MA: Amendment to Article III Section 1 Clause 2 (Debating)

[PPT Spiral]

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Sponsor: Lt. Governor TJ

[TJ in Oregon]

Basically this would change the Assembly to permanently have five members. As we've seen from the last couple weeks, when you have three if one of them are absent it's impossible to do anything, and more Assemblymen means more minds to come up with new legislative ideas. I think it's fair to say the last couple assemblies have not been the most productive. We've had a better track record when it had five members.

[Franzl]

I see the arguments in favor, but I've always been sceptical of the larger Assembly. In the interests of keeping elections competitive, I'm inclined to oppose increasing the size permanently.

[MyRescueKittehRocks]

The current law is an incentive for there to be competitive elections. I'm not against having five permanent assemblymen but our level of activity needs to be consistent enough to handle it and at the moment I'm skeptical of that. We're losing two of our current assembly to the Senate (which is why Riley is wrong in his decision of who he appointed to the senate). That is something that hurts activity in an assembly when you have a qualified candidate for senate who is a private citizen who wants to serve the region in that capacity yet the governor refuses that person an opportunity to face confirmation and turns around and offers appointment to one of his assemblyman and offers the jilted senate candidate the assembly seat which said candidate for senate doesn't want. Needless to say I digress and say I think we need to wait and see before we make the assembly five permanently.

[PPT Spiral]

I am in support of this. Even if we don't happen to have five declared candidates by the time an election rolls around, the Northeast has had a strong tradition of getting write-in candidates to office for their own Assembly, so I think the Mideast could easily capture the same thing in those circumstances. Although the current situation we're facing may be a little messy, I think we'll end up fine in the end.

[TJ in Oregon]

I think the current situation is a good demonstration of why we need five assemblymen: we had three elected, all of whom are active, and two of whom are now senators due to vacancies there. That leaves the Assembly down to a single person until we're able to fill the vacancies, so the body isn't even really a body. That's one of the huge problems with only having three assemblymen, if one is gone (let alone two) it's difficult to get much done.

[TJ in Oregon]

If we can get a budget passed, this amendment is also on the floor. I'd like to see the views of the new assemblymen on it.

[tmthforu94]

There seems to be much higher turnover when there are only 3 - I personally would have no problem reverting to 5 permanent seats.

[Hifly]

I would just like to indicate my support of this; an Assembly composed of just 3 members is highly vulnerable to events like that which happened last month. And with 5 members you can guarantee more active and exciting debate.
Could we please bring this up for a vote as soon as it is possible.

[Franzl]

I have strong doubts that elections would be competitive most of the time with 5 seats. As this should be the primary issue in this game, I must vote against this proposal.

[Hifly]

Assemblymen will have another few hours during which any debate or issues may be brought forward concerning this amendment.
I intend to bring this to a final vote later today.

[Franzl]

I've nothing further to contribute to this debate. I think the pros and cons are pretty clear. It's a matter of priorities.

[Hifly]

Voting is now open for passage of the amendment.

You have up to 72 hours.

[Hifly]

Aye

[Hifly]

Voting is closed.

Ayes: 1 (Hifly)
Nays: 0
Not Voting: 2 (Franzl, DC)