Provisional Parliament: Voting on Amendment

[PJ]

What is the difference between this and the New Mock Parliament?

It's the same simulation. This is the thread for the actual provisional parliament. The other thread is the sign-up/misc. discussion thread.

[PJ]

Holding a grudge against someone on an online political forum seems pretty petty tbh

[PJ]

Assuming this forum doesn't go to sh**t entirely, I can assume JerryArkansas's seat if need be due to his resignation.

[PJ]

1. TNF

[PJ]

A South American simulation guarantees to be a more laborious task, but as long as we continue to have active GM steering us along the way, I support it. The GM needs to play an active role in informing MPs about current problems unique to South America, and this job requires a more involved role than the GM in Atlasia. I understand that this is a learning curve for many posters (myself included), but a North American system would bring us back to a repeat of Fantasy Elections very quickly.

[PJ]

I would be okay with the European proposal: the EU faces several interesting issues. However, I still prefer South America over any western democracies. Atlasia went down the same path as a lot of western democracies, albeit with a slightly more progressive lean. There was a social democratic party, a conservative party, and some smaller ones, not too different from most western democracies. Especially because many members here are or were members of Atlasia at some point, most western democracy simulations would follow a very similar path not too dissimilar from what was already done in Atlasia. South America provides a different approach; its politics are very different than most of the world's. Not being involved in NATO, it plays a unique role in foreign policy, and the issue of development creates a host of issues not faced in the politics of the traditional western nations.

[PJ]

Aye.

[PJ]

We do not have enough active members to sustain active constituency votes. Additionally, I'm afraid that the use of constituencies elected by FPTP would eliminate the influence of all but the two largest parties. I favor using closed-list proportional representation.

I would also like to consider expanding the size of parliament to 25 seats. Including this provisional parliament, sign-ups in the New Mock Parliament thread, and sign-ups in the individual party threads, we currently have 45 members. We have a sizeable amount of members willing to participate that have little to do if they cannot be elected to parliament. While we definitely need to make sure that this does not turn into 'US General Discussion with a map,' as stated earlier, being elected to parliament should be so difficult that it discourages new members from joining. A small increase to MPs would solve for this and would also solve the issue of having an even number of MPs.

[PJ]

25 members is too much. The point isn't to give everyone a seat. I have thoughts on a future upper house of 12 members once the requisite population exists, and I can share if people are interested.

Assuming everyone is agreed on SJoyce's proposal, I have further thoughts on an electoral law. Obviously there should be no such thing as party registration, since that is an Americanism. There will be no state supervision of parties at all, but the Registrar General will grant official recognition to certain political parties provided that they meet a certain threshold of members. Parties are in charge of setting their own membership criteria.

Only officially recognized political parties will be able to nominate lists for elections. This does not mean that independents cannot be elected, since parties can place any registered voter they want on their list, and in any case MPs can once elected opt not to take any whip. The purpose of limiting the ability to nominate candidates to officially recognized parties is to encourage cohesive political parties (which makes the game more fun) and to prevent the ballot from being cluttered without jeopardizing the multi-party system that is developing.

I hope people find this all agreeable.

I think it's important that we don't have an even number of MPs. A party or a coalition with 10 seats would be disastrous in terms of gridlock. I'm not suggesting that everyone should have a seat. 25 out of 45 citizens (a number which is likely to increase) still leaves a large portion of the citizenry outside of parliament. If the 25-seat amendment is unpopular, that's fine, but the issue of an even number of MPs needs to be addressed, perhaps with an overhang seat.

I'm curious about your thoughts on an upper house, although I tend to oppose the concept of upper houses in general. And I'm in agreement with the rest of your post.

[PJ]

Aye.

[PJ]

I support South America as the name and 21 MPs. I don't think there's any other name referring to the entirety of the continent (that I know of). Gran Colombia could be interesting, since it's a union of states similar to what we're doing here, but it stills only applies to the Northwest portion of the continent plus Panama.

[PJ]

Aye.

[PJ]

I don't think anyone objected to the amendment, but whatever. Nay.

[PJ]

I oppose Bill 0-3. We need to deal with the other bills introduced before we dissolve parliament.

I'm in favor of the Presidency Act, but it's important that the president isn't anything more than a figurehead in practice. It would be easier for parliament to unite around a non-terrible candidate if it's just a symbolic position, and would make a political crisis less likely.

I oppose renaming the country Sudamerica out of personal preference, but practically speaking, virtually every party writing out their constitution and platform is using South America as the name of the country, so changing the name this late in the game would just be a headache without much benefit.

[PJ]

Nay.

[PJ]

I support a 2/3 majority for electing the president for the reasons stated by Talleyrand.

I object to the amendment striking the two-thirds requirement, and move to vote on both of rpryor's amendments.

Why? 1d is literally a repeat of 1c.

[PJ]

Yeah, wrong amendment TNF. I vote aye on striking 1d, but assuming you meant to post the amendment striking two-thirds, I'd vote nay on that.

[PJ]

Nay FTR

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This wording should be changed as in its current form it technically outlaws minority governments.

An amendment has been introduced for this.

[PJ]

I'm not going to object to Oakvale's amendment, since we shouldn't be outlawing minority governments, but I'd like to offer the following amendment.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[PJ]

I support the amendment in question, but it's probably important that we figure out who to replace "[Name]" with. Has anyone expressed interest in this?

[PJ]

Aye.

[PJ]

So...how exactly are we planning on finding this [Name]? Thorough debate and then IRV vote? Informal consensus? Names out of a hat? Game of Warren G. Harding trivia?

Given that it's only an interim head of state, simply proposing an amendment to replace [Name] with the poster in question once a candidate is found should be sufficient.

[PJ]

I'll also be voting nay (fallacy of the mean etc.). Since it's now an interim bill, I withdraw my amendment to strike 1b.

[PJ]

Hash is a great choice (normal). Please don't object to amendments you have no problem with. This is a waste of time.

[PJ]

Aye