Talk Elections

Most of you will be reading this because I dragged you in, kicking and screaming, with my PM blitz. For those who just stopped by, I thank you.

The Convention is all but dead. We haven't reached a quorum in weeks, even when on the verge of adding the last piece to one of the proposals. In addition, public sentiment has changed and few wish to see any drift towards a parliamentarian style of government, a mistake on our part. So what do we do?

We cannot let this Convention go to waste, especially when real reform is needed. What we need to do is work to create a set of amendments for the current Constitution, small tweaks rather than overarching change. And when I think about it, this is for the best. The issue with this game has never been that the framework, the house, is unstable or poorly built; rather, it is that the interior is aging, the paint peeling. The solution is not to knock the whole house down. All we need to do is apply a fresh coat of paint, replace some of the broken furniture.

That's what this thread is for. I do not ask for small amendments that tweak a line or two. Bring proposals here that include a series of amendments, changes that interact with one another, have a common flow and have a goal that you wish to bring about through those reforms. I will post my ideas and a short explanation later in the day, similar to my Constitutional Revampification Amendment proposed to the Senate. Use that as an example of what sort of things should be proposed: wide ranging change with a goal in mind.

I would like to see a decent number of proposals and please revisit this thread often to throw in your input on whatever is presented. We need input, from everyone, to find the right mix.

Damn right. But it was needed ;D

I am in agreement broadly, I think we should set about looking at each part of the constitution in turn (through remembering it works as a whole) and suggesting changes and improvements.

*Gives one-man standing ovation*

*Cough*... Anyway, I like your proposal. However, regional reform is very important. If you have any good ideas for regional reform, I will push for them in the Midwest.

     I already have an amendment prepared to create a Southeastern Regional Legislature. It came about too late for the June vote, but it just needs a few more tweaks before it is seaworthy.

Similar to your Constitutional Revampification Amendment? Please, not that thing again.

I oppose any attempts to force more boring, uncompetitive regional elections on people, but otherwise I agree with PS' basic points.

I like the feedback, but what would you propose? Especially you Marokai. You publicly condemn and scorn my ideas, yet you propose nothing but petty tweaks. Show me something real we can work on. Even just outline a vision and I would be happy to write up a series of amendments we could work on.

The last thing I propose is a unilateral motion to push my personal agenda. I want to work with you and as many others as I can on this, but I have no idea what your vision of reform is.

If the regions were reformed, people would be more engaged. What would be primaries like a mere week before the general election in the South and Pacific, so there are still good elections despite the lack of competitiveness in a general election.

This falls on the parties. They should accept, or even encourage primaries for the good of the game.

* Abolish regional Senate seats.
* Mandate that all powers not specifically devolved to the Regions (by appropriate legislation and/or constitutional fiat) are the responsibility of the national government.
* Have two month terms for the now all at-large seats.
* Allow for dual officeholding.
* Make the process of amendment easier.
* Allow more flexibility in the responsibilities and composition of the Cabinet.
* (Optional) Expand the size of the Senate and make it so Cabinet members most come from the Senate.

That is basically what occured in the Southeast. Had Duke started earlier and put more effort into it I am sure he could have given me a run for my money. (I still would have won though, albeit more narrowly ;) )

So this would shift power away from the regions, centralize and clean up the process to remove the inertia we generally see in Atlasia.

My biggest question is how would you plan on passing this on the regional level? Are there concessions you would be willing to make in order to give the regions a reason to vote for this?

Well, probably not, but as radical reform is no longer an option, might as well do the best we can ;)


Thankfully, the abstract concepts {region} are not voting on this; it is a decision to be made by individual Atlasians, and I hope individual Atlasians are sensible enough to, at the very least, see the complete inactivity of the regional elections.  Now, as to whether the individual voters of, say, the, quote, "Dirty South" Region would support this, I don't know.  But my views are so constantly censured that I have to presume my ideas are wildly out of the mainstream, so I'd support voting on each one one-by-one.

Here's an idea I've been mulling over for awhile.

We have a 12 member senate composed of:

*5 regional senators.
*3 senators representing districts, which would be redrawn every x amount of time and have a mandate of roughly equal partisan ID in each of the districts.
*4 at-large seats.

They would have six month terms, but there would be an election every two months.

Just a thought anyway.

I would like to try regional reform first and see if a Mideast-style region would produce more activity, or if the Mideast is just unusual.

Districts were a terrible idea (as I recall, all the reasons people are using now to attack regional seats were used against them), but just having regional seats has proved to be no better.


You know as well as I that if they didn't end up working out they would still be kept, as the motivation for reform will have died out.

Besides, I proposed having the Midwest be run more like a parliamentary/legislative system a year or two ago, and it didn't get off the ground.  The Midwest (and, I would argue, all the regions, but the Midwest is still the smallest I think?) is likely too small to sustain a 3-member legislature, but a two-member legislature is just silly when we have a "Governor" and "Lieutenant Governor" already.

You know as well as I that the abstract region matters quite a bite in these circumstances. I would like to find something progressive that we can actually pass. No use in spending another two months on something that popular sentiment will thoroughly reject.

I like these ideas.

Would you be willing to try to add a legislature to the region?

GMantis is the Governor, I am Lt. Governor, so that eliminates us. However, I could see a legislature with you Jas, and perhaps dead0men or something. Of course, you won't be limited to only "serious legislation".

I would recommend eliminating the position of Lt. Gov. Has worked out fine in the Mideast thus far.

And then set up a legisature. Hmmm... good idea (though I would give up my first elected office :(, oh well, I could run for the assembly if it were to ever happen).

Like I said, we hardly have enough people in the Midwest to sustain the two positions we have, let alone add three more.


No, I agree that issues of regionalism will make a matter to the outcome.  I'm just saying that your statement seems to question whether regions will endorse this plan, whereas I was saying that it doesn't matter whether "regions" endorse this plan, but whether the citizens of each region think it's a good idea.

The problem is, maintaining regional activity, even with a legislature, is difficult. Only so much legislation can be thought of and passed. This is the major difficulty I foresee.

Yeah, we are probably the only region too small to sustain a legislature. The Pacific and South probably could, and the Northeast might be able to.

What other ideas are out there? How can we make ilv.'s ideas viable when it comes to a national referendum?

Maybe. I would like to find a compromise so regions are still represented in some way.


I think the current situation is fine. It wouldn't pass the Dirty South, and Bgwah might use his influence in the Pacific to halt it there.


;D


Depends on what the other reforms are.


:-\ Maybe


;D

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=92890.0

lol

I certainly support the regions' right to exist and govern themselves to an extent...but I also think that eliminating regional Senate seats might be worth considering.

Obviously we can't keep the current system of regional governors. However, I would still like the regions to be represented in some way on the national level.

Absolutely no stupid districts, and optimally no uncompetitive dead regions.

What about a 10-member nationally elected Senate and a 5-member Council of Governors?

Or possibly a 5-member nationally elected Senate and a 5-member CoG. That way we maintain the same balance, but reduce the total number of seats in total. Governors do seem as redundant, less powerful/significant regional Senators.

This I could support. Provided its 10 Regionally elected Senate seats, and 5 member Council of Governors. ;D

That would be a good idea actually.

However, the CoG couldn't propose legislation, only approve of legislation that passes in the senate. This way they have more time to focus on being governors (not that they do much).

What about requiring regions to have legislatures? An active region makes the governorship much more significant.

We will see. The CoG keeps the Governors busy when the Legislatures aren't very active. I would prefer a 10 member all regional senate. A Governor, Lt Governor, 3 person legislature and 2 Senators equal 7 plus Judical officers. Thats 8 positions. Times by 5 is 40 regional officials. You add the Federal officials you are looking at 5 to 8 more. At most 48 elected officials. With 120 registered voters and almost 85 voted or would have voted(Sam Spade, ILV etc) I don't see how that isn't doable. Lets not forget people can move to other regions. It does cause a problem for my friends in the DA as 4 of there Senators(the next Senate) are in one region, but by the time this is innacted that could of course change. Every Region can support that as long as they have at least 12 to 15 members. This would also make Governors races very competative. This proposal really doesn't add any new positions except the legislature since each region has a Governor and there are now ten Senators anyway.

It also shuffles up populations without changing Regional boundaries. Don't know about the rest of you but I think I have found a plan I can finally endorse.

However I would prefer to limit the holding of multiple offices to Governors and since the CoG would be extention of that office its not really dual office holding.

