Northeast Assembly Thread

[cinyc]

Mr. Speaker, what about this:

The Governor may declare his absence, thereby allowing the Lieutenant Governor to temporarily conduct the duties of the office, under a title of the Acting Governor of Northeast.

If the Governor is inactive for a period longer than six days, Lieutenant Governor shall automatically assume temporarily conduct the duties of the office.

The Governor shall resume the powers and duties of the office by smilliar declaration.

How do we determine whether a Governor is inactive?  His activity isn't as regular as a member of the Assembly - especially if we don't pass any legislation for over a week.  Failure to post anything in Atlasia?  On the Atlast Forum?  In his office thread?

[cinyc]

Mr. Speaker, what about this:

The Governor may declare his absence, thereby allowing the Lieutenant Governor to temporarily conduct the duties of the office, under a title of the Acting Governor of Northeast.

If the Governor is inactive for a period longer than six days, Lieutenant Governor shall automatically assume temporarily conduct the duties of the office.

The Governor shall resume the powers and duties of the office by smilliar declaration.

How do we determine whether a Governor is inactive?  His activity isn't as regular as a member of the Assembly - especially if we don't pass any legislation for over a week.  Failure to post anything in Atlasia?  On the Atlast Forum?  In his office thread?

Ok, I see the problem.

I hope you have no problem that Governor can declare absence himself and by transferring temporary his powers to Lt. Governor?

As of undeclared inactivity, let say not performing any duty like signing the bill, after being notified. In other cases, 20 days absence from forum would result in transferring powers to Lt.

How about that?

20 days will work.  21 might be better because it's an even 3 weeks.  It would be pretty clear if the Governor hasn't been active for 21 days.  The courts can decide it, if it's close, I suppose.

[cinyc]

I hope it's acceatable:

The Governor may declare his absence, thereby allowing the Lieutenant Governor to temporarily conduct the duties of the office, under a title of the Acting Governor of Northeast.

If the Governor is not performing the duties, like signing or vetoing the bill after being notified, for a period longer than seven days, Lieutenant Governor shall automatically assume temporarily conduct the duties of the office. If Governor is inactive in Atlasia for 21 days, even if had not to perform any duties at the time, Lieuteant Governor shall automatically assume powers and duties as well.

The Governor shall resume the powers and duties of the office by declaration.

The grammar, spelling and style needs to be fixed a bit, but it's otherwise acceptable as friendly to me if no one else raises an objection.  I'll work on tightening up the language.

[cinyc]

How's this?


3. Article IV, Section xiv of the New Northeast Constitution shall be amended as follows:

xiv)(a) The Governor may publicly declare his absence, thereby allowing the Lieutenant Governor to temporarily conduct the duties of the office, under the title of Acting Governor of Northeast.

b) If the Governor does not perform his or her official duties for a period longer then 7 days,  the Lieutenant Governor shall automatically temporarily conduct the duties of the Governor's office.  Official duties include signing or vetoing bills after being publicly notified of their passage in the Northeast Assembly.  

c) If Governor is inactive on the Atlas Forum for 21 days, the Lieutenant Governor shall automatically temporary conduct the duties of the Governor's office.

d) The Governor shall resume the powers and duties of the office by publicly declaring he is present and able to resume the powers and duties of his office.

e) The Speaker of the Northeast Assembly shall never be allowed to temporarily conduct the duties of the Governor if acting in the temporary absence of the Lieutenant Governor pursuant to Article IV, Section xiii) of this Constitution.

Note that I changed Atlasia to the Atlas Forum.  There could be a situation where the Assembly doesn't pass anything and no actions by the Governor are required.

The last clausewas my original proposed change.

When I have time, I'm going to have to double check whether the new proposal conflicts with any other part of the New Northeast Constitution (I doubt it).

[cinyc]

One thing we're going to have to think about is how this affects the veto provisions of the constitution. Right now, they are open ended, not putting a time limit on when a bill must be vetoed.  This bill would effectively force the Governor to decide whether to veto a bill within 7 days or be replaced by the Lt. Governor.

Is that something we want to do?  I don't know.  

It fits with the proposed Veto Override Amendment, though - which would force the Governor to decide within 7 days or have the bill deemed passed.

Therefore, we might want to make subsection b) contingent on the Veto Override Amendment passing.

Adding something like:

"4. Proposed Subsection Article IV, Section xiv)(b) shall become effective only if the Proposed Veto Override Amendment to the Northeast Constitution passes in the same election.   If the Proposed Veto Override Amendment to the Northeast Constitution fails, Proposed Section xiv)(b) shall be deleted and Sections xiv)(c)-(e) shall be renumbered xiv)(b)-(d)."

Thoughts?

