Northeast Proposed Constitutional Amendment Megathread

[free my dawg]

I'm apparently obligated to make some sort of thread by this. Figured I'd set it up, considering there's an amendment that's about to be voted on soon.

[free my dawg]

First off, this amendment:

For:

This amendment changes the Constitution's ability from three missed bills to four. I proposed this because the Assembly usually debates three bills at a time, and I feel that missing five days (because it usually takes less than 36 hours for the sponsor to advocate) is too strict. Four is a happy balance.

There were no arguments against the amendment.

[cinyc]

The proposed amendment makes sense.  The miss three-vote-limit for automatic expulsion was put in place at a time when only one piece of legislation was typically up on the Assembly floor at any given time.  Thus, a week or more would pass before three consecutive votes were taken.  Today, the Assembly often debates three pieces of legislation at the same time, meaning, if debate time were minimized to 36 hours, three votes could be missed in as little as 3 1/2 days.  That could potentially cause someone taking a long weekend with no Internet access to be expelled from his Assembly seat.  

Since four items typically aren't on the Assembly floor at the same time (except when debating the budget), the four-vote-limit will typically cause expulsion only after missing all votes for a week or so without declaring absence.

[Poirot]

I'll make the argument against it.

When I arrived in the Northeast the voting period was 24 hours. I think there were two slots. If two votes were opened at the same time, it meant there were two small 24 hours window of voting time that could result in missing three consecutive votes.

For a representative that doesn't log it every day it could be a problem. To give representatives a longer period to vote we extended the voting period to 48 hours (and I think other regions used 48 hours).

It is not necessary to increase the number of missed votes to four. The speaker should manage the calendar for bills, like not starting debate for three bills at the same time and start voting on three bills at the same time. If the speaker starts the vote on two bills at the same time, he just needs to be careful and open the third vote when the others have ended that that gives representatives at least four whole days to show up to cast one vote. I don't think it's too demanding to visit at least once in 4-5 days at worst.     

[cinyc]

I'll make the argument against it.

When I arrived in the Northeast the voting period was 24 hours. I think there were two slots. If two votes were opened at the same time, it meant there were two small 24 hours window of voting time that could result in missing three consecutive votes.

For a representative that doesn't log it every day it could be a problem. To give representatives a longer period to vote we extended the voting period to 48 hours (and I think other regions used 48 hours).

It is not necessary to increase the number of missed votes to four. The speaker should manage the calendar for bills, like not starting debate for three bills at the same time and start voting on three bills at the same time. If the speaker starts the vote on two bills at the same time, he just needs to be careful and open the third vote when the others have ended that that gives representatives at least four whole days to show up to cast one vote. I don't think it's too demanding to visit at least once in 4-5 days at worst.     

1) The number of hours of total debate plus voting period is more relevant.  And I don't think the Assembly ever had a minimum debate period less than 36 hours.  That plus a day to vote would mean that missing three votes would have taken, at a minimum, 7 days, not 48 hours when two bills were permitted to be debated on the floor at the same time.  This bill restores that balance.

2) The Speaker doesn't have as much power to delay the introduction of new bills as you think.  He has to introduce the next bill in the queue in the NE1 slot as reasonably as possible after it is open, must introduce a bill of his choosing in the NE2 slot, and has discretion about whether to put anything in the NE3 slot.  But if there is a big backlog of proposed legislation, no Speaker worth his or her salt is going to not introduce anything into the NE3 slot, particularly early in the session when bills are more likely to be introduced at or around the same time.  And it's not feasible for a Speaker to time the bills or the votes based on whether a particular Representative might vote.  If three bills come up to a vote at the same time, they come up to a vote at the same time.

3) This proposed amendment basically puts us back to the timing rules when the Assembly was created.  Those rules made it more difficult for someone duly elected by the citizens of the Northeast in a fair election to lose his job.  The voters' choice deserves an opportunity to do his job without having to worry about losing it due to a brief absence.

[cinyc]

The Assembly Inactivity Amendment will be on the ballot this weekend.  It is identical to the amendment offered last month, but inadvertently not put on the ballot during the June elections.  It was passed by the Assembly again to be placed on the ballot this month.

Here is the text:

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There was no new rationale offered for the amendment, but I refer you back to Former Governor Sawx's statement in support last month:

For:

This amendment changes the Constitution's ability from three missed bills to four. I proposed this because the Assembly usually debates three bills at a time, and I feel that missing five days (because it usually takes less than 36 hours for the sponsor to advocate) is too strict. Four is a happy balance.

There were no arguments against the amendment.

[cinyc]

There will be 4 proposed constitutional amendments on this weekend's ballot.  Below is the text of the amendment and the sponsor's support statement:

1) Patchwork Amendment:

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Article II, Clause 5 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article II, Clause 13 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article III, Clause 2 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article III, Clause 3 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article III, Clause 6 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article III, Clause 9 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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(continued in next post)

[cinyc]

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Article V, Clause 2 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article V, Clause 3 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article VII, Clause 2 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Article VIII of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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Clause 7a of the Cabinet Amendment shall be amended to read:

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[/quote]

Reason given:

this amendment is necessary to fix some glaring grammatical and logical issues in the constitution, especially article vii clause 2, and to synchronise the various types of northeast elections.