Yes I know its slighly different from what Lief proposed and eliminates the National elected Senators in favor of 15 Regionally election officials, but we need to get the regions active as well, to ignore that half of the problem would not fix anything.

I will just say this. I'm interviewing Hashemite at the moment, and he has some pretty good ideas. Check the sentinel thread in 15-20 min.

That is way too many positions and you underestimated the number of federal officials (Cabinet, SC). I would prefer the following layout:

Governor, three legislators and, perhaps, a sitting JO. That is 5 positions, times 5 is 25 regional positions, with about 15 federal officials (including Cabinet, SC, etc.) is 40 total positions to fill.

Basically, by removing regional Senators and raising Governors to a higher standing, it makes the seats more competitive. This would likely result in more active and caring Governors, which could result in regional reform. This would include some sort of legislature perhaps, and hopefully the removal of such unnecessary positions as Lt. Gov. and a standing regional judiciary. I would actually propose placing all regional cases under the federal court, but regional cases would be adjudicated according to regional law and federal cases according to federal law. The fewer seats available the better the elections will be.

As I said above, the Governors shouldn't be able to propose legislation, just vote on stuff that passed the senate. This way, they have time to focus on their regions, and they still maintain their identity as more of executives instead of glorified legislators.

Yes you are right on the number of Federal officials. But as I said the only added offices are the Legislatures. Lt. Govs can be elimanted if absolutely necessary but I find them to be quite useful in some circumstances. As for the Senate I am also open to maintaining the Senate as is and creating a Council of Governors. I see how making the Governorship more competative might work by elimanating the regional senate seats. The big problem I am running into is that I am opposed to any changes in the Structure and size of the Regions. So the only way to get competative elections would be through a shuffling of the population by getting people to move around and while your plan could also lead to that I still would prefer to keep a minimum number of offices as well as having too few could result in a shutting out of newer fresher people should to many be dominated by game veterans. 


Well if you eliminate the REgional seats and then create CoG w/o the abililty to introduce legislation, I would have to oppose that on the grounds that it reduces the influence of the Regions in Gov't and I don't want to see that happen. If you keep the 10 Senator half regional/half national like now  I would support a Limited CoG(w/o the abililty to write and introduce legislation) but only in those cirmcumstances or in a the presence of a completely regional senate.

We don't need to get too complicated or harm ourselves more through reform than we help. We need to inspect the goals we want to achieve and find the right chords to strike that will reverberate through the game exactly as we want. Keep it simple. Expanding the number of offices would be harmful, as elections aren't competitive enough as it is. We need to make them more, not less.

A simple list of ideas that I support that have come up here as well as a few of my own:

1. Create a Council of Governors. It would function similarly to the Senate (details will be worked out later).

2. Eliminate Lt. Gov. and other relatively powerless offices. The speaker (or whatever you call him) of the regional assembly will function like a Lt. Gov. if the Governor is temporarily unable to hold office. Which leads me to...

3. Require a regional legislature to stimulate activity and to give newbies the ability to be involved.

4. For worst case scenarios, eg the Pacific region, have the ability to slightly change the regions. Requirements to do this will be worked out later.

5. Hold elections more regularly.

A Midwest Assembly is great on paper, but would probably be a failure in practice. It simply isn't viable with the amount of citizens in the region.

More later, I'm tired.

2 and 3 are both up to the regions to restructure themselves, but more active governors would help lead to those.

4 is less meant to break up single-party regions and more to equalize the number of citizens within each region, regardless of party, etc.

1 and 5 I fully support. Elections for the CoG can be decided by the regions (with a federal requirement that they happen at least every so often), but national Senate seats can be elected every 2 months.


Which is why we need redistricting, to make sure regions are adequately populated.

It's kind of odd that members of the RPP want to force rather strict government setups on the regions. I'd oppose this, as I believe that (if we need to keep regions) they should be able to decide how they run themselves.

At the same time, I would oppose any reform that retains regional senate seats. They are abysmal failures and even in "active" regions aren't particularly fun or interesting or competitive.

Unfortunately we're the only region I can foresee a legislature failing in. :(

However, slight changes to the regions could fix this problem.

I don't plan on forcing the regions to do anything. I simply hope creating a CoG and removing regional Senate seats would lead to certain reforms (e.g. legislatures, removing Lt.Gov.). What the regions do is ultimately up to them.

I'm opposed to a bicameral, non-universalist system; weren't a lot of objections raised to universalism because it would create too much bureaucratic nonsense?

If we persist in forcing regional Senate seats on Atlasia (even if they're called "Governors"), let's put them on equal footing with normal seats, not cripple them even more.  If regional Senate seats aren't competitive (and they aren't) then I don't think taking power away will help that any :P


So regions would be like the old districts but with a different name and more power? :P

The whole point of regions was originally to have distinct regional flavors, akin to states IRL, to contrast with districts, which would help ensure equal representation for all.  Regions with district-like shifting boundaries would essentially render regions even more carbon-copy-like than they are now.

There are many details that will be different.

How about you contribute to the discussion instead of blindly criticizing anything that isn't parliamentary universalism. Accept the political realities or get out.

We won't be crippling regional Senate seats or forcing them on Atlasia. We will be removing them altogether, thus making governor elections more competitive. And the CoG will be on equal footing with the national Senate seats.

And distinct regions is fine, but you can't have some massive regions and some almost empty. There needs to be a mechanism to make sure elections in all five regions are competitive, so that no one region falls into inactivity and uncompetitiveness because it has too few members to sustain activity.

Perhaps only allow the regions to be changed if one region falls below a certain percentage of the national population. Or maybe a flat number.

Well, on a site I was before, they were refusing registrations for overpopulated regions, so the underpopulated regions were receving more new people.

I would rather not do that. As Atlasia is fairly small we don't want a region full of newbies, that would diminish the region's influence.

Jee... thanks, Vepres ???


I'm glad you agree there is an overabundance of regional positions, but I'm not sure this is the solution to the problem.  The functions of the Governors would then become, under your plan:

* The role of a Senator.
* The role of a Governor (which nobody really cares about).

So you tell me what would be running for... the responsibilities of national governance, or the responsibilities of... ??? ;)

If we do end up keeping regional Senate seats (and I hope we don't), I would support consolidation of those seats and the position of Governor.  That makes more sense than the system we have now.


I'm not sure number of members is a great metric for this, though.  Back in my day, sonny boy, the Midwest was one of the most active regions, despite being the smallest, as measured by things like turnout rates and number of regional initiatives. (Again, in my estimation, it's not the size, government style, etc. of the different regions that determines activity, but the characteristics of the individuals involved)

How about some level of self-determination by individual states?  Perhaps if the members were allowed to choose which region they were a part of (and have some mechanism to make that change that's easier than it is now), they would be more likely to be active simply as a result of having invested something in choosing the region they were a part of.  Or we could see something akin to "birds of a feather flock together"; so you who want regional legislatures could have your own region, I could have a little fiefdom, and so on ;)

There you're not looking hard enough.

See Pacific and Southeastern efforts at legislatures for examples.
The Mideast will probably be added to that list soon enough (the procedural matters appear to be settled -maintaining a legislative agenda is very difficult).

Why?

For the love of God, what is it about regions that intrinsically requires them to be represented? I've been asking this question for a year; no answer.

I refuse to let anyone destroy the regions, or make really any changes at all, especially Lief and those that want a parliment.

All this can be done in the Senate rather easily. This constitutional convention has always been un-needed.

Do you support the idea of a Council of Governors, and what about regional legislatures?

A council of Governors that helps with regional things and increasing regional activity? Sure. And yes, I support regional legislatures as long as they can stay active.

Do you support regional Senate seats?

Yes, I support the regions and regional elections. So I won't refuse to let you destroy that.

Somebody explain to me why the regions are so great and a source of pride for Atlasia (and by consequence, why we need to save them), since I really can't think of any reasons.

Why do you support inactive, uncompetitive, boring elections? Do you think that's healthy or interesting for the game?

You and many others make them uncompetitive. If they choose to run for the national seats and not the regional ones that's their fault.

The national elections are not that competitive and pretty "boring" as well. We know who'll run and almost always know who'll win. How's that any different? It isn't.

I have no inherent attachment to keeping the regions (although while they exist I believe there should be some boundaries). That said, it simply is not viable to remove the regions under the current power structure. Were we to pass a proposal that removes the regions (which is doubtful as it is), there is no strategy I can conceive of that would pass it in the regions.


