Talk Elections

I would like to propose the first matter of discussion be a concrete agreement on the number of regions that will exist in the new Constitution.

A thread will be opened soon.
Delegates can continue to propose matters of discussion, but I prefer to not face all these matters at the same time. It would be chaotic.

I would like to open a thread about the diplomatic relations with the other political simulation.

Seconded.

I'd like to have a thread on a "blank slate" clause that would wipe out all current legislation - the fabled legislative reboot.

Seconded

What do you mean?
Are you referring to the legislative system (the Senate, its composition)?

I wish to propose a thread wherein it is confirmed that Atlasia has a clear separation of church and state.

The purpose of this would be to ensure that religious beliefs are protected under the constitution. 

I'd like to have a thread that guarantees that the Atlasian Constitution is above all foreign charters, treaties and agreements.

To avoid cluttering the convention with two dozen or so threads dealing with minute details of the Constitution, I would propose opening five main "mega-threads" on the following subjects:

1. The Regions (consolidation, devolution, powers held by the Regions vs. the feds, etc.) NOTE: ALREADY CREATED
2. The Bill of Rights (rights held by citizens, powers denied to the government)
3. Plan of Government (structure, size, and powers of the federal government)
4. Elections (regulations and methods for electing the federal government)
5. Transition (transferring power from the new government to the old, possibility of a reboot, etc.)

Once a rough draft has been agreed to, I would also suggest appointing a "Committee on Style" to put it all together into a concise, logical document.

Seconded.

No. We wipe all laws passed from the books.

So regional laws also?

If we are going to do this, I believe it would be a good idea to have both federal and regional laws wiped off the books, since there are so many stupid laws now on the books.

There are as well, of course, some very good laws, but some really stupid, stupid ones as well.

With a clean slate, that would enable the federal and regional governments to begin afresh with laws for the good of the people of the nation. 

Along this line, I would like to see, if possible, a law on the books banning stupid, ridiculous, trivial laws from being introduced or passed.   

I would like to propose a thread where we discuss the ban on holding offices in other nations.

As Oakvale pointed out, this is actually in the Constitution (Article I, Section 6). That's not a good thing, because (as myself and others have explained ad nauseum--I suppose I could rehash it if need be) it's a destructive policy to both us and our friends to the south.


I suppose this isn't the place for debate, but I can't help asking: how on earth would you objectively determine what's stupid, ridiculous, or trivial?

I started various threads on the following matters:

- Structure and size of the Senate;
- Structure, size and powers of Presidency and Vice Presidency;
- Powers of fed. govt (Senate) and reg. govts;
- Federal elections (President, Senate);
- Number of regions and regional governments;
- Diplomatic relationships with other countries;
- Wiping current laws.

I don't want to overloop a lot of matters, so threads about ban of holding offices and separation of Church and State will be opened in the next days, not now. I hope you'll understand.

Other matters that are inserted in the Constitution and that might be discussed soon (if delegates want):

- Separation of Church and State and generally people's rights;
- Ban of holding offices in other nations;
- Structure, size and powers of Cabinet;
- Structure, size and powers of Court;
- New Constitutional Convention;
- Candidacy and Office Holding Rules;
- Voter Registration and Voting Rules;
- Other things.

I think we need to implement some sort of self-imposed maximum number of discussions that are on the floor at any given time. There are currently 7.

Good ideas.

Here's another proposal: the rules regarding Presidential Pardons. I recently used the citizen initiative thing in an attempt to slightly reform the pardon system, but it didn't work in the Senate, somehow.

I deleted the federal elections thread and I insterted the Senate elections part on the Senate thread and the Presidential elections part on the Presidential thread.

Mr. President and fellow Delegates:

While I heartily commend Cris for his thus-far phenomenal performance as Presiding Officer of this Convention, I must object to the current direction - or rather structure- of the ongoing debates. We have made the mistake of tying ourselves too closely to the model and text of the existing Constitution, with the result that debate has become chaotic and proposed reforms mired in the inadequacies of the status quo. I have attempted, over the last few days, to remedy this situation by proposing amendments to scrap each Article of the current Constitution individually; however, it has become evident that this approach is inadequate. I therefore propose the following resolution:

I think that wiping the existing text is the right thing to do, it's only that we divided the debate on Article I into 2 threads (one for structure, size and elections of Senate and the other for powers of Senate and regions).

I think we can wipe all Article I and then rephrase it. It's only that we should respect the current formulation.

That's my proposal:

- Thread on Structure, size and elections of Senate: wipe and rephrase Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 of Article I.
- Thread on powers of Senate and regions: wipe and rephrase Sections 5, 6 of Article I. Also we might wipe Section 7 and create another Article interely focused on powers denied to the regions, instead of keeping it in Article I (there's not a real link). Also we might insert Section I of Article VII (about Amendments, that's a Senate thing) in Article I in place of Section 7.

