The Cris Plan - 5 Regions and Bicameralism

[Senator Cris]

The Bicameral Birthing Amendment, that was approved by the Senate, has failed the regions vote, with 2 regions (IDS and Midwest) that approved the Amendment and with 2 regions (Northeast and Pacific) that haven't approved the Amendment. The Mideast is voting on the Amendment.
There may be many reasons to vote against the Amendment, and I think that the most important is the fact that the Amendment approved by the Senate provides the consolidations of regions, with 3 new regions, compared to the current 5 regions.
I have a plan that permits to have 5 regions and bicameralism. My plan provides:

- 5 Regions.
- 5 Senators, one elected by each region.
- 11 Representatives of a new House elected by Districts or At-Large.

This plan, apparently, provides 59 Office Holders, with a gain of 6 Office Holders, that is too big for Atlasia. But with a change on the regions structures, we can have a gain between 0 and 2 Office Holders.

My proposal about the Regions structures provides:

- The Midwest should continue to have 5 Office Holders (Governor, Archduke and 3 Representatives).
- The Pacific should continue to have 5 Office Holders (Governor, Justice and 3 Counciliors).
- The Mideast should have 6 Office Holders, instead of current 8 (Governor, Lt. Governor, Justice and 3 Assemblymen).
- The Northeast should have 5 or 6 Office Holders, instead of current 7 (Governor, CJO and 3/4 Representatives)
- The IDS should have 5 or 6 Office Holders, instead of current 7 (Emperor, Judicial and 3/4 Legislators).

So, the new situation of Office Holders would be:

Senate --> 5 (current 10)
House --> 11 (current 0)
Cabinet --> 8 (current 8 )
Court --> 3 (current 3)
Regions --> 26/28 (current 32)

Total --> 53/54/55 (current 53) (Gain of 0/1/2)

The text of my proposal would be the same approved by the Senate, without the passage on the consolidation, because the change in the number of regional Office Holders should be competence of the Mideast, Northeast and IDS.

What do you think?

[ilikeverin]

Certainly, if we're worried about having too many officeholders, the solution is to abolish the regions.

[Simfan34]

Plane?

[Senator Cris]

Plane?

Sorry

[Senator Cris]

A Senate with only 5 members would be incredibly boring.

The Bicameral Birting Amendment provides a Senate with 6 members. The difference is of 1 member. But this difference can be decisive in terms of boring.

[Oakvale]

Why is that these ideas never do the decent thing and die after being rejected?

[Senator Cris]

Why is that these ideas never do the decent thing and die after being rejected?

I think that the Amendment approved by the Senate is a good idea and I have voted Aye in the Referendum. I'm only proposing a new plan, that is the same approved by the Senate, except the number of regions and the number of Senators.

[GAworth]

I believe this is a commendable plan, but I tend to agree with Nix in saying 5 Senators is to small.

[LeBron]

I love the idea entirely, including 5 Senators. In order to avoid consolidation, the Senate would need either 10 or 5 Senators. Preferably, 5 since 10 would create a surplus of offices with the implementation of a House and a House should always be much larger than a Senate in terms of seats.

Plus with all regions, even the Mideast, picking up speed again, there really is no need for consolidation and I as Governor would be completely unwilling to merge with the Pacific. It's an awesome, well-thought out plan Cris and I hope the Senate considers it.

[Adam Griffin]

A Senate with only 5 members would be incredibly boring.

I agree with this.

The problem with this plan, like many other variations proposed, is that the original justification for consolidation was that we have too many offices, and that we need fewer. The justification for consolidation is that regions have traditionally failed to thrive (at least, all of them alongside each other) and that consistent patterns of vacant seats and non-competitiveness run rampant.

Bicameralism was later devised as a way to incentivize parting with the current number of regions, most of which find themselves unsustainable. We agreed upon handing the Senate exclusively to the regions to make up for the loss of regional offices, giving each region 2 of them. Unfortunately, there is no real federal remedy that can require the regions to alter the number of offices they are allowed (or at least not one that would pass the regions).

I was (and still am, to a degree) critical of the FTRA/BBA because the final product in my view doesn't reduce the total number of offices enough. Compromises on this matter have already been made (for those who remember the original dialogues) in which we were to simply reduce the regions without adding any new offices at the federal or regional levels whatsoever.

The original plans as outlined via the two amendments would result in a net reduction of 6 to 8 offices combined, which we may discover if enacted are still not enough. I just don't see any plan that doesn't address the major and fundamental component of doing this in the first place - activity levels and competition - being sound. After all, to keep the offices the same in terms of overall numbers truly would just be a partisan and/or aesthetic change, as many critics of the idea seem to believe. I commend the author for his dedication to this idea, however, and hope we can all work toward broad-based consensus on the matter in the weeks and months to come.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

For the record - I support consolidation but think bicameralism is a big mistake. It provides a fix to some issues - but creates new ones.

The problem is not, from my view, the Federal sphere. It's the regions.
 

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Or maybe it's just all of us not doing our share to draw people into the game and keep them interested.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Or maybe it's just all of us not doing our share to draw people into the game and keep them interested.

