Government Proposal Discussion: Parliamentary Universalism (Closed)

[Purple State]

This thread is for the discussion of ideas relating to the Parliamentary Universalism proposal for the new government.

Basic Characteristics
All citizens shall be the members of a Lower House of the Legislature
There shall be an elected Upper House

Discussion shall last no less than 48 hours and no more than 240 hours (10 days) unless there is continued and productive discussion.

At the conclusion of debate there will be a vote in a separate thread to choose which models of government shall be pursued by the Convention. Please visit the other Government Proposal Discussion threads and comment on those as well.

[Purple State]

I would rather have a more limited lower house. Maybe all elected officials from the regions (and limit it to 5 max so that no region gains an advantage). That way those positions are worth more, will be more competitive, but you do have a pretty large lower house.

[Purple State]

I would rather have a more limited lower house. Maybe all elected officials from the regions (and limit it to 5 max so that no region gains an advantage). That way those positions are worth more, will be more competitive, but you do have a pretty large lower house.

Elected officials, federal and regional? Or just regional?

I feel that cabinet members should be either in the Senate or Lower House and they should be responsible to both chambers.

Regional only. Otherwise federal officials get two votes. And I don't think the President should have the ability to appoint people to vote his way. Undermining the system.

[Purple State]

Eh, I'm still not sold on the idea of changing the game from an election sim to a government sim.

Why not?  It's an election sim now, and it's clearly not working.  There's no incentive to want to get elected.

I agree. Government sims allow for more participation and involvement. Election sims are reliant upon frequent and exciting elections. Not to mention it requires no other participation and leads to floods of zombie voters every few months.

[Purple State]

I would rather have a more limited lower house. Maybe all elected officials from the regions (and limit it to 5 max so that no region gains an advantage). That way those positions are worth more, will be more competitive, but you do have a pretty large lower house.

Elected officials, federal and regional? Or just regional?

I feel that cabinet members should be either in the Senate or Lower House and they should be responsible to both chambers.

Regional only. Otherwise federal officials get two votes. And I don't think the President should have the ability to appoint people to vote his way. Undermining the system.

I disagree. If you insist on a limited lower house, I believe its members should be elected by STV in each region or constituency. But I remain opposed to a limited lower house, for Smid's regions.

I think hainge 30 or so seats of actual consequence should be enough to get a good system flowing. Especially considering we can barely fill that many positions currently, likely because most of those regional roles are so weak. I feel like just placing everyone in a position of power disincentivizes competition and the need to participate.

And we can't allow members of the upper house to also be elected to the lower house. While I believe in dual office holding for the current system, it is because they are isolated. With this system they would both relate, giving an extra vote for members of both houses.

[Purple State]

On a side note: I don't think you will necessarily get rid of regions, even if you don't set them up in the Constitution. States could always elect to setup their own regional structures.

But to address the model, I don't have anything inherently against this model. I just think it could become a little unwieldy. It also has so much more potential than you're giving it. Sure it can be the same balance of election sim we have now (16) while greatly expanding the government sim (all), but why not expand its election sim explosively (31) and also expand the government sim nearly two-fold (31). The math of it makes sense to have a limited lower house.

[Purple State]

On a side note: I don't think you will necessarily get rid of regions, even if you don't set them up in the Constitution. States could always elect to setup their own regional structures.

But to address the model, I don't have anything inherently against this model. I just think it could become a little unwieldy. It also has so much more potential than you're giving it. Sure it can be the same balance of election sim we have now (16) while greatly expanding the government sim (all), but why not expand its election sim explosively (31) and also expand the government sim nearly two-fold (31). The math of it makes sense to have a limited lower house.

I'd prefer to increase the size of the Upper House if the level of activity warrants it, rather than increasing the number of elected positions by limiting the capacity of unelected members to participate. Although I'd prefer to keep the Upper House restricted to about 1/3rd of total registrations (ie a half of the size of the Lower House).

As soon as we have some people who are unable to take part in the governance, all they'll do is show up to vote. If they can only vote, they will only vote. We'll still be moaning about zombie voters in a year's time.

I therefore believe that a universal system is the best way to combat inactivity, and if we adopt a universal system, we need to differentiate between elected roles and unelected roles which suggests a bicameral system.

If we have a bicameral system in which everyone can participate, then the President should not be able to over-ride the majority and shouldn't have the power of veto. If we're going to constrain the role of the President, we're better off adopting a parliamentary system with a Prime Minister instead of a President.

The problem is some of these people don't want to participate in discussions either way. I mean look at the near zero non-delegate activity in this Convention. Look at the low delegate activity here. Just because you hand someone a position, no matter how influential, doesn't translate into activity.

What we need to do is ensure that the active people have roles. My only gripe with the larger bodies I am proposing is that competition for these races will be close to none. More effort will go into counting votes than to getting elected. Which perhaps is its own argument for your proposal: a limited number of higher positions with no competition for lower ones.

I do think this is viable and I have a number ideas for proposal when we get under way. One I just thought of is no quorum requirements for the lower house. Another would be combining this with Bicameral Nonparliamentarian, where both houses can push its own agenda and compromise through conferences.

[Purple State]

Or possibly the creation of committees in the lower house that must pass legislation through first, which get unlimited discussion. Once it passes to the entire house it becomes 1 comment per person.