The Convention is, I believe, better for this simply because it is not bound my time constraints. In the Senate we have 14 or so days to debate something and anything that goes 24 hours without discussion is just brought to a vote. This let's us talk it out, figure out what we want, provides a basis for broader discussion and allows more people to join in working it all out.

I think we are starting to get into very bad territory here. Combining the role of Senator and the role of Governor, eliminating the judicial branch in regional gov't. You want to create legislatures fine, you want to create a CoG, again I support that. Except #1 you leave the Regional Senate seats alone and allow primaries or indeed primary like situations. The Southeast Senate race could have competative had Duke really put some effort into it. This was one idea that I liked.

You are not going to be able to pass one amendment and say DONE problem solved. Activity is a description of each individual poster and as such to revive this game each poster has to be more involved in the processes of the game. If some regions want to create a legislature like we are moving on the Southeast they may do that if others want to keep there intiative process, again that is fine. Just creating a legislature is not going to improve a region. Either one can work if there is an active citizenry out there listening, talking, supporting, and lobbying for issues.

Okay you thing creating new offices would be a problem, so how would elimnating offices change that. We want more fun races that is true but simply forcing fewer offices on a growing group of candidates means that large numbers will keep losing to there opponents, and then risk them leavign the game. At the same time I want don't want people running unnopposed and winning by default. I want to create a system where there are enough posters to compete for existing positions. The best way to do that is restore political activity at the regional level since that is where newbies come into the game. More Regional Activity=More active Newbies, and it reduces the number of old members leaving.

1. Restore Regional Activity(create legislature or revive the intiative process, create regional papers, organizations, etc)
2. Encourage Primary opponents(basically have members of the same party run against each other).
3. Create a Council of Governors to make those positions more appealing(but in general leave these positions alone). 
4. Retain the Senate as is.
5. Don't gut Regional Gov'ts.
6. Stronger parties.
7. Federal Gov't interaction to create action(Senate hearings to question Gov't officials and to allow officials to make "Offical" reports to the Senate on things like of Foriegn Policy(SoEA).
8. There is still Bgwah's idea of the concept of a war.
9. There is still Fritz's idea of advertising to increase membership.

Very little of the this can be achieved by the federal gov't, thats why as I said we need to revive participation and activity of each poster.

NC Yank, I believe we disagree on a fundamental piece here, which is you think most of this can be solved if we just let well enough alone, while I think the most effective way to increase activity is by using small, but targeted reforms to cause ripple affects that lead to game reform.

The truth is, if we could just leave the game to fix itself we wouldn't be in this situation right now. We can't just trust people to commit to activity and interest. We need to incentivize activity by making elections more exciting. Honestly, losing an election doesn't often end activity. Just look at Duke. When he was running for Senate he said that if he lost he would likely leave the game for good. Yet, he is still more active now than I ever remember him being during my time here. Meanwhile, non-competitive elections certainly promotes complacency and uncaring.

Did you not understand my previous post. I never advocated doing nothing. I advocate for some tough hard truths. Your tiny tweaks, or Lief massive reforms are barely good enough to wipe you A$$ with unless there is the activity and the wilingness to be active on the part of the posters here. I too have my set of reforms I want to see done at the nation level but I am also looking at the bigger picture and non of this will gurrantee and age of perpetual activity. We need more organised parties for one(I will bet you didn't even know that Dan was planning to abandon your party in August). We need to create a political culture in this game or all reforms are meaningless. Gutting regional offices isn't going to create this. All I see you wanting to create is perpetual elections for fewer offices. I see a snowball effect occuring that will put this game right back where we were, if we go with yours or any of these other ludicrous proposals. I never said we should trust people to be active, instead I hope that reforms I support will encourage that activity.

Your the one thinking small. You only went after the GM issue when it became a problem for the Senate, I was thinking about the effect on Atlasia as whole back in February.

What "massive" reform do I advocate now? Because if a CoG and all nationally-elected Senate seats is too "massive" for people, then we might as well shut down the ConCon right now.

Look, "coulda would shoulda" don't matter.  We are having a debate here about what is, not what would be if everything worked perfectly.  I have presented empirical evidence that regional Senate contests are significantly less competitive than national ones:


(updated to take into account Midwest Senate which went into a second round)

In each of these elections, if only people were more active, they would've been competitive.  But the problem is that people aren't, and we have to admit this fact.

If you wish to argue over the metric I used to measure competition, I don't have a problem, but I have a feeling no matter what objectively-measurable criteria you use regional Senate elections are still a good deal less competitive than national ones.

But how do you propose we promote stronger parties or regional activity or primary opponents? Simply going into the parties and regions and saying, "Do this and that for the good of the game" will hardly have an impact. This game has massive inertia and trying to get people to follow you in a movement will likely fail, especially when it will likely weaken their own hold on power.

The only way to affect the change we really need is by implementing small changes that have large impacts. Cutting out the regional Senate seats and simply giving the Governors equal power in a CoG doesn't change that much on the surface (Governors are elected in the same way regional Senators are), but has major impacts as it relates to promoting regional activity. In addition, it actually strengthens the sway of the regions on the national level.

Insisting that we maintain or expand the number of offices is near sighted. We may have a growing game at the moment, but expanding the number of offices when we barely have competitive elections as it is just won't work. If the game does get much larger and elections are becoming too crowded down the road, we can always expand the Senate. But right now we need to make it more competitive, not less. I wouldn't mind keeping the current term lengths so as we don't simply run through Senators like candy, but we can't sustain 5 regional Senate seats that see zero or slight competition.


Agreed. Seriously the stuff being proposed, if one takes even a slight glance, will clearly help the game. Regional Senate seats are crap. Governors are crap. But by creating a separate chamber, a CoG, and removing regional senators, we can make newly competitive, activity-inducing positions for the game.

The parties must set a primary system. A candidate must go through it, even if they're the only one in the party. This makes people more likely to run in the primary. I think primaries would add a lot of energy to the game, especially in the pacific and south.

We still have to see what the impact the GM will have. I was talking BrandonH the other day and he said he'd address regional issues and laws.

I'm supportive of a Council of Governors, but if we eliminate regional senate seats while adding the Governors to the legislature, aren't we basically just eliminating overall offices and giving a new name to regional Senators? I mean, it's essentially just shuffling things around a bit.

Edit: All the while reducing overall participation.

I made the same point earlier, but it's still better than the current system.

No it isn't. All it is doing is Lief trying to get rid of as many regional offices as possible. We don't need any drastic reform like that. We should just shut this down and have everything go through the Senate like normal.

I want to get rid of regional offices because they're pointless and hurt the game. None of the regional senate seat supporters have yet given a reason why they should stay, despite their strange argument that the regions are for some reason deserving of representation.

We're not eliminating overall offices. We'll still have 10 senators and 5 governors.

And the council of governors would function differently than an additional 5 regional senators. They would not be proposing legislation or anything, not to the degree that the Senate does, and instead function as a sort of upper house, signing off on legislation that has been passed by the Senate.

At the moment, both regional senators and governors have structural problems, as far as offices go. By combining the two (sort of), we give them more prestige and desirability, hopefully increasing competition and election activity for the offices.

And you have yet said anything at all that indicates how they actually "hurt the game".

People need to realize that change for the sake of change isn't what's needed. Notice how the game worked fine when people were really active and now is working fine again? Yep, nothing much is needed except keeping people active so that the game functions, which is what it's doing now.

Down with the useless ConCon! Down with the anti-region people who want fake reform that won't make any bit of difference because everything hinges on activity, not on changes in the game.

Lt. Gov and CJO are pointless. However, the regional offices give newer players, or those with less time on their hands, and ability to participate in the game and hold an office. Besides, I personally like the idea of regionalism in general, if only for the fact that it can make politics more interesting.

How are four out of five uncompetitive and boring regional elections every 2 months "fine"? How is the game "functioning" when 4 out of 5 elections, the foundation of our game, are practically uncontested?


Yeah, I have no problem with regional legislatures. If you want to keep those, fine, whatever. I'm talking about regional Senate seats.

How are national senate elections where only 2 seats are competitive "fine" and "good for the game"? Besides this Presidential election they haven't been anywhere near close either. No matter what change you want it's just going to change the order of the game, not give any more activity.

Ah. I thought you were referring to regional offices in general.

