Selection of delegates for Constitutional Convention - What will happen.

[Senator Cris]

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Red = duty of the SoFE
Blue = duty of the Senate
Green = duty of the parties

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

((this senate continues to be an unmitigated disaster, shutting out independents and members of small parties from 40% of the constitutional convention))

[Senator Cris]

((this senate continues to be an unmitigated disaster, shutting out independents and members of small parties from 40% of the constitutional convention))

The Senate will select 10/25 delegates. The rest will be decided by an election on which all citizens (including indipendents and members of small parties) can run. Let's stop to create controversies when there is no need for.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

((this senate continues to be an unmitigated disaster, shutting out independents and members of small parties from 40% of the constitutional convention))

The Senate will select 10/25 delegates. The rest will be decided by an election on which all citizens (including indipendents and members of small parties) can run.

that is literally exactly what i said.

[Lincoln Republican]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to be a delegate to the Constitutional Convention should be allowed to do so.

Why should any interested Atlasian be left out?

This is elitist and discriminatory. 

[Classic Conservative]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to be a delegate to the Constitutional Convention should be allowed to do so.

Why should any interested Atlasian be left out?

This is elitist and discriminatory. 

There should also be some checks and balances like if we had 60 people who want to run it would be crazy to manage, also the people should decide on who will change the country for the better.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who wants to be a delegate to the Constitutional Convention should be allowed to do so.

Why should any interested Atlasian be left out?

This is elitist and discriminatory. 

There should also be some checks and balances like if we had 60 people who want to run it would be crazy to manage, also the people should decide on who will change the country for the better.

Exactly. At a certain point, the Convention would become too unwieldy to conduct its business in a timely fashion. Furthermore, Atlasia is a representative democracy by nature: there is nothing out of the ordinary in electing/appointing representatives to do the actually work of lawmaking.

I would point out that private citizens may still comment on the proceedings, make suggestions, and vote on the final product.

[Lincoln Republican]

What you are really going to end up with is a group of partisans chosen by members of their parties basically representing their own parties.

Then where will Atlasia be?

Back to square 1.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

What you are really going to end up with is a group of partisans chosen by members of their parties basically representing their own parties.

Then where will Atlasia be?

Back to square 1.

A couple of things:

1. Contrary to the accusations of NNP and the dissolutionists, the Senate is not trying to subvert democracy or hijack the future of Atlasia. The selection process established by this bill was set in place to ensure that both the national electorate and the Regions were represented at the Convention. Allowing the Regions to choose all 25 delegates, as Evergreen proposed, would have given an undue monopoly to the regional governors (honorable gentlemen though they are) and upset the system of checks and balances upon which this Republic was founded.

2. My experience has been that the Senate is much more bipartisan, and much less prone to silly factional rivalries, than the population at large. All too often, a candidate for federal or regional office will run an active campaign, release a detailed platform, and propose insightful, reasonable policies, only to loose to his opponent's superior turnout machine. By contrast, the Senate in recent weeks has been host to a spirit of active, bipartisan cooperation such as I have never seen in Atlasia. Despite an overwhelming center-right majority, center-left senators like Kalwejt and myself are included in the legislative process and play an equal role with our conservative counterparts. If you want a more bipartisan convention, decreasing the influence of the Senate is not the way to go.

[Simfan34]

((this senate continues to be an unmitigated disaster, shutting out independents and members of small parties from 40% of the constitutional convention))

Do you not know how ridiculous this sounds? It's almost as if you've got your percentages mixed up... but you haven't.

[Oakvale]

The Senate really has confirmed its well-earned reputation as the worst in Atlasian history (or, I should say, the five and a half years I've been a citizen) with this nonsense.

I mean...

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[Leinad]

Oh my, the Naysay Caucus is in full force...

What you are really going to end up with is a group of partisans chosen by members of their parties basically representing their own parties.

If Senators are "partisans," then aren't regular citizens also? I mean, most of us are in political parties, and as Truman alluded to, most regular citizens are MORE likely to put party affiliation as the main thing than Senators are.

Senators are qualified to have a say in choosing the delegates. If I was to make a list of active Atlasians who knew the ins and outs of both how Atlasia works and who would make good delegates, it would be pretty close to the Senate.