What do you think?

I'm fine with this, but I still think it would be best if we agreed to erase the existing Constitution entirely before going any further.

I strongly agree with Truman here.

I think we should have one debate on the structure of atlasia because these things aren't really separable. I might support having no VP if there is a large cabinet and large senate but support having one if there's a small cabinet and small senate, say.

So I think we should have one large debate on the number of regions, the number of offices in those regions, how the supreme court cabinet and senate work in terms of numbers and, once that is voted on and decided we can focus on the nitty gritty.

As of now, the current Constitution articles are under discussion:

- Article I (Senate and its powers, powers denied to regions: Sections 1, 2, 3, 4 being discussed in a thread; Sections 5, 6, 7 in another thread)
- Article II (Presidency, VP: all Sections in one thread)
- Article IV (Regions: all Sections in one thread)
- Article VII (only Section 1 about Amendment Procedure: being discussed in Senate powers thread, along with Sections 5, 6, 7 of Article I)

Not being discussed right now:

- Article III (Supreme Court and Trials)
- Article V (Candidacy/Office Holding Rules and Voter Registration/Voting rules)
- Article VI (Ethical issues)
- Section 2 of Article VII (New Convention, already changed by the Senate some weeks ago)
- Article VIII (Continuity of Government and Citizenship and Miscellaneous Carry-overs)

Also there are various amendments to the Constitution (about Cabinet for example).

You can find all here: https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Third_Constitution_(single_page)

Does a mechanism for the removal or recall of pre-existing delegates exist???

I would like to reiterate once again the absolute necessity of clarifying that we are drafting a NEW Constitution, not amending the existing document. The current process of offering amendments to the current text is confusing and counterproductive, tying the Convention to what all acknowledge to be a failed charter of government.

     I think the judiciary should be the next topic to bring up, considering that its structure has been a fairly contentious matter as of late.

Here is my proposal.

If we have 3 regions-

1 Judge appointed by each region to deal with regional laws. Together they also convene to form a Supreme Court to deal with federal matters. The most senior of them is Chief Justice.

If we have 2 regions-

Same setup as above, except the 3rd justice is the Chief Justice and appointed by the President with consent of the Senate.

This is a really good idea, you're on a roll!

You're really good at this Talleyrand, you have great ideas if a seat came open I'd support you getting it.

Yeah, I have to admit, Talleyrand's been doing well this ConCon, even though he isn't a delegate.

We are already wiping the content of current Constitution articles. So we are re-writing the articles.
I think we should keep a minimum the current structure (Article I about Senate, Article II about Presidency/VP, Article III about regions).
About Article I: there are sections of Article I (regional rights) that have nothing to do with the Senate, and so we might insert that section in Article III (that's already about regions).

About the Cabinet: there isn't a Constitution article about Cabinet, but there are only amendments about it. So we might create another article about that.
But let's start with determine the number of regions and regional rights.

A sensible approach. Thanks for the clarification!

In order to keep the Convention from going on forever, I would suggest that in the future we agree on a basic rough draft for each Article before proposing an official amendment. Rather than proposing five virtually identical amendments all dealing with the same issue, delegates would submit proposals/questions that the Convention would then vote on. In the event of competing proposals, a STV election would be held.


Once this rough draft is complete, the Convention would then appoint a "Committee on Style" to draft the final text.

Thoughts?

Why on earth would "0" and "5" not be options in such a vote?

To make sure that none of this crap happens again like what's happened in the Midwest and now the Pacific meaning that the Governor nor the Legislature have the right to get rid of their positions or form another position without the advice and consent of the other.

Number of offices people could hold

There should be a "current text" thread, where all of the adopted elements of the ConCon thus far are displayed. If we wait until the end to begin assembling all of these pieces scattered across dozens of pages, then it's going to be a lot more difficult and there will be more chances for errors/omissions/etc. Perhaps it could go in the Journal of the ConCon thread, with either the P.O. or rpryor providing the updates (I'd recommend just containing them all to one post and editing it as necessary).

I can't remember if this is listed under any of the current threads we have, but I think we should reduce the number of posts that people have to make before registering in this section of the site - possibly five or ten - to allow more people to join the game easily.

How about our military? :)

This.

Possibly allowing the CJO/Governor of each region to maintain an electoral register for their region.

People have been talking about whether regions can be trusted over certain things and this issue of regional activity. I think we should look at having a clause that if a region becomes inactive that it falls under direct rule, until the inactivity issue is sorted - this would prevent having a one person legislature (for example).

This is an interesting idea. The U.S. Constitution has a clause that guarantees every state a "republican" form of government; perhaps we could tack this proposal on to the end of such.