None of these reforms whether advocated by PS or by ILV or Lief or even myself is guarrenteed to create Activity. There is no subsitute for involvement and I find it strange that PS criticize my position using the very same line I used against him. I said very plainly that unless people are willing to be active and to get involved, you might as well take all of your damned reforms and put them where the sun don't shine. Regional Senators are innactive. So are National Senate seats and Presidential election. Expanding every seat or position to the National level is not going to solve the problem. You can't legislate a solution to this problem. All of these supposed solutions can easily end us up right back were we started.

Ding, Ding, Ding, we have a winner here folks! Unless people are active (which they now are under the current system) nothing we do will make a difference.

But that's just not true at all...

And surely it's better to attempt to solve the problem than ignore it and hope it'll go away.

Off course I want to solve these problems. You guys just assume your plans will work but they won't unless there is the necessary level of activity. I have just been more honest to real hard truth.

Look, activity is necessary no matter what for any plan to work, even the current form. However, no amount of current activity will help if elections aren't competitive. We need to fit the game to work for any number of scenarios, not just what we have now. We have uncompetitive elections and the only way to fix it is to reduce the number of seats, period. Otherwise, what happens when activity slows? Even now, with lots of activity, people grow complacent and comfortable in their positions. And for good reason, they rarely lose. If record activity can't make even a majority of seats competitive, we need a reduction.


No and here is why. Currently it would take all five regional senators to vote Nay on a bill to unite against the national senators and defeat legislation. With a separate CoG, it would only take three of the governors to unite and defeat a bill when it came from the nationally elected Senate.

@Vepres, we cannot force parties to conduct primaries, so regardless of how effective that would be, we can't initiate that by amending the Constitution.

@MJ, the national elections, even though there may only be a turnover of one or two seats, are exciting to watch, hard to predict and involve universal participation. The regional elections are usually predictable, even when there is a challenger. By removing five seats, you instantly guarantee increased competition. You force current governors to actually care and remove complacency. Every so often we need to knock some heads, shake it up to make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to.

And I'll try a third argument that I don't think has been used before: I agree with MasterJedi and NC Yankee in that it's possible that despite our best efforts these reforms will not fix anything involving activity in Atlasia.  So why not try to scale the size of the government to match the activity of Atlasia, rather than the other way around?  Having fewer positions will push the few members that we have who are always active into races against each other, and having those positions be national will ensure that all active members will be beneficial to all the nation rather than 1/5.

I hate to break it to you but that is the second arguement. I say scale the size of the game upward. We can still get just as complacent and uncompetative with the other systems you guys are proposing.

Well, to create activity, we must create competitive elections. We must adjust the number of elected office avaliable to that.

We may not even be able to fill all the seats you propose creating though. That's the bigger problem than uncompetitive elections. It is already hard enough filling the Mideast Assembly when people keep running for higher office/turning out to be socks of other people. Creating even more offices would result in that on a greater scale I fear.

Reducing the number of offices has the reverse affect. We would see real competition, voting for people because they are the best option, not the only option. We need to scale down the seats, regardless of activity level, in order to make sure we get some actually exciting elections around here.

Or people are turned away by the intense competation and repetative losses. You guys think that you pass a big reform all at once and hope to reform this problem. This has be done one piece at a time. Thats how I intend for my reforms to be done at least.

Your plan transforms 17 important positions into 17 important positions. We don't scale down anything.

I really don't want massive changes here either. Just a few small strands need to be plucked. Remove regional Senate seats (easy enough to do) and create a CoG. That is pretty much all I envision for us to do at a federal level. And those go hand-in-hand and have to be done all at once. I don't want this through the Senate because, first, this involves more people and, second, we have unlimited time for debate.

I don't think competition and losing would deter people from trying again though. Look at Gporter. Look at Bayh. Look at Fritz. I think, if anything, it would keep people accountable and result in more office-flipping back and forth between a few qualified candidates. Plus, we would hopefully have regional legislatures to hold those members who had recently lost, to keep them busy until the next election.

When you use GPorter as an example to defend your ideas, you lose all the gains with me towards supporting your proposal, there wasn't any to begin with, but it doesn't help. If thats the case there won't be much room for newbies though especially if offices will be rotating between a few competetant people which can easily turn into a few people dominating all the offices cutting out competatione and making us worse of. THanks for helping me make my point.

New members will be running for lower offices, like regional legislatures, at first. Once they build up a reputation and knowledge of the game they will be able to challenge the other competent members. This game has always been open to fresh blood. I made it to the Senate pretty quickly, going through regional office first.

I am not set on this proposal, but I have yet to see anything better. The idea that expanding offices will help the game just can't work. If we can't sustain current levels, how are we supposed to support even higher levels? Your assumption also imagines that we will have continued large floods of new and committed members. This is not likely to be the case.

So if you could write an amendment right now, what would it be?

Look, I really don't care whether we have a House of Reps, a CoG, or whatever. My goal is to see what has the best, most productive ripple affect and implement it. I wouldn't mind reducing the number of nationally elected seats to make those more competitive, but we need to find a way to induce regional reform. I don't believe legislatures are inherently better than initiatives, but I believe active governors are necessary. So how can we make races for governor more competitive? That's really the biggest question?

EDIT: I would even support a sort of rotating Speakership, where one Governor at a time heads the Senate. We could implement that by coinciding the changes with the elections to regional seats and leave that seat "vacant" while giving the Governor full voting rights for his term. Does that work for anyone?

I wouldn't amend anything right now, I would however actively encourage members to take the intiative to revive there regions. If that were to fail I would agree with Duke that this game is dead.
Not all the regions need assemblies, if the MW sticks with the initiative process I think they can make it work cause whether its that or assembly it can be sustained as long as the activity is there in the first place.

And I don't see an elected legislature succeeding in Pacific. Our universal Legislature has problems to work. Only the Governor, the President, me and Marokai are participing and we all have an higher office.

But we have been watching for months. The game is dead. We need reform. Now what?

I agree, let each region choose initiative or legislature. But we must promote gubernatorial activity. And I think governors should be more active in shaping federal policy. The game is small enough.

What about my rotating speakership idea? It's a rough sketch, but it's a possible start for something.

I think when I say compel it's the wrong word. I don't want to force anything on the regions. I simply want to use federal reform to spur regional reform. I think the federal Constitution has a lot to do with how the regions behave. I think we can have minimal changes to the federal government, something even that involves the regions more than they are now in influencing federal policy, that can lead people to consider the regions more important and want to run for governor more.

I was directing that more at the party leaders. I realize you can't force them to do anything.

I support the proposal to eliminate regional Senate seats, and replace them with a Council of Governors.  So we would have two houses of five members each.  I would like to see this proposal drafted, passed by this Convention, and presented to the Senate as an amendment.

I also believe Congress should re-draw the regions, perhaps annually, based on a "census" provided by the Department of Forum Affairs.  Gerrymandering could of course be a problem, but hey, thats how it is in the real world!

I do not quite get the idea behind this "Council of Governors". It almost seems as though it would be the Atlasian equivalent of the NGA.

Basically it will combine the role of Governor and Senator and create a Second chamber with five people in it that can pass or kill legislation passed by the 5 At-large Senators. The Regional Senate seats would be removed.

I oppose that idea, of course.

If they're kept, regions should be redrawn once and left alone for a while. Regions are not congressional districts.

A million thanks for your very insightful contributions, officepark.

Why does this Council of Governors idea seem to pop up from time to time? I genuinely cannot think of anything more grotesque than 'doubling' up offices and effectively abolishing 5 senators/offices to impliment it. 

The explanation offered by NCYankee makes it seem like it would allow dual office holding (even if there is only one office de jure). That is part of the reason why the idea has my opposition.

As do I.


Its not dual office holding, its one office with the power of both Governor and Senator and as part of the plan Regional Senate seats would be abolished, sorry if I wasn't clear.

I guess we are making progress. I agree with a whopping 50% of what you said. Namely the last Sentence.

But it would de facto be the same as if the two offices remained separate and the same person held both positions.

Yes but they would not be able to write and propose legislation though. They can only vote on legislation passed by the Atlarge Senators. The Flip side is that, according to Purple State, it will increase Regional Rights b/c only 3 votes is needed to kill legislation that the Regions don't like whereas now all fiveRegional Senators have to vote against something for it to fail. The Problem is you can have Anti-Regionalists be elected Governor.

Bad argument. Anit-regionalists can elected as Regional Senators, too.