[cinyc]

2) Competitive Elections Amendment:

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2. Article II, Clause 14 of the Northeast Constitution shall be amended to read:

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[/quote]

Reason Given:

The Northeast has historically had trouble finding enough candidates to fill all five Assembly seats. This amendment is necessary to guarantee a competitive election and to alleviate the activity problems that are affecting all of Atlasia.

[cinyc]

3) Residency Amendment:

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[/quote]

Reason Given:

All other Northeast officials are required to be registered in the Northeast, but the Governor isn't. This amendment is intended to fix that oversight.

4) Term Limits Amendment:

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Reason Given:

1. It's easy for someone to get entrenched as Governor. In fact, per Wiki, no Governor has lost reelection since dissolution. Many don't even face major party opposition.

2. People want to hold office in the Northeast. Almost all of our recent Senate races have contested, our last two open-seat gubernatorial elections were highly contested, and two of our recent special Assembly elections were also contested.

3. This will give opportunities to advance for newer players. Open elections are generally more competitive than ones with incumbents (e.g. July gov special, July Senate special, February senate vs Feb and June gov).

representatives have 48 hours to vote aye, nay, or abstain.
[/quote]

[cinyc]

The only issue I have with the Patchwork Amendment is that it would limit the time for ratifying federal consitutional amendments to once a month and lower the voting period from 7 to 3 days.  I am considering whether to vote no because of that.

[cinyc]

There will be two proposed constitutional amendments on next weekend's ballot:

1) Northeast Cabinet Amendment

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There was no formal statement of support for this amendment restated concurrently with the vote on the amendment.  The closest thing to it was the sponsor's statement in the beginning of the thread:

I made this bill to show that we're ready (although I'm on the undecided) whatever happens to our region. Whether we will be pursuing with devolution or independence.

2) Northeast Independence Amendment

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2. Article VIII shall be struck from the Northeast Constitution.

3. A new Article shall be appended to the Northeast Constitution, reading as follows:

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[/quote]

There was no formal statement of support for this amendment restated concurrently with the vote on the amendment.  The closest thing to it was the sponsor's statement in the beginning of the thread:

this amendment would provide for independence and set some rules for the transitional period, in the form of a simple constitutional amendment this time.

[cinyc]

There will be one proposed Constitutional Amendment on this weekend's ballot:

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Once again, there was no agreed formal statement of support or opposition.  However, the sponsor said the following in support of the proposed amendment:

Yeah, I wanted to spell this out in the constitution so it would be clear and harder to repeal, I would imagine. It's pretty similar to the law currently being debated that does the same thing and I think the two, syntax aside, do really the same things. That is, people may worship as they choose freely so long as they are not harming other sentient beings, and the assembly may not endorse or compel any particular religious observance.

What brought this up, of course, was the Pacific recently attempted to endorse conservative Christian values by inserting them into oaths of office and the like.

[Poirot]

"the assembly may not endorse or compel any particular religious observance."

If someone who is backing the amendment could tell me if the part above could go as far as not having a holiday for Christmas or Easter since it could be seen like endorsing some religion over another. 

[cinyc]

There will be one proposed constitutional amendment on this weekend's ballot:

Competitive Elections Amendment

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There were no formal statements for or against this proposed amendment, which was actually an amendment to the originally proposed amendment by Governor Blair.  Governor Blair's original amendment would have permanently set the Assembly's size at 5.  The compromise that the Assembly approved reduces the threshold for the Assembly's size to be set at 5 instead of 3 representatives at 5 candidates instead of the current 6.

[cinyc]

There will be one proposed constitutional amendment on this weekend's ballot:

Amendment to the Northeast Constitution regarding Canadian Provinces
Article I: The Region
1. The Northeast Region and the Constitution thereof shall be representative of the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
  a. Atlasian citizens living in New Brunswick and Quebec shall be considered as citizens of the Northeast Region for limited jurisdictional and electoral purposes, in accordance to the Atlasian-Canadian Common Market Agreement.
2. The administrative center for the government of the Northeast Region established in this Constitution shall be New York City, NY.

Again, there were no formal statements in support or against this amendment, but you can read the Assembly's debate here.

[Poirot]

I thought this amendment was just reiteratng the current situation and putting in the Northeast constitution what is in the Atlasian constitution. I see some voters are voting against the amendment and I haven't heard the reason.

[cinyc]

I thought this amendment was just reiteratng the current situation and putting in the Northeast constitution what is in the Atlasian constitution. I see some voters are voting against the amendment and I haven't heard the reason.

I voted against it because it is unnecessary, and there was confusion at the end of the debate about whether the common market agreement has been changed to say something else.

But I tend to vote against constitutional amendments unless proponents show why they are necessary, anyway.