I don't disagree, but there is a structural flaw that is kind of begging to be exposed time and time again.

[Adam Griffin]

Or maybe it's just all of us not doing our share to draw people into the game and keep them interested.

Well, you and I came of age at the same time during this game, which was a glorious time indeed. There was a point where five of us (Napoleon, Wolfentoad, Tmth, you and I) were all actively pushing the pedal to the metal coming off of a presidential surge of traffic to the forum when it came to recruitment and candidate fielding, which pushed the game to damn near 200 people. Yet, this era still didn't produce more than 3 healthy regions.

As the MW & Pac altered their governments and became more active, the others began to suffer. Without the stars aligning so to speak when it comes to megalomaniac behavior, you can't sustain such a system, which still doesn't appear to produce 5 healthy regions. I consider late-2012/early-2013 to be a benchmark for the activity levels in this game, and I highly doubt we'll see such a climate unless Atlasia either starts recruiting from other sites (which, hey, wolfentoad was doing during that time anyway) or until the next presidential election rolls around. In the meantime, resolving the lull should be a top priority, rather than appealing to a standard none of us can live up to anymore.

The game wasn't built around five regional governments at the beginning, and the five-region system wasn't created around five regional governments as we know them today (at least I think?), so I see no reason to defend the status quo as being perfect or even what we needed from the start.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

When I was Gov of the Mideast, there was no regional "government" outside of the Governor and Lt Gov. Any legislation came from either my head, or the public. They were then voted on by the public to become law.

There would be tiny, tiny votes - 7-10 votes max. I became Governor because the existing Gov disappeared and no one else wanted the job.

The other thing that happened was that all the Governors got together to determine electoral districts based on population and not too close existing regional boundaries.

Mind you - the period you speak of was generally more active, it was also easily the height of zombie recruitment. Something that inflates numbers but doesn't equal long, even medium term activity.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Or maybe it's just all of us not doing our share to draw people into the game and keep them interested.

Well, you and I came of age at the same time during this game, which was a glorious time indeed. There was a point where five of us (Napoleon, Wolfentoad, Tmth, you and I) were all actively pushing the pedal to the metal coming off of a presidential surge of traffic to the forum when it came to recruitment and candidate fielding, which pushed the game to damn near 200 people. Yet, this era still didn't produce more than 3 healthy regions.

As the MW & Pac altered their governments and became more active, the others began to suffer. Without the stars aligning so to speak when it comes to megalomaniac behavior, you can't sustain such a system, which still doesn't appear to produce 5 healthy regions. I consider late-2012/early-2013 to be a benchmark for the activity levels in this game, and I highly doubt we'll see such a climate unless Atlasia either starts recruiting from other sites (which, hey, wolfentoad was doing during that time anyway) or until the next presidential election rolls around. In the meantime, resolving the lull should be a top priority, rather than appealing to a standard none of us can live up to anymore.

The game wasn't built around five regional governments at the beginning, and the five-region system wasn't created around five regional governments as we know them today (at least I think?), so I see no reason to defend the status quo as being perfect or even what we needed from the start.

Well, I've been candid and admitted that I used these recruits mostly as numbers and not really as players. Some figured it out on their own or took the initiative to ask about opportunities in the game, but "integration" was never really a focus of mine. It should've been. I won't speak for you, but I think we were certainly satisfied as long as people turned out to vote.

[Adam Griffin]

Or maybe it's just all of us not doing our share to draw people into the game and keep them interested.

Well, you and I came of age at the same time during this game, which was a glorious time indeed. There was a point where five of us (Napoleon, Wolfentoad, Tmth, you and I) were all actively pushing the pedal to the metal coming off of a presidential surge of traffic to the forum when it came to recruitment and candidate fielding, which pushed the game to damn near 200 people. Yet, this era still didn't produce more than 3 healthy regions.

As the MW & Pac altered their governments and became more active, the others began to suffer. Without the stars aligning so to speak when it comes to megalomaniac behavior, you can't sustain such a system, which still doesn't appear to produce 5 healthy regions. I consider late-2012/early-2013 to be a benchmark for the activity levels in this game, and I highly doubt we'll see such a climate unless Atlasia either starts recruiting from other sites (which, hey, wolfentoad was doing during that time anyway) or until the next presidential election rolls around. In the meantime, resolving the lull should be a top priority, rather than appealing to a standard none of us can live up to anymore.

The game wasn't built around five regional governments at the beginning, and the five-region system wasn't created around five regional governments as we know them today (at least I think?), so I see no reason to defend the status quo as being perfect or even what we needed from the start.

Well, I've been candid and admitted that I used these recruits mostly as numbers and not really as players. Some figured it out on their own or took the initiative to ask about opportunities in the game, but "integration" was never really a focus of mine. It should've been. I won't speak for you, but I think we were certainly satisfied as long as people turned out to vote.

Perhaps that was why Labor was so adept at taking over the regions back then; I did attempt to integrate everyone who came into the game, within reason. Some people enter the game with a zombie mentality, though. Still, it's hard to sustain such efforts indefinitely.