Cabinet Reorganization Act of 2015 (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Isn't the last clause already law? I believe good ole Nappy passed it in 2012 or maybe 2011. Homely served in both positions for a long time before resigning the RG post.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Some notes on this matter before I cast my vote:

1. I would prefer greater protections of the Solicitor general from political influence, but I fear that the as needed part would ensure a great amount of Presidential discretion in terms of what is brought to trial and what is not simply by the fact that he could decline to allow a case to pursue simply by not purusing. The text I am reading from on page two seems to leave this open but of course I could be over reading it. I am not sure if there is anyway to resolve the problem since the whole point of the bill is to consolidate and remove an office by way of moving to an "as needed" a approach.

2. Finally I do take some comfort in the passage of the bill regarding the wiki a month ago as it provides a means to ensure that such does not overwhelm this new office obviously.

the outcome is pretty much determined so I am going to vote against the consensus here out of concern for the point raised in number one, though I am satisifed with the rest of it.

Rel.... Just kidding

Nay