So much for me trying to contribute to this thread, everything I suggested just got shot down.  :P

The Council of Governors is a good idea because it reduces the number of regionally elected offices by five (one for each region), thus making the regional elections more competitive.

The regions should be re-drawn periodically for relatively equal membership in each.  Then we don't end up with a situation like we currently have in the Midwest, where we don't have enough members to support a legislature.  Plus, it adds a new element to the game that is currently missing....the debates on "re-regioning" could be quite interesting indeed!

Yes and pro=regionalists can be elected to At-large Senate seats like DWTL, SPC etc. So the the whole arguement started by, my distinguished soon to be colleague, Puple State is flawed.



And quite corrupt as well.

Yes, but what about gerrymandering of regions? It's an aspect of this redistricting game that cannot be tossed aside, dusted away as unimportant, or reduced to irrelevance by saying it's normal. Regions are not congressional districts

Well, I guess I respectfully disagree.  It is true that Regions are not, strictly speaking, congressional districts, but I think they could share some characteristics of congressional districts without hurting anything.  I acknowledged that gerrymandering would be an issue, but it is also an issue that politicians in the real world deal with.  This is a game.  We want the game to simulate reality, right?  I think the re-regioning process would have to have strict and clear legal guidelines designed to attempt to prevent gerrymandering.

They are closer to states, not districts. And this is a political simulation and just as in Real life the Gov't can't change a state's boundaries without there direct approval.

The regions shouldn't be redrawn at a set time every year. However, under extraordinary circumstances, such as a Pacific-esque region appearing, congress should have the authority to redraw them.

Only with Approval of 3/4's of the population of 5/5 of the Regions.

Okay fine, I withdraw the re-regioning idea. 

Hashemite is right. Regions are not congressional districts to be redrawn.

Now, Fritz is right that this is a game. But he is also right that it was meant to simulate reality.

Leaving the regions as they are is the reality part. And this may be a game, but that does not mean that modifying the regions is a good idea.

By the way, it seems as though something similar to redrawing the regions was already tried in the past, through "districts" used for one half of the Senate seats. It was discarded, and it seems that redrawing the regions would be quite similar to redrawing the districts.

Which again brings the question: What positions can we get rid of in order to stimulate more competitive and exciting elections?

Can we reduce the number of Cabinet positions? Maybe reduce the number of nationally elected seats? And maybe give the VP something like a vote, rather than a tie-breaking vote?

We have... counting... counting... 33 offices if you include judges and the GM.

Now, if you eliminate Lt. Governors, you have 29 offices
Eliminate regional judiciary and you have 26 offices
Let's assume a COG is implemented, and the Senate is reduced to 5. There are now 21 offices
But, if every region implements a legislature, you now have 33 offices again

So we have the same number of offices, but more of that activity is regional, which is one of the goals of this convention, no?

Just a thought.

Some regions will implement an initiative structure, rather than a legislature.

But yes, the idea is to shift focus to legislative positions in the regions, making them more important and influential. I would actually like to make the regions more important by shifting some powers from the federal government to them as well.

Can I ask why pro-region actors dislike this proposal? What is the issue with a CoG? I just need to understand where you guys are coming from.

Read my PM. We can keep the Regional Senators and create the CoG without changing the number of offices. As for the legislatures, as you said some will want to keep the intiative structure, let the Regions handle that individually. We will definately have one down in the South and I am sure the NE and Pacific can support one as well. If they want to remove the Lt. Govs or whatever they can decided that on there own. They must decide what needs to be done to support an Assembly.

I would support something like that. My only worry is that we still don't build up competitive elections, especially if legislatures start popping up. While the game has enough registered people to fill these positions, we don't have enough active members. That is the problem we face and the last thing I was are inactive governors as part of a CoG.

How can we work within your outline to make elections more competitive?

The effect on activity if it should be negative would be very minimal. To further asuage your uncertainty allow me to quote Ben Bernanke. ;D.

PR-STV could be used, much like the nation elections, so it's competitive if even 4 people run for 3 offices.

You can't force the parties to do anything, but I think they should all have a primary system, regardless if there is more than one candidate or not. This will encourage people to primary a candidate of their party.

I think a GM will help a lot too. (Once we start to differ from the US more)

Yes as soon as Brandon gets to show the effect of policies on the economy and foriegn affairs things would certainly become interesting.

Come on... Do something.

What do you want done?

We all agree than we must do something. The problem is to decide what to do.

At this point, and maybe Purple State will disagree, I think we should take all of the ideas thrown around in this thread and have the delegates vote on each one. Then amend our current constitution to include them.

     Fair enough. Better than debating them endlessly without any real progress.

Keep in mind that me and Purple State are still trying to come to an agreement. The hang up is one how to make the Governors races more competative without removing Regional Senate seats. I will support the CoG as a why to make the Governors positions more valuable, but the Regional Senate seats is where I draw the line. I am willing to let the Regions decide whether to eliminate the Lt. Govs, and Judicial officers to help them support an assembly. For those that keep the Judicial officers we need to give them some sort of authority so they have something to do. He is willing to except this if there is something more we can do to make Governors elections more competative.

Purple State said something about not being on today.


If I haven't made this clear if the Senate attempts to amend the current Constitution to remove Regional Senates or this convention passes something that doesn't include them I will do everything in my power to ensure that it fails miserably.

Sorry all. Religion before forum. ;)

I have to ask everyone to give this time. While it would seem appealing to simply gather the hodge-podge and bring it to a vote, you risk simply ending up with a mess, rather than any coherent plan to promote competition and activity. Bear in mind that these reforms aren't meant to mean much at face value. Rather, the potential impact that they have in promoting wider, top-down change is what we must ensure. And that takes time.

@NC Yank (and everyone else, really):

I would agree to apportion far more power to the regions (for their courts, jurisdiction, etc.), as well as establish a CoG, if we could eliminate the regional Senate seats. The issue really is I hesitate to add seats in the current, non-competitive environment here. That said, I ran my Senate campaign on a platform promoting regional sovereignty, and I meant it.

Let me outline the benefits to a CoG-chamber without regional Senate seats:

• Each region gets to choose how to elect its governor.
• We eliminate the redundancy of a region-wide vote on its Senator followed by a region-wide vote on its Governor.
• Provides greater power to regions at the federal level than the status quo (at present, regions need all 5 senators to vote Nay to block a bill, a CoG would only need 3 in agreement).
• Makes Governors more important in elections, prompting competition, especially with the regional senator position removed.

With all that, I have no problem moving certain powers, that we can work out if you accept this premise, from federal domain to the regions. In my view, this would make Governors even more important, as well as promote the creation of coherent regional legislative structures (whether legislature or initiative).

While I am at least sympathetic to the people who want a regional legislature, I can't understand for the life of me why there are regional judiciaries.

Yes. Regional judiciaries are entirely useless. What was the last time they did something?

That's why we should either: a) eliminate them or b) empower them.

Option A, por favor.

We actually have regional judiciaries?  Who is on them?

Three regions, I think, have a chief justice. They don't do anything at all.

It's extremely stupid to argue in their favour, even the regionalists.

Yeah.  And there's no reason the Supreme Court would not be able to take up their "caseload", because said caseload does not exist.  That's why the Midwest devolved our judicial branch to the federal level.  It's never been used!

I'm not sure it would make sense to put a clause in the constitution to specifically abolish them, but I would absolutely oppose any attempts to give regional judiciaries any power.

Dibble, Verily and the Mideast is appointed as needed. So there is really only two.

No worries, I have actually considered taking Sundays off from the forum, but alas its Sunday and I am here.

I will just mention that bullet points 1,3 and 4 can be achieved without removing the Regional Senate seats. You could have a proposal where you keep Regional Senate seats and have them be appointed by the Governors who are also members of the CoG. Each candidate for Governor can state who they will choose for the position before the election. So the election for Governor has three important factors

1. Who will Govern the Region?
2. Who will represent the Region in the CoG?
3. Who will they appoint as Regional Senator?

It elimnates the Regional Senate elections, without eliminating the Regional Senate seats. You can have it so the Assembly has to confirm the choice for Regional Senate seat(to get the assemblies involved) and every two months have the people of the region have an approval vote, If a majority disaproves of the choice the Governor has to appoint someone new and the Assembly has to approve them. It keeps the Governor, the Assembly and the Regional Senators on there toes. It still makes the Governor elections more competative, w/o removing Regional Senate seats. It encourages but doesn't force the creation of Assemblies(Those without Assemblies just have the approval vote every two months).