((this senate continues to be an unmitigated disaster, shutting out independents and members of small parties from 40% of the constitutional convention))

You're technically right, but the premise is way off. People who aren't members of major parties can run for one of the 15 non-Senate seats, too. I'm not the biggest fan in the world of basing it on party registration, but it's a good measure for the Senate to pick anyone the original vote missed. In the other thread, Ilikeverin said it would be based on the "whim" of elites, but I think the Senate will make good choices. If they don't, I'll probably be one of the first to express outrage.

Your idea was to have it be either gubernatorial picks or all popular vote--while I like the idea of picking people, how is that any better than senatorial picks? And regarding the popular vote: I think it's better to have at least a few senate picks as a check-and-balance over giving the power over to mostly zombie voters and the "turnout machines" Truman talked about.

The Senate really has confirmed its well-earned reputation as the worst in Atlasian history (or, I should say, the five and a half years I've been a citizen) with this nonsense.

I mean...

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That is a bit odd, honestly, but it's better than having party leadership make the picks, right? Lots of people, including both Yankee and Griffin, were in favor of it, so I'm not sure you could've gotten something to pass without including some form of party-based selections.

Again, I'm not the biggest fan of including party registration (not the biggest opponent either) but it really could be a LOT worse. Which, is kind of a lame defense ("hey, it could be worse...") but it's equally extreme to call this the worst Senate in Atlasian history. That's a very harsh label, and I'm not sure what you're basing it on--outside of the fact that according to you Atlasia as it is needs to be burned in a massive fire (or something like, I forgot the A New Start platform given that it lasted about as long as the lifespan of a fly).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

It appears the Senate became malcontents favorite beating boy, even though we are literally the only branch of federal government doing something.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Oh my, the Naysay Caucus is in full force...

What you are really going to end up with is a group of partisans chosen by members of their parties basically representing their own parties.

If Senators are "partisans," then aren't regular citizens also? I mean, most of us are in political parties, and as Truman alluded to, most regular citizens are MORE likely to put party affiliation as the main thing than Senators are.

(don't forget that the current senate is 7-3 right-wingers)

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You're technically right, but the premise is way off. People who aren't members of major parties can run for one of the 15 non-Senate seats, too.[/quote]
no, no. they can only run for one of those 15 seats and are entirely excluded from the rest.

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regional governments could do that too, and without destroying all semblance of balance, as the senate will.

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load your rage cannon, then. this concon is going to end up with the senate giving itself more and more powers, just you wait and see.

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isn't the whole point of this to increase activity? how are we gonna do that if we basically restrict it to people who are already active?

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[/quote]

That is a bit odd, honestly, but it's better than having party leadership make the picks, right? Lots of people, including both Yankee and Griffin, were in favor of it, so I'm not sure you could've gotten something to pass without including some form of party-based selections.

Again, I'm not the biggest fan of including party registration (not the biggest opponent either) but it really could be a LOT worse. Which, is kind of a lame defense ("hey, it could be worse...")[/quote]
could've been lightyears better, too. a good constitutional convention would have been the one chance to reinvigorate this game. well, besides secession, but y'know

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this is a senate that has done more than anyone else to make atlasia fossilised and inactive. remember the witch hunt against averroës nix?

It appears the Senate became malcontents favorite beating boy, even though we are literally the only branch of federal government doing something.

doing nothing is better than actively making everything worse tbqh

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

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regional governments could do that too, and without destroying all semblance of balance, as the senate will.

Letting the Regions select all 25 delegates is not "balance"; to the contrary, it would be hard to conceive of a system that does a worse job balancing federal and regional influence.

this is a senate that has done more than anyone else to make atlasia fossilised and inactive.

As my colleague, Senator Kalwejt, has pointed out, the Senate is literally the only branch of the federal government that is actually doing something. Unlike our president, who threw in the towel when the going got tough and has been rarely heard from since, the Senate has been actively doing everything in its power to remedy the current crisis. Revolutions don't happen in a day, but at least we're trying to make things better. It would be nice if the reactionaries would actually do something to help, instead of hurling complaints from the peanut gallery.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

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regional governments could do that too, and without destroying all semblance of balance, as the senate will.

Letting the Regions select all 25 delegates is not "balance"; to the contrary, it would be hard to conceive of a system that does a worse job balancing federal and regional influence.

the relevant kind of balance here is being balanced with the people's interests, which the senate's blatant power grab decidedly is not.

