Cabinet Reorganization Act of 2015 (Passed)
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  Cabinet Reorganization Act of 2015 (Passed)
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Author Topic: Cabinet Reorganization Act of 2015 (Passed)  (Read 3499 times)
Senator Cris
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« on: August 13, 2015, 04:22:33 AM »
« edited: September 12, 2015, 04:04:42 PM by Speaker Cris »

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Sponsor: Senator Kalwejt
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2015, 04:34:48 AM »

The premise of this bill is, of course, to reduce the scope of federal government apparatus, which we have problems to fill already.

First, I can't see why shouldn't we return to census and elections run by one department. The SoFA's daily job would be to maintain the rolls with managing an election as a periodical job.

Similarly, the Secretary of Home Affairs would be mostly concerned with the stuff the SoIA is handling now, as prosecutions is a occasional task.

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bore
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« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2015, 08:39:31 AM »

I think it makes sense to abolish the Attorney General, rather than combine it with the SoIA which has a very different remit, so you'll get people suited to one job but not the other and then whenever prosecutions are needed the President can just appoint a temporary prosecutor.
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Oakvale
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« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2015, 10:24:19 AM »

Attorney General is literally the only important Cabinet job...
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2015, 01:20:15 PM »

I think it makes sense to abolish the Attorney General, rather than combine it with the SoIA which has a very different remit, so you'll get people suited to one job but not the other and then whenever prosecutions are needed the President can just appoint a temporary prosecutor.

The Secretary of Home Affairs wouldn't have to run a prosecution. When I was an AG, I had appointed a special prosecutor on more than one occassion.

I don't think the President should be appointing a special prosecutor.


(Btw, the AG is important only when there's a court case. There's no need for a permanent cabinet position)
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Prince of Salem
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« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2015, 07:08:01 PM »

Support part one, but not part two. I'd be a good idea to discuss the future of the DoIA later though.
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« Reply #6 on: August 13, 2015, 08:05:55 PM »

If the president can remove the SoIA whenever he wants, and he also appoints them, doesn't it make sense that he should directly have the power to appoint a prosecutor?

It's also true that the president can dismiss the AG whenever he wants, so there isn't much difference between my proposal and the current situation, except mine would trim one permanent office.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2015, 07:29:05 PM »

I would prefer to keep an independent Department of Justice.


As for recreating the DoFA, by merging the RG and DoFE I would prefer to defer to homelycooking on whether he would desire to take up the duties of that office. Before the office was split, the census was almost never updated. This summarized the general consensus at the time:

reluctantly aye, ftr. While I generally question the wisdom of creating new offices, SoFA definitely seems like the most difficult "job" in Atlasia and may actually warrant such action.

And you'd think I invented prefacing votes with "reluctantly". Tongue
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2015, 05:33:39 AM »

If the president can remove the SoIA whenever he wants, and he also appoints them, doesn't it make sense that he should directly have the power to appoint a prosecutor?

It's also true that the president can dismiss the AG whenever he wants, so there isn't much difference between my proposal and the current situation, except mine would trim one permanent office.

OK, that's a fair point. Although I'm not sure whether President is more qualified to initiate a prosecution than a prospective Secretary of Home Affairs.

Here's an alternative proposal: abolish the Department of Justice and replace the AG with a non-cabinet rank of Solicitor General, whose job would be to initiate court cases and represent the government. Wiki duties (as well as overseeing the federal law enforcement, etc.) would be transferred to the SoIA.

What do you think?
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bore
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« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2015, 05:54:32 PM »

If the president can remove the SoIA whenever he wants, and he also appoints them, doesn't it make sense that he should directly have the power to appoint a prosecutor?

It's also true that the president can dismiss the AG whenever he wants, so there isn't much difference between my proposal and the current situation, except mine would trim one permanent office.

OK, that's a fair point. Although I'm not sure whether President is more qualified to initiate a prosecution than a prospective Secretary of Home Affairs.

Here's an alternative proposal: abolish the Department of Justice and replace the AG with a non-cabinet rank of Solicitor General, whose job would be to initiate court cases and represent the government. Wiki duties (as well as overseeing the federal law enforcement, etc.) would be transferred to the SoIA.

What do you think?

Does non cabinet rank mean not voted on by the senate?
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2015, 12:10:38 AM »

If the president can remove the SoIA whenever he wants, and he also appoints them, doesn't it make sense that he should directly have the power to appoint a prosecutor?

It's also true that the president can dismiss the AG whenever he wants, so there isn't much difference between my proposal and the current situation, except mine would trim one permanent office.