In terms of the Regions I would support the removal of the Judicial officers(Like the ME have them instead be appointed as needed, since they aren't needed they will effectively not exist), and the Lt. Governors if they find it necessary to sustain an assembly. Regions who want to keep the intiative whether it be praticial reasons or for reason of tradition thats fine as long as they can find ways to make them more exciting, and active. Maybe throw an abortion ban up each time to motivate people to vote, or removal of the income tax.

If any offices are created, it will be very few like at most 3 or 5. At I see three assemblies being created thats 9 people. Eliminating Lt Govs and Judcial officers eliminates 6 positions. Thats adding three offices but if only two Regions create Assemblies we break even. Not entirely undoable. And the CoG and the process by which Regional Senators are appointed will give us the needed Regional activity, even more then Purple States proposal in my opinion.

Would this be an exceptable compromise?

     August 2008. Dibble ruled against Duke's determination that two voters (one of whom was yourself) could not vote in the secession vote.

It would be, but you're spelling and grammar makes it totally unacceptable. :P

Actually, I sort of like it, but what do I know? I'm not a delegate.

Reporters :P.

I wish you were a delegate. Then we could be sure whatever proposal comes out of here would be grammatically correct. I am glad you are at least favorable to this idea.

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

Absolutely not.

Right.  If anything, it saps even more active players from national elections... exactly the opposite of what is desirable.

No I said that it will create "AT MOST" three and that more then likely it evens out. Appearently you refuse to compromise on removal of Regional Senate seats. You are dead set against them existing at all and you are determined to at least accomplish there elimination through this process. It does add to the game. It makes Governorships all the more important and it brings about the necessary Regional Activity, which I think is going to do more to helping the game then reducing offices, anyway. What if no Assemblies are created. Then my plan creates a net minus of 6 positions. I think it will either even out or reduce the number of offices overall.




Absolutely clueless bullsh**t. The people that are not appointed, or lose the Governorship can run Nationally since they rarely if ever coincide. To say it saps players from the national scene is very pressumptious since your plans do the same to the regions and that is in my opinion where the most activity is needed.


It seems to me that you people will not except any thing that doesn't remove wide swaths of Atlasia, combine branches of Gov't that should be separate, and remove all regional influence. European Democracy by the back door. I knew they wouldn't give up so easily and now I know that they did not.

For me, a CoG and an at-large 10 seats Senate is an good compromise.

How is it presumptuous?  By definition, those players who are appointed will not be running for anything nationally (or regionally, for that matter), unless they want to jeopardize their job security for some reason.  So you'll be removing them from making national elections more competitive.

You're not going to win over any delegates this way.

()

Straw Man!!!!

Oh, and if have to use straw man, at least spell presumptuous correctly. :P Can't help it. ;D

I am merely stating the truth.  When typing fast spelling is not my first priority. When it takes two minutes for me to load a post(thanks to my dial-up) you learn to cut corners to save time.


I think we are all being a little presumptuous. For instance who says the freed up posters will run for office? What if they don't? You are also being presumptuous when you claim that my plan will DEFINATELY lead to a net creation of offices, chances are infinately greater that it won't.

^^^^

It may not cut Regional power, but it does cut regional influence, especially if the CoG can only vote and not propose legislation.

Why did the whole thing go to hell while I was enjoying a nice Sunday?

@NY Yank's compromise: I don't think we should create prominent legislature positions that are appointed, rather than elected by the people. Not only that, but giving governors a dummy seat to install a copy-cat vote in the Senate deteriorates the current standing of the national seats. The goal here is to try to maintain some balance of power between the regional and national levels. While I believe in empowering the regions in their own jurisdiction, I don't think an acceptable compromise should  strengthen regions at the national level while severely weakening the national frame.

@MaxQue/Lief: That isn't a compromise, nor does it reduce the number of available offices.


I think everyone needs to realize that your agendas are not going to pass on their own. You can't pass regional empowerment that drastically reduces the power of the national, as well as the voice of the people. Nor can you try to whittle away the power and influence of the regions. You all need to be able to come to some sort of compromise that generally maintains the current power divisions, while also helping the game.

So, rather than tell us what you all would like to have, detail what exactly you are willing to give in order to make game reform happen.

This will probably be shot down, but what if there was a way use an electoral college-like system to elect half the at-large senators. This way, regions would have some influence of part of the legislature. Not sure how it would be done, but...

I wouldn't mind giving regions some sort of proportional representation system, where larger regions have greater influence, but how that would work is another story.

If we go back to my original amendment about reform, we could leave regional Senate seats be and create a lower house, one with certain limited powers, that is made up of X members of each region, based on population and reapportioned every few months as determined by the SoFA. We wouldn't change regional boundaries, but just update their proper representation.

We could also require that those members of the lower house be chosen (as determined by the region) from among their regional elected officials. So this could mean Governor, Assemblymen, etc. Whatever the each regional Constitution dictates.

Thoughts?

In response to the preceding post.

I agree on leaving regional senate seats alone and creating another chamber for a bicemeral legislature. It should use districts as in real life (see "Regarding the House of Representatives" here (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=97485.msg2051755#msg2051755)). I am undecided on the role of the SoFA though. I also agree on leaving the regions themselves alone.

I strongly disagree with your third paragraph though.

The role of the SoFA would be no different than it is now, except he would: a) determine the number of citizens in each region and then b) determine what number of reps each region receives based on its citizenry.

The third paragraph is the only thing to ensure that we have regional reform.

I think that as long as any proposal includes that, I will go along with. So you would have my support on that.

I can't approve a reform who create a Council of Governors if Regional Senate seats are not abolished.

A bicameral legislature, save a CoG, would not work. Too many positions, which would hurt elections. Remember, elections are the heart of this game.

Ah, I thought that you meant that the SoFA would do the actual reapportionment (as in redistricting).

As to the third paragraph, I see no region why the lower house should be limited to those who already hold office, and I do not see the "reform" in that.

I could not care less about regional power or influence or whatever. Most of the regions are dead, and nothing we've done has been able to revitalize them. People talk about giving the regions more power; have you read the constitution? They already have plenty of power! They've always had! But no one cares, they're not active, they're dead. Even the Regional Protection Party, in control of the entire Southeast, has done nothing besides changing the name of the region. So if you want to grandstand about regional influence or whatever, be my guest, I don't care. I just want fun, competitive and interesting elections, something that regional senate elections are not, as been proven time after time after time.

@NC Yank: Good to hear.

@Officepark: The reform I mention is that the plan would spur changes in the regions. For example, by requiring that members of the lower house come from elected positions in the regions, it automatically forces regions to create certain elected positions (such as a legislature). For those that maintain an initiative style of government, it would give the Lt. Gov. something to do.

@Lief/MaxQue: What are your thoughts on my idea? It involves no CoG and would promote interesting, varied ways in which each region elects and chooses its representatives in the lower house. That could help spur some regional activity, reforms, etc. It also doesn't increase the number of elected positions, but does increase competition for these new, exclusive seats.

OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!

If you have regional influence, I want special influence for right-handed people.

How many babies have you eaten today, Xahar? What happened to your Revolution, you didn't give me a chance to fire my wiff of grapeshot. :(.

Are we going to attempt to compromise or what?

I'll try to write something up tonight after work. You can all try to work something out on your own in the meantime. Does anyone want to answer my earlier call and tell me what you're willing to give up? Or is everyone staunchly opposed to any variation of what they envision?

As I said before I am willing to cave on the Lt. Govs, the CJO's, the Assemblies in one or two regions and one region(4 regions is my minimum). 

I'm getting bored of it.

But no, seriously.

What do regions have intrinsically that entitle them to special influence? I've been asking this for well over a year now.

But I was having fun. :(.

My proposal (and no, its not a carbon copy of my previous proposal, read carefully):

---

The following shall be included in Article I as Section 2: The House, with subsequent sections renumbered accordingly:

Article I, Section 5 shall hereby be renumbered Section 4 and read as follows:

Article I, Section 8 is hereby removed.

Article IV shall hereby read as follows:

I see no outright deal breakers in this proposal, however I would prefer some time to study it in detail and compare it to the current constitution.

However I do find it exceedingly interesting that the distinguished presiding office no longer deems necessary the reduction in the the number of office holders. Indeed from what I can see the distinguised presiding officer is adding a considerable number of offices far more then even my plan did. Would the distinguised presiding officer care to explain his sudden change of heart on this matter?

