SB 2016-004: Senate Rules and Procedures

[tmthforu94]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[tmthforu94]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Sponsor: Tmthforu94

[tmthforu94]

Hello,

Before we start discussing other topics, it is important that we have rules in place. These are essentially the rules that the old Senate had. I changed the name back to PPT since the House has Speaker. I also added in Article V quickly to add provisions to the House.

This is pretty rough - I wanted to get something out as quickly as possible so we could amend/fix it and get it passed so we can start talking about more enjoyable topics.

Please read through and give your thoughts. It is important to have participation from all six members!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Just a thought - I would suggest a title other than "PPT" for this body's leader. In Latin, "President Pro Tempore" translates as "president for the time being," which is an odd title for the permanent presiding officer of this chamber. I would recommend "Senatus Princeps" (if you want a Latin title) or simply "Presiding Senator."

[Prince of Salem]

Just a thought - I would suggest a title other than "PPT" for this body's leader. In Latin, "President Pro Tempore" translates as "president for the time being," which is an odd title for the permanent presiding officer of this chamber. I would recommend "Senatus Princeps" (if you want a Latin title) or simply "Presiding Senator."

Isn't the VP the President of the Senate already?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Just a thought - I would suggest a title other than "PPT" for this body's leader. In Latin, "President Pro Tempore" translates as "president for the time being," which is an odd title for the permanent presiding officer of this chamber. I would recommend "Senatus Princeps" (if you want a Latin title) or simply "Presiding Senator."

Isn't the VP the President of the Senate already?

The Vice President is "President of the Congress" - i.e. he is charged with coordinating the House and Senate, and with breaking ties in the latter chamber.

[tmthforu94]

Eh, from a technicality standpoint, I see where you're coming from, but PPT worked well in the past without issue. PPT is quicker to write and in my opinion, sounds better than Presiding Senator. I'd prefer keeping it as this, even though it might not be the most technical.

Besides, isn't everything in life "temporary"?

[tmthforu94]

An amendment:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Blair]

I object;

This bill would allow the sponsoring Senator to push through a bill that is amended heavily in the House, and not allow the Senate to have the debate that is needed.

[tmthforu94]

I object;

This bill would allow the sponsoring Senator to push through a bill that is amended heavily in the House, and not allow the Senate to have the debate that is needed.

I would disagree. I made sure to specify that it can only go through if it doesn't change the intent. This is just so that if the House makes small typo fixes or fixes an accidental contradiction (what we're seeing now with another bill), it doesn't have to come back over here before passage.

If you have a way you'd like to word it differently, I'm more than open to it. Nice to see another senator participating!

[Blair]

An amendment:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Small change, basically allows Senators to object but as you said if typos etc are changed the bill can still be swiftly passed

[tmthforu94]

That is fine - I'll consider it a friendly.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'm pretty sure Section 4 is unconstitutional.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This clause does not give the "original house" (in this case, the Senate) the option to forgo a second vote if the bill is amended by the other house (in this case, the House of Reps).

[tmthforu94]

Well, I don't agree with that provision of the constitution - that'll be addressed at a later time.

I withdraw that Article VI, Section 4 from the bill.

[tmthforu94]

We will now have a final vote on SB 2016-004. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.


Aye

[Goldwater]

AYE

[Prince of Salem]

Aye

[Pingvin]

Aye

[tmthforu94]

Thank you to the other three senators who voted quickly.

The rules have been adopted. I will begin discussion on queued legislation later today.

[Blair]

Aye

[tmthforu94]

Rather than create a new thread, I'm bumping this up.

Some of these rules are pointless and makes the process more confusing, and rather than ignore them, I'd rather just get rid of them so I can sleep peacefully at night, knowing I'm not breaking any rules of the Atlasian Senate Rules & Procedures.

I'll be working on this section by section. Once I finish it all, I'll propose it as a new bill and we can debate/vote. At this point, anyone who'd like to help (Scott mentioned he would be interested) is welcome, though I'm fully prepared to expect that a lot of this thread will be me talking to myself for a couple of weeks. My goal is to get this passed by the end of the session.

[tmthforu94]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

---to be continued---

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I'm going to stay as involved with this as I can.  Some general ideas we should consider:

- Do we want to revert to the old Senate procedure on amendments (i.e. no automatic adoption of amendments, sponsor deems them friendly or unfriendly, friendly amendments can be objected to, unfriendly ones go straight to a vote)?

- Should a bill be allowed to have multiple sponsors in the same house?  If we adopt the old Amendment rules, how should this affect the amendment process?

- Should all bills be required to have one sponsor in each house for consideration?

- Should we allow members of the Senate to call for a final vote (decided by a simple majority) to end (or extend) debate?

There are probably more topics we can think of later, but these are some we should put on the table.

[tmthforu94]

I'm going to stay as involved with this as I can.  Some general ideas we should consider:

- Do we want to revert to the old Senate procedure on amendments (i.e. no automatic option of amendments, sponsor deems them friendly or unfriendly, friendly amendments can be objected to, unfriendly ones go straight to a vote)?

I'll be honest and say I didn't read that part thoroughly, as that is how I've usually been handling things, so I'd support that.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I think this can get unnecessary and confusing. I'd also like to remove the requirement that requires a sponsor in each House - if a bill is popular enough to pass in one, I'm sure at least one person in the other House is supportive of it. It has been unnecessary these past two sessions and something I'd like to remove.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I've always considered that under the motion to suspend rules. If senators want to suspend rules, we could proceed straight to a final vote. I think the best would be requiring someone to make the motion and second, then we could proceed to a final vote lasting a minimum of (insert number here) hours, to which if someone did object, the vote would stop and debate would resume. Allows for quick passage but also a safeguard to prevent one side from pushing things through.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

- Should a bill be allowed to have multiple sponsors in the same house?  If we adopt the old Amendment rules, how should this affect the amendment process?

Theoretically speaking, you would need to have a primary or main sponsor would make decisions regarding the amendments, with all co-sponsors just being a formality. Otherwise it would get chaotic.

Tmth is right though, plus at points the number of bills might dip for a variety of reasons and thus refusing bills from another house on grounds of lack of sponsorship in the other one, would be counterproductive.