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As my colleague, Senator Kalwejt, has pointed out, the Senate is literally the only branch of the federal government that is actually doing something. Unlike our president, who threw in the towel when the going got tough and has been rarely heard from since, the Senate has been actively doing everything in its power to remedy the current crisis. Revolutions don't happen in a day, but at least we're trying to make things better. It would be nice if the reactionaries would actually do something to help, instead of hurling complaints from the peanut gallery.
[/quote]

and as i pointed out, doing nothing is much, much better than actively making everything worse

(and if you're accusing me of hurling complaints without actually doing anything, then you need to move out from under your rock tbqh)

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

also - with cinci's declaration, the northeast currently has more delegate candidates than all other regions combined.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

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regional governments could do that too, and without destroying all semblance of balance, as the senate will.

Letting the Regions select all 25 delegates is not "balance"; to the contrary, it would be hard to conceive of a system that does a worse job balancing federal and regional influence.

the relevant kind of balance here is being balanced with the people's interests, which the senate's blatant power grab decidedly is not.

I don't buy the argument that letting the Regional governments select all 25 delegates is in the best interests of the people. Saying that this is a "power grab" is inaccurate and uncalled for; you'll notice that no-one in the Senate is accusing you of a "power grab" for initiating the Independence Referendum.

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As my colleague, Senator Kalwejt, has pointed out, the Senate is literally the only branch of the federal government that is actually doing something. Unlike our president, who threw in the towel when the going got tough and has been rarely heard from since, the Senate has been actively doing everything in its power to remedy the current crisis. Revolutions don't happen in a day, but at least we're trying to make things better. It would be nice if the reactionaries would actually do something to help, instead of hurling complaints from the peanut gallery.

and as i pointed out, doing nothing is much, much better than actively making everything worse

(and if you're accusing me of hurling complaints without actually doing anything, then you need to move out from under your rock tbqh)
[/quote]
No, the comment about those who complain and do nothing was not directed towards you; to the contrary, I quite respect your service in the Northeast Assembly, even if I disagree with you on certain issues.

That said, I fail to see how the Senate has been "making everything worse." In the past three months, the Senate has been the most vocal institution calling for game reform, paved the way for the Con-Con by passing the Cris-Rpryor Amendment (though the success of the petition made it unnecessary), consolidated the cabinet to make it less top-heavy, prompted the president to actually fill said cabinet (with partial success), ousted a power-hungry Attorney General bent on prosecuting citizens for imaginary crimes, and generally prevented the collapse of the national government. Problems remain, but that's a much better report card than any other national institution can claim.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Saying that this is a "power grab" is inaccurate and uncalled for; you'll notice that no-one in the Senate is accusing you of a "power grab" for initiating the Independence Referendum.

well, yeah…? i'm not sure how you can draw a comparison between a referendum of the entire regional population and a unilateral decision on the part of the senate to give itself more power.

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well, that's good to know, at least

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this is revisionism. the push for a con-con was running for ages before the senate decided to show up.

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may well have the opposite effect -- if people were avoiding the old positions, are they really going to be lining up for a position with twice the amount of work?

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((after actually achieving the opposite with their witch hunt against vice president nix))

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regardless of the merits of the case, it was blatantly treated as a show trial

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haha what

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

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this is revisionism. the push for a con-con was running for ages before the senate decided to show up.

Note that I never credited the Senate with starting the push for the Con-Con. However, when it appeared that the petition would be a failure, the Senate stepped forward to propose an alternative path to call one. The president, by contrast, rolled over and checked out.

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may well have the opposite effect -- if people were avoiding the old positions, are they really going to be lining up for a position with twice the amount of work?

Blair did, and Classic Conservative has stated that he would be open to holding a cabinet position as well. Keep in mind that the last two cabinet members to resign (Kalwejt and Dkrol) did so because they no longer had confidence in Bore, not because they weren't up to the work load.

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regardless of the merits of the case, it was blatantly treated as a show trial

So, whenever the Senate does something right, it's "for show" and thus further evidence of its alleged incompetence? Talk about a double standard...