I don't actually add anything. The 10 members of the House would be drawn from existing officeholders on the regional level (i.e. governors, lt. governors, assemblymen, CJOs). While the regions may add offices on their own, the proposal does not directly create positions.

Also, what led me not to reduce the number of seats is that there was no seats I could remove. You wouldn't accept the removal of regional senators and there was no way at-large seats, the more exciting races, could be removed. I will hear ideas for what seats can be removed if anyone has thoughts.

I am sorry, as I said I need to study the thing in detail, I didn't notice that this would be like dual office holding. Let me read, compare, and think and I will get back to you on this. Oh I am not criticing the proposal for not reducing offices, I still do not see the necessity in reducing them. But the left will not except this proposal, I can tell you that right now. They want offices reduced yesterday.

I would like to hear what they have to say. This is the best starting point for a compromise I could think of.

Everyone is welcome to offer their ideas, but bear in mind this is a compromise proposal and you will not get everything you want.

Some of my disagreements with Purple State's proposals are major, some are minor, and some are just fixing errors.

You also forgot amending the very first sentence of the article, which should read, "All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the Republic of Atlasia, which shall be composed of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives, which may also be referred to as the House." (and similarly replacing "the Senate" with "Congress" elsewhere in the article as necessary).

I would rather we not revert back to districts if, as I am told, those failed miserably. It also means that there would have to be someone qualified to open and close and certify district elections, which would cause all sorts of issues and complications.

Such a proposal, I have considered already, amd I would dub it Americanizaton. I would love to have that system in place today. However the electorate isn't ready for "enlightened ideas" though. Someday my friend, someday. ;) 

That nickname does not surprise me, and it is pleasing to have someone in agreement with my ideas.

This is better.

     The problem that arises there is that every region will just get two representatives since they are all nearly identical in size. Doesn't seem like the most interesting possible reform.

Then recruit people to my side.

But first, answer my question.

You missunderstand. I was having fun putting you guys in front of the firing squad.

The honest answer to your question is that regions have special influence because: a) they must confirm anything we pass and b) they have a hell of a constituency. No amendment removing regions, even were it to pass the Convention or Senate, would make it through the regional votes. On the other hand, nothing considerably weakening the national government would pass either. That is why we need to compromise in such ways.

Would it be nicer and more efficient if we could pass the best possible reform? Of course! Unfortunately, entrenched interests rule in this game and so that is what we must work with.

Does the Lief/MaxQue crowd have any thoughts regarding my compromise proposal?

Personally, I don't like imposing on regions the way to choose their representative.

I tried not to, hence the clause about regions choosing which officials to send based on their own laws. They could simply choose by popular vote among the officials, by gubernatorial appointment, by set positions. It actually allows for quite a bit of variety is my hopes. And elected officials would be people chosen by the citizens already.

I like the original text concerning the representatives best. Does anybody have any objections to that piece of the draft?

()

Please stop with your obsession with compromise, please.

But I'm not asking why they do, but why should they?

There is no compelling reason to provide reverence to the regions, except that we no longer have the power to stop it. I also think the regions provide enough benefit to the game to warrant maintaining them and, yes, empowering them.

As to why I always find compromises, it is party for reasons of practicality, but also because compromise more than often results in a better outcome.

Unless there be additional comments or substantive debate, I will be bringing to the floor a proposal for fourty-eight hours of debate, followed by a vote.

The regions are important if only because both Canada and the US, the two countries where most of Atlasians are really from, are federalist. Thus, they like to see federalism in the game. Besides, it adds and extra dimension to the game.

But I agree with the PO, even if you wanted to remove regions, public opinion is largely against you.

The following proposal is brought forth for a period of no less than forty-eight hours of debate. Amendments offered or sponsored by delegates shall be brought to a vote of the Convention unless they be accepted as friendly, at the discretion of the Presiding Officer.

---

The following shall be included in Article I as Section 2: The House, with subsequent sections renumbered accordingly:

Article I, Section 5 shall hereby be renumbered Section 4 and read as follows:

Article I, Section 8 is hereby removed.

Article IV shall hereby read as follows:
[/quote]

1. I'm not sure I like this Second Empire-like bicameral system, and I much prefer true bicameralism if we do establish bicameralism. However, I could live with this system even though I'm far from a fan. I do appreciate the little steps taken to accommodate parliamentarianists, even if there's a majority of "omg evil evil foreigners with parliaments!!!" people.
2. I want the House elected by STV or some form of PR. No districts or any of that crap.
3. I introduce the following amendment:
Strike Article IV, Section 1, Clause 3.

I'm not voting for a bicameral legislature. Not unless it's Max/Lief's idea of 10 national senators and a five-seat CoG. Not now, not ever.

While others do what I'm sure will be an adequate job of disagreeing with some of the main points of the article, I'll nitpick.

Maybe we could make it so judicial powers have to be devolved specifically to Regions by the national government?

I will only be replying to posts that are actually substantive:


I think both of the judiciary ideas from you two are worth looking into, as the regional courts are hardly used. But I would like to hear if anyone has an objection to simply abolishing regional judiciaries or, as ilikeverin posed, require that certain laws devolve jurisdiction specifically to regional courts.

Substantive? What more can be said about a proposal you've been trying to tinker with to get passed for weeks?

I'm not voting for this because it's unnecessary horseshit. That's why. We can't will regional activity and creating a bicameral legislature just for the sake of it is not helpful or at all needed. I've been almost completely ignoring this "discussion" because I think it's all complete garbage and looking for some way to push through change just for the sake or it, or to find some way to get Purple's previously-failed proposals tinkered with enough to get Ayes.

I think it's nice that you've taken up spurring regional activity as your little pet-cause, but it can't be done, it's all unsustainable and unnecessary. The Mideast Assembly started marvelously, and then crashed. Two seats went vacant, you have idiots or no-bodies working on irrelevent legislation, and it's generally just sort of a propped up cancer patient at the moment. The Pacific legislature includes votes from all Pacificans, and it's a corpse, and I don't see many people thrilled at the idea of a Northeast legislature even when given the opportunity. You keep pointing to regional legislatures or the Mideast Assembly in particular as great examples of regional excellence, and I don't see it.

Max/Lief's idea of 10 national Senate seats and the 5-seat Council of Governors as an Upper House is a perfectly reasonable idea that keeps within the current framework, spurs competition for Governor and Lt. Governor (which will now be much more important positions), and generally makes things a bit more exciting and competitive.

But despite what I just said, I don't think there's any way you can somehow stimulate more activity in any long-term way. Activity comes and goes, people come and go. At the end of the day we either abolish regions and go all out with the reform some people here have wanted since day one, or we stick with what we have and tinker a bit. Creating some retarded bastard child proposal like this is not going to do anything but change the system just for the hell of it.

I will never understand your obsession with complicating literally everything and trying to mold and twist every reasonable idea into something unrecognizable. I remember criticizing you for the same thing when we started this "game reform" crusade, and here we are, arguing over the same unnecessary BS as day one.

We aren't simply willing regional activity or reform. Just in order to set out how officials are elected to the House, regions will be forced to reform their Constitutions. And while they're at it...

While regional governments and assemblies may not be fountains of substantive or consequential legislation, they are meant to hold, your term, no-bodies in order to orient them to the game. When I joined the Mideast Assembly, I was a no body. Even if they don't do anything meaningful, members of these bodies learn from older members (Peter and Inks are fixtures of the Mideast and do an excellent job of orienting new members; Duke has stated his interest in serving on a Southeast legislature). It also allows them to learn the legislative "lingo" and parliamentary procedure.

While you are correct that a CoG would spur competition for the office of governors, this proposal would do the same for the offices in each region that are designated to represent the region in the House.

I don't see how any of this is too complicated. People here aren't a bunch of bumbling fools. If you outline what is necessary and if people spend time working their way up the levels of the game it becomes pretty easy to figure things out. This isn't overhauling anything. All it does is add a new dimension with the hopes of leading people to approach the game in a more excited way.

I'm not arguing against regional legislatures, if people want to create them that's all well and good, my point is that they usually end up as just a collection of bench warmers hogging up offices. As you say, people aren't bumbling idiots, they can figure these things out by reading, or participating in legislatures of the Pacific's style.


