adam Griffin]

What if the vacant seat does not belong to member of an organized party?

We can deal with this in several different ways.

We of course could just have an election for the seat in question.

We could allow the House to vote on a list of declared candidates, whom will have one week or so after the vacancy occurs to make their intent to run known.

We could even allow the Governor of the region of the person who has vacated the seat to make an appointment, though I find myself opposed to the idea of giving regions any say in this chamber's affairs.

Honestly, with two month terms, why not just leave the seat vacant?

That's viable, too, though I'd hate to have a situation in which we had a vacant seat for 7 weeks or so.

[Adam Griffin]

What if the vacant seat does not belong to member of an organized party?

We can deal with this in several different ways.

We of course could just have an election for the seat in question.

We could allow the House to vote on a list of declared candidates, whom will have one week or so after the vacancy occurs to make their intent to run known.

We could even allow the Governor of the region of the person who has vacated the seat to make an appointment, though I find myself opposed to the idea of giving regions any say in this chamber's affairs.

Honestly, with two month terms, why not just leave the seat vacant?

That's viable, too, though I'd hate to have a situation in which we had a vacant seat for 7 weeks or so.

Perhaps we could just allow presidential appointment?

Sure, why not?

[Adam Griffin]

I'll say that I'm not a fan of a net creation of 11 offices, although I wouldn't mind untying this from consolidation if possible.

This kind of has to be tied to consolidation, for the reason below.

It is not eleven, it would be six.

10 person Senate - minus 5 At-large seats =  5 Senator Seats Plus 11 House seats leves you with 16 for a net of six increase.

We would have to reverse and go back to the Duke plans eight member house at the very least and with a five person senate for a net increase of three in order to untie it from consolidation.

You're forgetting that we will shed around 10 regional offices with this proposal upon the passage of consolidation. I don't think regions - many of which are already lacking competition - will rush to create a bunch of new legislative seats to fill the gap. This is why I can't support de-coupling this fundamentally from consolidation. Otherwise, we would have a net increase of offices in the game. This should result net-net in a slight reduction of offices overall.

[Adam Griffin]

Also, PLPR could be setup to function in two different ways:

Closed-list for the major parties
Open-list for everyone else

Each major party would be allowed to determine how it will handle the selection/order of candidates
Everyone else would caucus together and use standard PR-STV to determine selection/order

There are of course different ways to do open-list, but there's no reason we can't provide ample representation of the unaffiliated segments of the electorate. This probably would, however, encourage individuals to join one party or another, as you'll have various left-and-right-wing factions within said caucus vying for representation among one another (which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing).

[Adam Griffin]

Yes, amendment is hostile, unfortunately.

[Adam Griffin]

The lowest I'd go in the House is 9, 7 is too few. And we should have an even number of senators so the VP can continue to break ties, since I think that alone makes that position relevant.

As others have said, this goes into effect if we consolidate the regions, otherwise, we may as well continue on with the same old status quo we've lived with for years.

This is of course the correct approach.

And it's not lost on me that there are people within the consolidation movement that have differing objectives/visions for what would occur: that was quite obvious during CARCA. The thing was that as long as we tried to appease everyone, it got nowhere. Only once CARCAwas set forth did the 3-region variation become the generally accepted goal.

The goal of this isn't even necessarily to be ratified within the next month or so, but rather, to use the 17th Amendment's powers to put something on the books that will remain there permanently an give everyone an idea/incentive to move forward with FTRA ratification in the future. We can't really give something to everyone when we already have anywhere from 35-55% of the game that opposes consolidation in the first place.

[Adam Griffin]

Nay

[Adam Griffin]

So then all we need is an amendment that places PR in the text, no?

But the real question is: what type of PR?

[Adam Griffin]

This is also what I prefer.