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haha what

Again, the Senate is the only federal institution that has done much of anything in the past few months (unless you count the last three executive orders, two of which were issued at the Senate's request). But for the determination of senators like Cris and Kalwejt, Nyman would be as dark as the Midwest is today: devoid of life and effectively deserted.

[Leinad]

Oh my, the Naysay Caucus is in full force...

What you are really going to end up with is a group of partisans chosen by members of their parties basically representing their own parties.

If Senators are "partisans," then aren't regular citizens also? I mean, most of us are in political parties, and as Truman alluded to, most regular citizens are MORE likely to put party affiliation as the main thing than Senators are.

(don't forget that the current senate is 7-3 right-wingers)

Sure, but one of the left-of-center folk is Truman, and he seems to think the Senate has been quite bipartisan. I'd trust his judgement, I think.

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You're technically right, but the premise is way off. People who aren't members of major parties can run for one of the 15 non-Senate seats, too.[/quote]
no, no. they can only run for one of those 15 seats and are entirely excluded from the rest.
[/quote]

Well, do you think that less than 5 Senators deserve be in the Convention? Sure, they could get elected in other ways, but it makes some sense to give 5 delegates to just Senators, to make sure that people who have already been democratically elected to the highest legislative body in the land can have a say, and give 5 more as a check to make sure that no one slips through the cracks when it comes to the voters.

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regional governments could do that too, and without destroying all semblance of balance, as the senate will.
[/quote]

You're right in that regional governments could do that too, but I'm not sure how the Senate destroys balance.

Regional balance maybe? I guess I see your point, but I'm not sure if that matters. If there's one extra person in region A that would be better than someone in region B, the better candidate deserves to go. Each region will get representation, adhering to a strict regional quota doesn't sound like the best idea.

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load your rage cannon, then. this concon is going to end up with the senate giving itself more and more powers, just you wait and see.
[/quote]

We'll see, and I'll try to make sure there's a good balance at the end. I hate the idea of anyone--President, Senate, or Regions--having unchecked powers. If you remember me from the Provisional Parliament in South America you know I'm not one to go along with something without making sure it's the best course of action--I look at things skeptically as much as I can, and thus will oppose any power-grabbing schemes by the Senate.

The fact is that we have no clue what the Senate will do. At all. But I think about Cris, Truman, Kalwejt, my Federalist pals, and everyone else in the body--and I don't really think "devious power grab."

As I previously alluded to, the rage cannon is ready if I'm wrong.

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isn't the whole point of this to increase activity? how are we gonna do that if we basically restrict it to people who are already active?
[/quote]

The point is to fix Atlasia so activity will be increased from this point forward. We can't fix Atlasia if we entrust zombie voters who don't really know what's going on to be delegates, especially if we leave out people who do deserve to be here.

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[/quote]

That is a bit odd, honestly, but it's better than having party leadership make the picks, right? Lots of people, including both Yankee and Griffin, were in favor of it, so I'm not sure you could've gotten something to pass without including some form of party-based selections.

Again, I'm not the biggest fan of including party registration (not the biggest opponent either) but it really could be a LOT worse. Which, is kind of a lame defense ("hey, it could be worse...")[/quote]
could've been lightyears better, too. a good constitutional convention would have been the one chance to reinvigorate this game. well, besides secession, but y'know
[/quote]

I agree that a good ConCon will help this game a lot, but is that gone? Just because of the delegate selection process? Not at all! The Convention will start, and it's about what we (I'm presuming both of us will be there) do there, not what we juts did.

As some people have pointed out, it will probably be roughly the same 25 delegates chosen no matter what method we use. There is no way in the seven circles of hades I'll believe that the ConCon is dead because of an inadequate delegate selection method.

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this is a senate that has done more than anyone else to make atlasia fossilised and inactive. remember the witch hunt against averroës nix?
[/quote]

The witch hunt by Al, a member of the executive branch, against Yankee was far worse than even that.

The Senate hasn't been perfect, but they're certainly trying to do things. Senator Cris was, along with your BFF Classic Conservative, the driving force behind this Constitutional Convention.

The President, however, has been an utter failure. And that's not partisan hackery--ask Kalwejt, one of the most prominent critics of Bore, yet a member of the same party.



All in all, I think it's silly to say that the Constitutional Convention is dead because of the method of selection. If, at the ConCon, we have in-depth debate such as this, I think it will be a success.