Activity Fairness Amendment (Tabled)

[bore]

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Sponsor: Bacon King

[Lumine]

I support this, I think it's a good idea in light of the recent impeachment threads against Vice-President SJoyce and myself. We do need to punish inactivity, but if posting in one board and not another creates enough grounds for impeachment then the Constitution clearly has a problem that has to be solved.

[windjammer]

I probably oppose.
Sorry but a senator has to post in the threads in the senate.
I would support modifying them a little though.

[Bacon King]

For the record, these are the amendments we are repealing:

https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Nineteenth_Amendment_to_the_Third_Constitution
https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Twenty-First_Amendment_to_the_Third_Constitution

I support impeachment and/or expulsion in cases of inactivity but as we see right now, with three frivolous impeachment proceedings currently before us, there should definitely be more discretion than an automatic process entails.

[TNF]

I support this proposal.

[windjammer]

Lumine and Sjoyce probably should not be impeached, but it is a bit odd that neither would post on the Fantasy Government board for an entire week. The thought that this could happen occurred to me when we created these amendments, but I dismissed it at the time as implausible under the assumption that a sitting president would take enough of an interest in whatever the Senate is doing to post something.

I had also assumed that government "offices" would be maintained on the government board. I know that more people read threads on the Fantasy Elections board, but that is not that board's purpose. The FG board is not just here for the Senate.

Virtually all impeachment attempts fail, so we're not exactly at risk of losing a diligent officeholder because of this provision. I urge the Senate to vote against any legislation that repeals the Activity Amendments. Exempt the VP if you must, but don't remove this safeguard. Everyone has been too quick to assume that it imposes unreasonable, even ridiculous, expectations. It does not.

(If there's a problem with it, it is that not always ineffective - note that an Associate Justice has again been absent for weeks.)

Exempting the VP would be a terrible idea, this is already a pointless office, so stripping that would make this office even more pointless.

[Cranberry]

I agree most with Nix here. We won't impeach the two, so there is no harm done; but it definitely doesn't hurt if we have something left should we really need to impeach our President one day...

[windjammer]

If only my amendment had passed, we would have had  President Riley Keaton

[bore]

Maybe we could make it so if someone breaks the activity limit only one senator, rather than three is required for impeachment proceedings?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I oppose this amendment.


I would support removing Senators from the activity amendment, because

1) Impeachment is suppose to be a legislative check on the other branches, not itself

and also it is a less effective duplication of

2) Explusion, which is meant to be an activity check on the legislation branch and it has actually been utilized to the tune of about once or twice a year. Has there ever been a successful impeachment in Atlasia?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Also if you repeal these, then you remove the reform that was passed in 2013 to deal with the activity scandal on the Supreme Court (which was basically all over the fact that they kept me waiting a month before ruling on the Dept Renaming Act ).

Just like with the VP discussions, I will not even begin to discuss the trumpetted alternative reform that was not adopted afterwards.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So, this seems to be rather interesting discourse.

[Bacon King]

So, this seems to be rather interesting discourse.

I'm trying to craft a compromise amendment here but I'm not sure how to do it because different opponents are saying different and sometimes contradictory things.

How does something like this outline sound?

I. Repeal the amendments as they exist, with the replacement text explicitly being added to Article I of the Constitution with the rest of the impeachment stuff.
II. Don't change the part pertaining to the Judiciary
III. Go with bore's idea, so that instead of instant impeachment proceedings, a weeklong absence only takes a single senator to start impeachment
IV. Go with Yankee's idea, let's go back to removing Senators via expulsion rather than impeachment because that's honestly much simpler and easier to do.
V. Maybe allow Fantasy Elections board participation to count for activity purposes here, or at least count posts where the officeholder is acting in their official capacity in their official office if it's located there?
VI. Not sure if this is the right venue to address it but maybe establish some maximum time limit for LOA's if that doesn't already exist?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Well, it make sense but remember to limit the application of the LOAs solely to the impeachement officials, that way it doesn't conflict with the Senate's LOA process, which is tied to the explusion proceedings.

[windjammer]

With the repeal of this amendment, I guess Bacon King you wouldn't have faced impeachment???

[windjammer]

I will oppose this whole repeal. I understand the concerns with this amendment, but this amendment is more "good" than "bad"

[Cranberry]

Your proposal seems sensible, BK. I could see myself supporting this.

[Adam Griffin]

The notion that we should repeal (or even alter) either of these amendments is baffling to me. Basically, Napoleon summed it up well:

While I recognize that I haven't been engaged with the Senate, I have done my best to remain active during some particularly busy days for me, and I believe this impeachment effort by Griffin to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.

