FE3: Second Fremont Constitution (Passed)

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

My thanks to Speaker 1184AZ for bringing this bill swiftly to the floor.

I do not exaggerate when I say that this proposed Second Constitution is the single most important measure that will be brought before you, perhaps the most important measure ever considered by the Assembly from the conception of our region to the present. As I have said before, so I will say again: our present Constitution is a disaster. To give you an idea of just how bad the current Constitution is, here is but a sampling of its flaws:

          • Refers to the region alternatively as "Fremont," "the West," and "the Western Region"
          • Ascribes constitutional responsibilities to an office (the "CJO") that does not exist
          • Requires Constitutional amendments be ratified by a majority of voters in the Northeast Region
          • Mandates gubernatorial elections be held in March, June, and September (as result, summer governors serve 2 months and fall governors 6 months)

Having reviewed this charter in detail and discussed the matter with several others, including the Speaker, Legislator Simossad, the Emergency Commissioner, and members of the cabinet, I have come to the conclusion that the present Constitution cannot be saved. Any attempt to amend it, while leaving the whole intact, would be a fruitless waste of this body's time. It is essential that we start fresh, and for that reason I have taken the liberty of proposing this first draft of the Second Constitution of Fremont.

This proposal is based on the highly successful Constitution of the Northern Region, of which I was the primary author. I encourage every legislator to read it article by article, line by line, so that any errors may be corrected, but here is a general list of the changes this bill would make to our current system of government.


(1) The office of governor will be replaced by a directly elected Prime Minister, who in addition to his executive duties would be a member of the legislature ("House of Commons"). The powers of the Prime Minister are largely unchanged from those of the governor, with two important differences: the Prime Minister will be allowed a vote in the House of Commons, but will not be able to veto unfavorable legislation (he will, however, be able to call a referendum on any bill passed by the Commons). Elections for Prime Minister will be held in February, June, and October.

(2) The legislature is reorganized as the House of Commons. Members of the Commons will be elected every two months, in February, April, June, August, October, and December. If five or more candidates are running, four Members will be elected; if fewer than five are running, two will be elected.

(3) The Bill of Rights is expanded to include the basic freedoms of citizenship.

(4) A "crisis-proof" line of succession. In the absence of the Prime Minister, the powers of that office pass to the Speaker of the Commons, and then to the most senior Member of the Commons. If no Member of the Commons is eligible to become Prime Minister, or if all seats in the House of Commons are vacant, then the President of Atlasia shall appoint an Interim Prime Minister to serve until a special election may be called. This crisis-proofing also extends to the administration of elections. The Prime Minister is the official elections officer of the region; if he is temporarily absent, then the powers of that office proceed along the line of succession, with the President being empowered to appoint a replacement if nobody can or will do the job. Had these provisions been in place two weeks ago, Congress would have never had to pass ROFA in the first place.

(5) Members of the Commons who neglect their duties may be removed from office by a 3/4 vote of their peers. Additionally, whenever 1/10* of the citizens sign a petition to recall any officer of the regional government, a special referendum will be held on whether to remove that person from office. This makes it much easier to remove inactive officials from office without having to resort to Congressional action.

*NOTE: Article III, Section 1 should read "signed by one tenth of the total population of the commonwealth," but I made a mistake and wrote "one fifth" by accident. AZ, could you edit the OP to make this change?


None of these proposed changes are idle; each and every sentence in this bill has been written and re-written at least three times and says what it does for a reason. This is especially true of the decision to replace the governor-legislature system currently in use with a semi-parliamentary model based on that used by Israel between 1996 and 2001. Two problems with the current system prompted this change. First, one of the difficulties of reviving inactive regions is that electing an active governor means having one less active citizen debating and voting on bills in the legislature. By giving the Prime Minister a vote in the Commons, we remove this problem by allowing the executive to do double duty as a legislator. Second, adopting a parliamentary system gives Fremont a unique culture that can be used to recruit new players. Posters have been talking about starting a mock parliament on the Atlas for years - it nearly happened last summer. By adopting a one-of-a-ind Constitution, we give new citizens a region to pick Fremont over the North and South.

I would be happy to answer any questions the Assembly may have, and will suggest amendments if they think it appropriate. Let's get this done!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

This is one of the worst restrictions one could come up with in a region that wants to activate new players. The only time this game is interesting for both registered players without an elected office and outsiders who consider joining the game is campaign time. Take me for example, I was motivated to join the game during an election season, and I was almost immediately allowed to cast my ballot. That motivated me. Someone who has been active in this game for a long time might not be able to see it, but I can confirm that two weeks are way too long. You can't tell me that someone who gets enthusiastic about this game during an election season stays enthusiastic about the game for two whole months without even having the opportunity to get involved otherwise in our region. This is nonsense.

Thanks for the feedback, legislator! After reading your post, I am forced to agree that the suffrage restrictions in the current version of V.1 are far too harsh and could negatively impact citizen participation in the democratic process. I do feel that there should be some standard for how long a citizen must live here before they can vote in our elections; otherwise, you have a situation where party operatives are hopping across the regional line during the election to swing the vote in their favor. This is not an idle concern: so-called "strategic registration" has been a persistent problem in Atlasia for years, and the last Class I Senatorial elections saw several voters cast ballots in one region, then moved a few states over and voted in a second region's elections. I don't want our elections to be susceptible to that kind of undemocratic manipulation, but I agree that a two week waiting period is much too long. Would you support an amendment lowering the threshold in V.1 to three days (72 hours)? That would make it far easier for new citizens to participate in the political process while ensuring that party bosses can't steal our elections by abusing electoral law.

Thus, the size of the house needs to be flexible, and the House has to give opportunities to as many people as possible.

Good point. Perhaps we could amend I.3 to read:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

In laymen's terms:

2 candidates   -->   2 Members
3 candidates   -->   2 Members
4 candidates   -->   3 Members
5 candidates   -->   4 Members
6 candidates   -->   5 Members
7 candidates   -->   5 Members
8 candidates   -->   6 Members
9 candidates   -->   7 Members
(and so on)

This would allow the Commons to expand to meet rising demand, while avoiding a situation where 4/5 of the seats on the legislature cannot be filled (this has happened in other regions).

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I offer the following amendment:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]


Regarding possible methods for breaking ties in the House of Commons: III.2 currently states that when the Commons is equally divided on a measure, the Prime Minister may refer it to the people in the form of a referendum. I prefer this method to allowing the Prime Minister to personally cast the tie-breaking vote, as he is already a voting member of the Commons per I.1 and thus designating him as tiebreaker would effectively give him two votes.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I don't support establishing the capital in the text of the Constitution, and certainly not in the Preamble. I also question inserting official languages into the Bill of Rights; that seems like something better suited for Article I (along the lines of "all acts of legislation and other official documents of this commonwealth shall be made available to the public in both English and Spanish").

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

As one of the people involved in it's creation, I feel the need to apologize about the completely screwed up state of the old (I guess technically still current?) Fremont Constitution. There was a lot of text, and I just completely misread some things, such as the months of the Gubernatorial elections.

In fairness, I misread that part the first three or four times I read it, too. It wasn't until I started making maps for the past elections and wondered "hey, shouldn't there have been an election in November?" that I realized a mistake had been made.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

As the amendment has failed to get a majority of support, it fails. I will extend debate for 24 more hours before a final vote.

My amendment was adopted, correct?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I request that the voting period be extended another 24 hours to allow Legislators Simossad and RFayette to cast their votes.