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

[Lumine]

Well, I think at least seeing an amendment which still involves a House and Senate and with a better chance of passing is worth a look. That said, I would be happy to support and vote in favor of Griffin's plan, but getting "Fix the Regions" passed will probably take a good amount of time (I think we could get it passed on the Northeast as well this time, but I can't be sure of that).

[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?

[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).

[Lumine]

Aye.

[Lumine]

Seems I got here late, I was going to offer the same amendment as Bore, xD

Overall, I believe an eleven-member House and a fully regional Senate it's a good compromise for both sides in this issue, and it can only increase the chances of passing this bill. While the activity issue still worries me, I will of course vote for that amendment.

[Lumine]

Ah feedback, Adam?


So as for duties.

Should the Senate have sole responsbility for confirmations as more of a Cigar, Brandy and British accent crowd, or should the unwashed masses also have a say in the matter as well?

I recommend leaving confirmations only to the Senate, we certainly don't want to duplicate the time we need to pass the Cabinet officers to make the process more complicated. We could give the Senate more powers in regards to foreign policy (ratifying treaties, like in OTL) as well.

[Lumine]

This is what I'm basically thinking (will write a full amendment soon):

House of Representatives:

- Elected in January, May, September by party-list proportional representation (nationwide)
- Consists of 20 members
- Four month term
- ALL legislation must originate in the House
- The President's cabinet is shared by both the President and the House; the President nominates members of the cabinet, who must be members of the House of Representatives. The President also nominates the First Secretary, who acts as head of the cabinet and is responsible for maintaining the House queue. The cabinet must consist of a working majority of the House, and so it makes sense that the House would essentially be subject to partisan control.
- The First Secretary would maintain the queue and have the power to authorize which bills make it to the floor for votes. 10 bills would be allowed on the floor at a time: 5 of those bills would be selected by the First Secretary, 2 of those bills would be selected by the Opposition Leader, 2 of those bills would be selected by the President, and the final bill would be the oldest bill introduced that has not been otherwise selected.
- The Opposition Leader would represent the second-largest party in the House and would be given the option of maintaining a Shadow Cabinet.
- The President may dismiss members of the cabinet (including the First Secretary) but he may only do so subject to the approval of a vote of the House. The House may likewise reject any appointments to the cabinet by the President; all confirmations would be done by majority vote.
- The Opposition Leader may call for a vote of no confidence in the First Secretary and/or the Cabinet, in which case a majority vote for approval would be needed to dismiss the cabinet and/or the First Secretary from office. In the event that the cabinet or First Secretary is dismissed, the President will have the opportunity to either appoint a new cabinet/First Secretary (subject to House approval), or may call for early elections.
- In the event that early elections to the House are called, a voting booth to elect a new House shall be established two weeks afterward to elect the new House. In the meantime, the President shall appoint a caretaker government (subject to the approval of the House) that will maintain existing legislative affairs until the new vote is finished
- The election of a new House before the expiration of the term of the old one will simply mean said new House will serve out the term of the old House. For example, if a new House election is held in March, it will be subject to election again in May
- The House will consider all legislation and pass it via majority vote for action in the Senate.

The Senate
- Elected in January and in July
- Consists of 10 members
- Elected every six months by IRV in the regions
- Each Region gets two Senators
- The Senate has no legislative power. It cannot change laws proposed by the House of Representatives, however...
- ...the Senate has the power to critique and delay the implementation of said laws. A majority vote of the Senate can delay the implementation of a law for three months, a 2/3rds vote can delay the implementation of a law for six months, and a unanimous vote by the Senate can veto a law proposed by the House in its entirety.
- Otherwise the Senate will vote to approve the law passed by the House
- Vice President can break ties

The President
- Elected in conjunction with the House of Representatives for a four month term
- Limited to two consecutive terms in office, with non-consecutive terms permitted if time has passed between the first two consecutive terms and the next possible run for office
- Appoints Cabinet and First Secretary from majority party in the House
- All appoints subject to approval by the House
- if legislation is passed by the House and then approved by the Senate, the President may sign said act into law or delay it's implementation for a period of six months
- six month delay may be overridden by a 2/3rds vote of the House and a 2/3rds vote of the Senate
- in the event of a vacancy, Vice President assumes title of acting President, with an early election held two weeks later to fill out the term of the Presidency

Supreme Court
- Six members serving a single, non-consecutive and non-renewable 12 month term
- 3 members appointed by the President and subject to confirmation by the House
- 3 members chosen at random by drawing lots

In all fairness, I would love to have a parliamentary system, so some of this ideas serve a good starting point. I would advocate staying with the numbers we already have unless we actually choose to go for a Westminster system (in which case a bigger House size looks more reasonable), and I'm rather conflicted between having elections every two or three months or staying with a four month terms (which does seem rather high in light of RL time demands for some members). Six members for the Supreme Court seems a little bit high, I suspect we would have problems to find members to serve there soon with such a large number and non-renewable terms.

I do enthusiastically support the votes of no confidence, the possibility of an early election and the Shadow Cabinet for the opposition (s) leader (s). The Cabinet we installed in the Progressive Union was certainly not suited to a Presidential system, but the idea had a lot of potential even with the contraints we had.

[Lumine]

Hmmmm... Well, if we wanted to go for an acceptable hybrid, we could always attempt to redefine the Presidency itself and turn it into something similar to a PM (with PMQ's, votes of confidence and such), although it would be a strange system that way.

[Lumine]

Nay.

[Lumine]

Do we pin down the House method first and if so do we need an amendment vote to make a firm decision on that point?


OR is everyone on board with PR?

Well, I would be on board with PR, just like others have stated before.

[Lumine]

I don't wish to state something that sounds definitive with the poll opened for less than two days, but so far the results don't seem particularly encouraging as Duke predicted. FPTP seems like a reasonable choice for Federalists and Laborites, but smaller parties will probably suffer even more than with the current system. Should we measure public opinion on that as well once Duke's poll has the final results?

[Lumine]

As GAworth pointed out, we may have to amend the Semi-Presidentialism if this passes, although that's a concern of the future. Since the bill turned out to be directly related to the Fix the Regions (and it remains to be seen how to get it passed) and the party list idea got defeated it seems we might indeed be ready to vote here.

[Lumine]

I'd suggest that we separate the bill from the Fix the Regions bill before we put it to a vote.

Well, the problem would be dealing with the amount of offices, since we would have seventeen Atlasians serving in the Senate and House with the current project, something that it may be really hard to maintain with the current activity levels and with most of the regional governments in crisis. As many others noted during the discussion it doesn't seem really feasible unless we reduce the House and the Senate, and that would affect its own efficiency as well...

[Lumine]

Aye.