I strongly believe that no impeachable offenses were committed by me and the Vice-President, and I humbly ask the Senate to reject these articles of impeachment.

Griffin the Red Monster, huh?


https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=182168.msg3937989#msg3937989


Whatever.

Your point? At the time I thought the amendment to be a good idea, so did most of Atlasia.

"I was fine with it, until I was affected by it."

Cool story bro

People are getting upset because the concept of activity applies to them, too, and not just to others. There is nothing inherently wrong with the amendments. No Senator should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. No President or Vice-President should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. The Vice-President should maintain a level of dialogue in debate, especially since many of the position's former responsibilities no longer exist (otherwise, let's just abolish the Vice-President altogether, instead of abolishing/altering pieces of the Constitution to fit a now-condoned abdication of prior responsibilities). If the President is going to post updates on FE in an office, then the President can double-post it in an office on FG, too. The only excuse any of these individuals have for not meeting basic constitutional activity requirements is shame for what they've done and laziness with respect to adhering to a very low bar.

Furthermore, short of one party having both control of a supermajority of the Senate and a hive-mind among all of its Senators, it is extremely unlikely that a Senator would be (or ever has been) expelled from the Senate for activity reasons; only when it has been someone who is extremely unpopular both within the body and the electorate (Xahar, wormyguy) has it ever actually been done. Let's not make it even harder to censure, reprimand and if necessary, expel Senators who don't do their job: it's already practically impossible as-is.

[Cranberry]

I echo Mr Griffin's comments. We cannot just do away with the amendments because we have had a few (okay a lot, we now have a vacuum-cleaner in the Senate ) impeachments that were a bit of an overreach, the mechanism in general is sensible, and we need a "backup plan" should something happen.

[bore]

What's happening here?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The notion that we should repeal (or even alter) either of these amendments is baffling to me. Basically, Napoleon summed it up well:

While I recognize that I haven't been engaged with the Senate, I have done my best to remain active during some particularly busy days for me, and I believe this impeachment effort by Griffin to be nothing more than a publicity stunt.

I strongly believe that no impeachable offenses were committed by me and the Vice-President, and I humbly ask the Senate to reject these articles of impeachment.

Griffin the Red Monster, huh?


https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=182168.msg3937989#msg3937989


Whatever.

Your point? At the time I thought the amendment to be a good idea, so did most of Atlasia.

"I was fine with it, until I was affected by it."

Cool story bro

People are getting upset because the concept of activity applies to them, too, and not just to others. There is nothing inherently wrong with the amendments. No Senator should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. No President or Vice-President should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. The Vice-President should maintain a level of dialogue in debate, especially since many of the position's former responsibilities no longer exist (otherwise, let's just abolish the Vice-President altogether, instead of abolishing/altering pieces of the Constitution to fit a now-condoned abdication of prior responsibilities). If the President is going to post updates on FE in an office, then the President can double-post it in an office on FG, too. The only excuse any of these individuals have for not meeting basic constitutional activity requirements is shame for what they've done and laziness with respect to adhering to a very low bar.

Furthermore, short of one party having both control of a supermajority of the Senate and a hive-mind among all of its Senators, it is extremely unlikely that a Senator would be (or ever has been) expelled from the Senate for activity reasons; only when it has been someone who is extremely unpopular both within the body and the electorate (Xahar, wormyguy) has it ever actually been done. Let's not make it even harder to censure, reprimand and if necessary, expel Senators who don't do their job: it's already practically impossible as-is.

We expelled MoPolitico and B fing K (twice). Hardly polarizing figures there.

How many people have been impeached period?

Also if you cannot expell a Senator for lack of a single-party supermajority (the worst way to do it in my view and has historically not been necessary), what is having a duplicative impeachment proceeding that requires a similar threshold going to get you anywhere?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I echo Mr Griffin's comments. We cannot just do away with the amendments because we have had a few (okay a lot, we now have a vacuum-cleaner in the Senate ) impeachments that were a bit of an overreach, the mechanism in general is sensible, and we need a "backup plan" should something happen.

I don't think many want to wipe them out completely, and certainly we need to keep a tough standard for the judges and executive branch in some form through impeachment.

The Senate already has its own backup and had one before (hardly a backup considering the original purpose behind Senate Expulsion versus Impeachment, more like a primary alternative).