What in the hell is the point of changing these things then? More than half my problem with this proposal is because it's change for change's sake. If you're creating a 9-seat House elected through some means by the regions, why not just stick to the 5-Seat CoG idea which would spur, in theory, competition for Governor and Lt. Governor from the five regions (10 seats total) without changing any offices for some funky reason? You're just shuffling around offices for no reason. Why can't you just settle for a solution that's been hovering out there for awhile now? It's baffling.

Just let regions create legislatures or assemblies however they want, or not at all, who cares. All they end up as is a bunch of bench warmers passing pointless legislation anyhow. People can still orient themselves to the game without creating an unnecessary second house.

The reason I have gone towards this body and away from a CoG is because of the taboo associated with the CoG, making this proposal more viable. This also forces the regions to reform, which a CoG fails to do.

So basically you just want your proposal passed instead? Also, as I said, I think forcing the regions to do anything is a bad idea and I'd rather abolish regional government entirely than start dictating how everything is going to be laid out.

My proposal is the only one that took into account all of the vested interests, resolved underlying conflicts and produced a neutral proposal that could garner wide-spread support. It involves the same idea of a CoG with a twist.

     I have no issue with axing regional judiciaries. It's not as if they really handle any business that could not be handled by the Supreme Court.

In that case, Article IV, Section 1, Clause 3 is stricken with subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly.

Other thoughts?

Thanks Purple State, you just explained why I am against that proposal. That forces the region to reform. The Mideast tried to reform in a way. Now, you are pushing all the regions in the same way. Each region can have a different system.

And this will break the 50-50 equilibrum of the regions and the nation. This will go 75-25 for the regions.

Regional reform doesn't imply identical reform Max. I want them all to reform, but I sincerely hope they do so with their own regional flavor. If you are against regional reform and oppose providing a venue for new members to be introduced to the game in a substantive way, that is your prerogative. But it is clear that when a region reforms and has a relatively active regional government, new members seem to join in larger numbers than those regions that sit idle and void of activity. It's about providing new members with something to do.

As to the equilibrium, perhaps we could strengthen the President to balance that. Any thoughts?

I have two amendments.

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 1 is replaced by ''The House shall be composed of a maximum of nine Representatives, each with a term of one month, distributed proportionally among the regions to the nearest whole number.''

Article 1, Section 4 shall read as follows:

   1. The Senate shall be divided into two classes: Class A and Class B, who shall be elected at-large.
   2. Elections for the seats in Class A shall be held in the months of February, June and October; Elections for the seats in Class B shall be held in the months of April, August and December.
   3. Regular elections to the Senate and Presidency shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on the second to last Thursday of the month in which they otherwise would have started and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.
   4. If a vacancy shall occur in a Senate seat, then a special election shall be called to fill the remainder of the vacated term within one week of the vacancy occurring. Special elections to the Senate shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning. However, if a vacancy shall occur when there is a person due to assume that office within two weeks, then no special election shall be necessary.
   5. The Senate shall have necessary power to determine regulations for the procedure of and the form of Senate elections and shall have necessary power to determine a procedure for declaration of candidacy for such elections. All elections to the Senate shall be by public post.
   6. Those elected in ordinary elections to the Senate shall take office at noon Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday in the month after their election. Those elected in special elections to the Senate shall take office as soon as the result of their election has been formally declared.

Before I bring both of those to a vote Max, I just want to make sure you understand why I have it that the House is chosen from among elected officials of the region. It is to add some competition for the regional seats, as well as some competition and novelty to the different regions in how they choose their national representatives.

---

I now bring each of Max's amendments (found in the above post) to individual votes. The voting shall last 24 hours. I will waive the quorum requirement as half the delegates don't bother to show up. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain for each individual amendment separately.

I do not support a senseless House of Representatives in any shape or form. Nay on that one.

As for 10 national senators, that I do support. Aye.

I ask why my amendment, proposed first, is not up to a vote.

I accepted the removal of the judiciary amendment as friendly.

In what sense?

Now I'm starting to get really upset that nobody ever answers my questions. Note that my comment wasn't originally directed at you.

I'm answering them and few others participate in here.

And regions are beneficial in the sense that they provide fertile grounds for new members to become familiar with the game and some senior members. If you look at the Mideast Assembly, even when not a vibrantly active legislature as it once was, it gives new citizens a place to learn what crafting a bill entails, parliamentary procedure and how to work with more senior members like Peter and Inks. It's a better orientation than the Introduction to Atlasia thread, without a doubt. It also gives these new members a sense that they are climbing the ladder, contributing, etc.

Nobody's going to answer our questions in a way that is satisfactory to us; I've just given up on it :P

Not satisfactorily.

Don't lecture me about the Mideast Assembly; I created it. But why do we keep the regions the way they are when it's painfully obvious they've failed?


All the answers are satisfactory in West Atlasia!

I can't help what you find satisfactory or not. And enough with your "I created this, that and the other" crap. You haven't been seriously involved in Atlasia in how long? You've returned as a joke, a shadow of whatever former glory you may have had. The game has left you behind, the Mideast has changed, the Constitution was revamped. You had nothing to do with any of it. Stop trying to pretend that you are a serious poster and good riddance to you.

Aye

Aye

Aye
Nay

I mean answers I can't get out of you, because you don't hold the views I'm questioning.

Aye = 2
Nay = 1


Aye = 2
Nay = 1

---

Regardless of whether people care about this Convention anymore, I will let those who appear to vote run the show from here on out. Both amendments pass. Here is the current form of the proposal:

The following shall be included in Article I as Section 2: The House, with subsequent sections renumbered accordingly:

Article I, Section 5 shall hereby be renumbered Section 4 and read as follows:

Article I, Section 4 shall read as follows:

Article I, Section 8 is hereby removed.

Article IV shall hereby read as follows:

Wow, I should try to get you removed as Presiding Officer for that.

For letting those who care enough to vote be heard and disregarding those who do not show up? I thought that is the way democracy works.

Only three people care. I haven't been keeping this stuff a secret. I have just notified everyone in the Atlas Fantasy board. I will allow time for comments and additional amendments. Not to mention nothing can pass the Convention without every delegate voting, in addition this passing the regions by referendum. Passing an amendment to an informal proposal without a quorum is not the end of the world.

It's still three freaking votes, there's a reason I haven't paid attention to this convention, and it's because of stuff like that. (And the people who vote on them. The no-regions folk are overrepresented here, and you're not bringing up alternative ideas for discussion. There's a ton of opposition to these ideas, and it's gotten to the point no one even acknowledges what in the hell goes on outside this ConCon.)

I've never seen something so completely absurd in my life. This isn't a constitutional convention anymore, this is the "Purple State Has A Grand Idea!" show, Come one! Come all!, and we're just here to tinker with your previously failed proposals.

     I'm not even really sure where we're going with this anymore.

I look forward to your perfect plan.

I thank the disgraced former attorney general and convicted criminal for his opinions on my irrelevant past comments.

I'm sorry? I disagree with both of the amendments Max offered. You voted for one of them and they passed. So how is this my grand idea? You left the Convention because you got lazy and don't believe in any reform, not because you disagree with my specific proposal.

Offer your ideas in a concrete proposal (no, not an unwieldy paragraph, an actual proposal) and we can discuss it.

I'm not bringing up a damn thing in this sham of a "Convention" so long as you preside over it. You already know where I stand.

I brought up a proposal that played a part in sparking this glorious grand-standing of yours. Ignored. I tried to alter one of the proposals on the floor like what was done to Presidential Universalism. Ignored. I said I supported a previously ignored idea that Max and Lief supported. I too, was ignored. You have demonstrated no interest in listening to anything that doesn't fit your preconceived notions on what constitutes reform, and remain stubbornly in support of ideas the Senate loudly rejected just weeks ago.

And now you're ignoring your own rules and allowing amendments to pass with just two votes in favor of it. You ought to be thrown out of this place.

It's an informal proposal, so the Rules of Order do not apply. I was asking for input on my idea so it could be presented, rather than holding "official" votes.

And your proposal was not anything concrete or written out. It was a long and complex series of paragraphs leaving it to me to work out exactly what that would require.

If no one cares at all I am fine closing the Convention and having the Senate pass any reforms that are deemed necessary. Apparently when people say that the Convention should have done something, no one really means it.

We're going in a dead-end, PiT.

Haven't been on the Atlas much lately. I must say that I like your proposal Purple State. I would like to remind all the skeptical delegates that if it fails to achieve results you can open a new convention.

You can't hold a politician responsible for every word that he might say, eh?

I know. Nowhere. Except assist in angerangeranger moments.