OK, that's a fair point. Although I'm not sure whether President is more qualified to initiate a prosecution than a prospective Secretary of Home Affairs.

Here's an alternative proposal: abolish the Department of Justice and replace the AG with a non-cabinet rank of Solicitor General, whose job would be to initiate court cases and represent the government. Wiki duties (as well as overseeing the federal law enforcement, etc.) would be transferred to the SoIA.

What do you think?

Does non cabinet rank mean not voted on by the senate?

I would presume that would depend on the statute creating it. As a office originating from the legislative authority, the legislative authority would set the terms of officeholding. Of course I would recommend cross checking that with the recent amendment to allowed for great executive authority to abolish/create offices via Executive Order, which exempted the DOJ as most should recall, just to be on the safe side.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2015, 04:49:45 AM »

If the president can remove the SoIA whenever he wants, and he also appoints them, doesn't it make sense that he should directly have the power to appoint a prosecutor?

It's also true that the president can dismiss the AG whenever he wants, so there isn't much difference between my proposal and the current situation, except mine would trim one permanent office.

OK, that's a fair point. Although I'm not sure whether President is more qualified to initiate a prosecution than a prospective Secretary of Home Affairs.

Here's an alternative proposal: abolish the Department of Justice and replace the AG with a non-cabinet rank of Solicitor General, whose job would be to initiate court cases and represent the government. Wiki duties (as well as overseeing the federal law enforcement, etc.) would be transferred to the SoIA.

What do you think?

Does non cabinet rank mean not voted on by the senate?

Well, the GM is considered not a cabinet office, but is still a subject of confirmation. So are the Supreme Court Justices.

Personally, I'd still like to have the Solicitor General facing confirmation, given it still an important post.
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Fmr President & Senator Polnut
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« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2015, 07:44:34 PM »

Attorney General is literally the only important Cabinet job...

I actually agree with Justice Oakvale. We need a separate national law enforcement officer.
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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #13 on: August 18, 2015, 01:21:34 AM »

     Given recent trends, this might be a good move. With that said, I do not have fond memories of the DoFA.
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« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2015, 02:20:05 PM »

The way I look at it, we should only be tinkering with the cabinet now (what with the concon approaching) if it actually reduces the number of offices, which I don't think this would do.

Regarding the cabinet I've opened up applications for numerous vacancies and the only ones which have consistently (even now) received applications has been the RG. The SoFE has also been held for a very long time by homely, and he has done an excellent job. It seems to me that these are the least deserving posts to be merged or reduced. If we do want to do anything with them we should consider lifting the restriction on holding another office at the same time.

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Kalwejt
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« Reply #15 on: August 20, 2015, 10:59:52 AM »

I'll gladly respond to all points raised within a few hours. I'm tied at the moment.
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Cincinnatus
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« Reply #16 on: August 20, 2015, 02:53:46 PM »

I agree with the President, in that, if we're going to restructure the cabinet we need to reduce the number of offices.  Beyond that, I think the cabinet needs to be more flexible moving forward because cabinet restructuring has always been an on-going concern back and forth. 

We should make it even easier to fill these offices and/or easier to delegate and consolidate the duties of offices to another without debating the merits of adding or removing offices, but adapting to cycles of activity within the game.
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Prince of Salem
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« Reply #17 on: August 20, 2015, 08:00:28 PM »

I see there's a lot of debate regarding both the Cabinet and the Vicepresidency, and seeing how much they are starting to relate to each other, I say we should strike down Section 1 of this bill and debate the future of the DoIA later.

I'd like to propose that as an amendment Smiley
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2015, 08:01:30 PM »

The PResident does have the authority to abolish departments now by executive order or create them by the same token. This exempts the DOJ, RG and DoFE though for obvious reasons.
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Kalwejt
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« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2015, 01:14:22 AM »

All right, after reading most of the comments, this is the most compromise version I could possibly think of:

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Associate Justice PiT
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« Reply #20 on: August 21, 2015, 02:24:38 AM »

     I like it, but a couple changes:

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Senator Cris
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« Reply #21 on: August 21, 2015, 07:27:31 AM »

What of the two is an official amendment?
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Prince of Salem
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« Reply #22 on: August 21, 2015, 10:51:53 AM »

Kalwejt's amendment should be automatically adopted.

I still say we strike down Clause 1.
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Senator Cris
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« Reply #23 on: August 21, 2015, 11:05:12 AM »

Let's start with the Kalwejt's amendment.
Senators have 24 hours to object.
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bore
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« Reply #24 on: August 21, 2015, 07:03:46 PM »

This is fine by me. Is it necessary to clarify that you can be both a solicitor general and a senator, say?
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