[Adam Griffin]

People are getting upset because the concept of activity applies to them, too, and not just to others. There is nothing inherently wrong with the amendments. No Senator should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. No President or Vice-President should go a week without posting on this board and without posting a LOA - period. The Vice-President should maintain a level of dialogue in debate, especially since many of the position's former responsibilities no longer exist (otherwise, let's just abolish the Vice-President altogether, instead of abolishing/altering pieces of the Constitution to fit a now-condoned abdication of prior responsibilities). If the President is going to post updates on FE in an office, then the President can double-post it in an office on FG, too. The only excuse any of these individuals have for not meeting basic constitutional activity requirements is shame for what they've done and laziness with respect to adhering to a very low bar.

Furthermore, short of one party having both control of a supermajority of the Senate and a hive-mind among all of its Senators, it is extremely unlikely that a Senator would be (or ever has been) expelled from the Senate for activity reasons; only when it has been someone who is extremely unpopular both within the body and the electorate (Xahar, wormyguy) has it ever actually been done. Let's not make it even harder to censure, reprimand and if necessary, expel Senators who don't do their job: it's already practically impossible as-is.

We expelled MoPolitico and B fing K (twice). Hardly polarizing figures there.

How many people have been impeached period?

Also if you cannot expell a Senator for lack of a single-party supermajority (the worst way to do it in my view and has historically not been necessary), what is having a duplicative impeachment proceeding that requires a similar threshold going to get you anywhere?

I remember MOPolitico being expelled; that happened right when I first joined the game (in mid-2012). In his case (if I recall correctly), he had completely disappeared from the forum, which is a different case. With BK, I seem to recall one instance in which expulsion came up but he voluntarily resigned before the Senate could vote on it (or maybe that was the time where he voted AYE on his own expulsion; I can't remember exactly). Barnes was also expelled, but that was because he too had disappeared entirely.

My point is that in most federal cases where an expulsion is successful, it is usually when the person has completely disappeared from this game and the forum - it seems that if they are active on the forum but not active here, they usually get away with maintaining their seat.

Also if you cannot expell a Senator for lack of a single-party supermajority (the worst way to do it in my view and has historically not been necessary), what is having a duplicative impeachment proceeding that requires a similar threshold going to get you anywhere?

The reason why we shouldn't gut these amendments is because what I said and what you said are two different scenarios. I feel you're twisting what I said a bit.

I said - preemptively, perhaps (though I thought someone had mentioned it as a concern prior) - that we shouldn't be afraid of people being expelled from the Senate solely based on political bias because that, at least in recent memory, has never been an issue. Even with a supermajority Senate from one party, it's just not going to happen because members from the same party never have a hive-mind. You're always going to have at least 1 or 2 Senators who are worried about "political repercussions" for doing such a thing. In other words, this shouldn't be a reason for abolishing the current system.

I did not say that the only way the current system could be effective was through having a supermajority (and therefore that in the absence of such, it cannot be effective); I said that even in that particular case, it'd be unlikely to change the dynamic. That doesn't mean that it's justified to repeal it. Objectively, repealing these amendments would make removal of Senators even more difficult without a better solution put in place because it would limit the pathways to do so, and as both of us alluded to, it has been used in the past to some degree (though I don't think the system has ever successfully been used since the 19th/21st were passed to expel a Senator, as Xahar used legal loopholes to reinstall himself in the Senate; all of the other examples you and I gave were pre-May 2013).

So perhaps I would support a repeal of these two amendments (seeing as how it is nearly impossible as-is to remove an inactive Senator, as we haven't done so since their passage; I think this has everything to do with the attitudes of people in this game and not the amendments themselves), but only if we reverted to a system in which expulsion was automatic and occurred after 7-10 days of their last post on the FG board. A carte blanche repeal of the amendments without replacing it with something that has more teeth, however, would be reckless and through simple deduction, would make removing dead weight even harder.

[Cranberry]

I echo Mr Griffin's comments. We cannot just do away with the amendments because we have had a few (okay a lot, we now have a vacuum-cleaner in the Senate ) impeachments that were a bit of an overreach, the mechanism in general is sensible, and we need a "backup plan" should something happen.

I don't think many want to wipe them out completely, and certainly we need to keep a tough standard for the judges and executive branch in some form through impeachment.

The Senate already has its own backup and had one before (hardly a backup considering the original purpose behind Senate Expulsion versus Impeachment, more like a primary alternative).

Okay, yeah. But still, this bill as such does not make sense in the current version, as it's doing away with everything. Maybe just amending the current version, so to strike the Senate parts, but keep the Executive and Justice parts?

[windjammer]

So Bacon King had already been expelled TWICE?