Windjammer vs Hifly

[TJ in Oregon]

The Mideast Government believes that it, rather than Hifly is the appropriate party for the defense in this case as the law in question was signed and is enacted statute. Its defense falls logically on the government rather than upon Hifly as an individual.

The Mideast Government requests that if the Court is to consider striking statute on the basis of Hifly's allegedly invalid Speakership, the Plaintiff must file suit against the regional government rather than Hifly personally.

[TJ in Oregon]

I apologize for the delay in responding. I will have the Defense's response submitted shortly. I thank the Court for allowing me a few extra hours.

[TJ in Oregon]

Your Honor,

The Mideast Region agrees with the Plaintiff that 9 hours is not the ideal length of time for objection in Hifly’s pronouncement that he had taken the Speakership. However, as the Plaintiff has stated, the Mideast Constitution specifically grants the Assembly the power to choose its own officers, including a Speaker:

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Given the explicit delegation of this power to the Assembly by the Constitution, the Defense believes that in order for the Court to rule Hifly’s Speakership invalid, the process by which he took the Speakership must not only be non-ideal, it must be expressly forbidden by either the Mideast Constitution or statute.

The Mideast Constitution has no further instructions on how a Speaker must be selected other than that the power to do so belongs to the Assembly. Thus we must consider the statute the Mideast has relating to Speakership in The Mideast Assembly Procedure for Legislative Debate and Voting and The Amendment to Add Codified Informal Procedures to the Mideast Assembly Procedure for Legislative Debate and Voting. The former discusses the duties of a Speaker but has no prescribed method for electing one. The latter contains a detailed discussion for the selection of a Speaker at the beginning of a term but it contains no mention of a prescribed procedure for replacing a Speaker in the middle of a term. Thus we conclude from the statute on the books that there is no law detailing the exact procedure that must be used to select a Speaker during the middle of a term.

However, regardless of the procedure, we must also consider whether Hifly’s assumption of the Speakership was indeed recognized by the Assembly since the Assembly retains the Constitutional authority to choose its own Speaker. Here, we find unmistakably that the Assembly did indeed consider Hifly its Speaker. Nearly two weeks passed between Hifly’s announcement that he assumed the role of Speaker and not a single Assemblyman objected. On the contrary every Assemblyman cast at least one vote on a bill administered by Hifly in his capacity as Speaker. If the other Assemblymen believed such votes to be out of order, they would have needed to say so at some point in the entire remainder of the term. As the Assembly has the power to choose its Speaker and the Assembly recognized Hifly as its Speaker in every action taken by him in that capacity, the only logical conclusion we can come to is that Hifly was indeed the Speaker of the Assembly.

Furthermore, the Mideast Region holds that even if Hifly were not validly the Speaker of the Assembly at the time of the Mideast Right to Life Act's passage, the bill would remain valid. The Mideast Constitution states:

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Regardless of whether or not Hifly acted with accordance to legislative procedure, the Mideast Right to Life Act was demonstrably passed by a majority vote of the Assembly. Perhaps if the Plaintiff were feeling ambitious he may attempt to argue here that the legislation was not passed by a majority vote because the vote was allegedly conducted by an invalid Speaker. If so, I would refer him back to The Mideast Assembly Procedure for Legislative Debate and Voting. While it contains a number of duties of the Speaker, nowhere does it mandate that voting on legislation must be administered by the Speaker. If the Assembly were to so choose, it could have any of its members administer votes, or even a non-member. The procedure only mandates that voting take place in a separate thread for each bill rather than the Mideast Assembly Thread.

Even if the Court were to rule Hifly’s Speakership invalid, which it wasn’t, the appropriate remedy would be to hold in Legislative Contempt, not to invalidate a statute duly passed by the Assembly with a majority vote and signed by the Governor.

In summary, the Defense believes that Hifly’s Speakership was valid and that even if it were not valid, the Mideast Constitution requires that the Mideast Right to Life Act remain in force because it was passed by a majority vote of the Assembly and signed by the Governor and is an otherwise constitutional piece of legislation.

Thank you for your time your Honor.

[TJ in Oregon]

The Defense would like to have 5 more hours to type a response to the Plaintiff's latter statements.

[TJ in Oregon]

Your Honor,

The Defense would like to address a couple points that that the Plaintiff has made in his statements today.

First the Plaintiff suggests that Franzl could have expressed his disapproval of Hifly’s Speakership, however cryptic, by voting ‘Nay’ on the legislation in question. As the Court has pointed out, Franzl gave an alternative reason for voting ‘Nay’: that he disagreed with the bill. The Defense would like to further note that, although they are not listed in this case, there were two additional bills and a constitutional amendment passed under Hifly’s administration as Speaker prior to the Right to Life Act. On two of these, Invalid Preference Amendment to ME Consolidated Election Statute and The Governor’s Budget, Franzl cast an ‘Aye’ vote under Hifly’s Speakership, which he was supposedly in opposition to. If the Court were to rule that all bills passed under Hifly’s Speakership were not validly passed, then the effects would clearly go beyond the Right to Life Act. More importantly, however, this conclusively demonstrates that Franzl’s ‘Nay’ vote cannot be misconstrued as a vote against Hifly’s Speakership when he in fact gave his tacit approval for it by voting ‘Aye’ in the other two bills.

Furthermore, whatever political plight Franzl may have faced, he was not abused by Hifly. The notion of comparing his lack of a voiced opposition to Hifly’s Speakership to the victim of abuse failing to turn in their aggressor is completely absurd. If anyone in this discussion had legitimate grounds  for claiming to be slighted, it was not Franzl but DC al Fine, who actually lost the Speakership. Indeed, he voted in favor of the Right to Life Act.

The next point the Defense would like to address is more of a clarification than a disagreement. The Plaintiff has stated that he believes allowing only 24 hours for debate and 24 hours for a vote on a bill is a violation of democracy in his opinion even though not forbidden by law. The Defense would like to point out to the Court the Mideast Statute regarding the matter:

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One of the Plaintiff’s complaints, allowing only 24 hours for debate, is directly within the guidelines for legislative procedure. While the final vote was shorter than the suggested length, it had a majority regardless, and the statute says the guidelines are subject to the discretion of the Speaker. Thus allowing less than the suggested debate time is irrelevant to the facts of this case, whatever the Plaintiff’s beliefs on democracy may be.

The final point the Defense would like to address is the Plaintiff’s assertion that:

Only the Speaker has the authority to open threads for the discussion of the bills. Not someone else. 

The relevant Mideast Statute says:

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It says that The Speaker must create such a thread. It does not say no one but the Speaker may create such a thread. If the Plaintiff were correct in his assertion that Hifly was not the Speaker, then the logical course of action would be to hold DC al Fine, who he believes to have been the rightful Speaker, in legislative contempt for failing to follow the law requiring him to open a thread for the Right to Life Act. Nowhere does the law state that if the Speaker fails to perform such a task no other member of the Assembly may open the thread in his stead. It is the difference between requiring someone to perform a specific act and forbidding anyone else to perform said act.

In conclusion, the Defense maintains that Hifly was validly the Speaker of the Mideast Assembly and even if he weren’t the Right to Life Act would still be constitutional by every explicit procedural requirement in both the Mideast Constitution and Statute. Furthermore, if Hifly’s Speakership were found to be invalid and every bill passed under his administration invalid, the Court must strike down the other two bills linked from here as well as the Assembly Expansion Amendment. While the Plaintiff’s philosophical views on the meaning of democracy are admirable, I ask the Court to consider the relevant statues and the Mideast Constitution when making its decision, and neither the Plaintiff’s personal opinions nor mine concerning the meaning of democracy.

I thank the Court for his time and with that the Defense rests.

[TJ in Oregon]

Thank you for the ruling, Judge Badger!