[cinyc]

I'm probably not going to be available at 2:45PM.  Since there's been no recent debate, I'm going to open the vote a bit early instead of late:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This vote shall remain open until the earlier of 12:50PM Eastern on Sunday, February 6, 2010 or when all Representatives have voted.

[cinyc]

Aye

[cinyc]

By a vote of 6-0, with 2 absences, the Lt. Governor Vacancy Amendment meets the requirement that a proposed constitutional amendment receive two-thirds of the overall vote and the vote of a majority of Assembly members.  Therefore, the amendment passes, and will be sent to the Governor for his assent.

Next bill:

Northeast Order of Precedence Act

1. The Northeast Region shall use following order for ceremonial purpouses:
a. Governor
b. Lieutenant Governor
c. Chief Judicial Officer
d. Speaker of the Assembly
e. Former Governors (in order of terms of service)
f. Current Representatives by lenght of service
g. Former Lieutenant Governors (in order of terms of service)
2. In a case when two incumbent Representatives have the same seniority, following factors shall be used to determine higher seniority:
a. Lenght of previous non-consensutive service
b. Number of registered voters in Representative's home state

Sponsor: Rep. Kalwejt

The question is whether the bill should be considered?

The ayes have it.

Debate on this bill will continue until at least 1:05PM Eastern on Tuesday, February 9, 2010, unless the debate period is extended or shortened in accordance with the SOAP.

The Sponsor, Representative Kalwejt, has the floor.

[cinyc]

Rep. Mr. Moderate has missed three consecutive votes without posting an official leave of absence.  This technically means that he is expelled from the Assembly under Article V, Section xiii of the New Northeast Constitution.  I have informed the Governor of the situation.

[cinyc]

Motion to shorten the debate period. To the shortest time you will agree to.

I'd like to hear from the sponsor first before deciding on a shorter period.  It won't be less than 24 hours. 

I have some concerns about this legislation - especially since it conflicts with the order established in the Constitution.

[cinyc]

Okay.  The debate period will be 24 hours.  I will open the vote some time around 1:00 or 2:00PM Eastern tomorrow, depending on when I am available.

[cinyc]

Inadvertently edited. 

This post had the proposed typo fix included in the final bill and a statement questioning the constitutionality of the bill.

[cinyc]

Mr. Speaker

I would like to point that the act have nothing to do with a chain of command. Just like United States order of precedence have nothing to do with the presidential line of succession. For example, Chief Justice is excluded from the line but appears highly in order of precedence, higher than Senate president pro tempore who's third in line.

This is for ceremonial purpouses only and is not an constitutional issue at all.

I hope I put that clear.

Noted - though I don't think there's much of a difference.

Is my amendment to the bill friendly?

[cinyc]

We shall now proceed to a vote on the bill:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This vote will remain open until the earlier of 3:00PM Eastern on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 or when all Representatives shall have voted.

[cinyc]

Nay

Yikes! Rep. Docyor Cynic - snow happens, I guess.

[cinyc]

By a vote of 4-2 with one absence, the Northeast Order of Precedence Act passes, and will be sent to the Governor for his signature or veto.

Next bill:

Health Act

To encourage people to have a healthy body,
If you can prove you belong to a gym, then you can get 5% off your aiprot flight ticket.
To prove you belong to a gym you need:
a) A gym member ship card
b) or a temporary card showing that you did apply for membership.

Sponsor: Rep. cutie_15

The question is whether the bill should be considered?

The ayes have it.

Debate on this bill will continue until at least 3:05PM Eastern on Thursday, February 11, 2010, unless the debate period is extended or shortened in accordance with the SOAP.

The Sponsor, Representative cutie_15, has the floor.

[cinyc]

I would like to propose we shorten the debate time to as short as possible for this legislation.

I will not rule on motions to shorten until we hear from the sponsor. 

[cinyc]

I would like to propose we shorten the debate time to as short as possible for this legislation.

I will not rule on motions to shorten until we hear from the sponsor.  

The bill is not even written in legible English. It is an embarrassment to this Assembly.

I'm not a fan of the bill as written, but it's not the first bill this Assembly has considered that includes a few typos.

The GM says that Northeast obesity is at an epidemic level.  This bill could be used as a vehicle to address that - or to decide that we as the Assembly shouldn't meddle into people's wastelines.

I would like to hear from the sponsor before ruling on any motion to shorten debate.

[cinyc]

Rep. cutie_15 - we're making laws for the Northeast.  Typos don't matter much in your posts as long as we can read it, but it does matter in our laws, which should be free of typos and easily readable.   It embarrasses us as an Assembly to pass  laws full of typos and mistakes.

Would you object to shortening the debate period to open the vote at 8:00PM tomorrow?

[cinyc]

We will open the vote on this bill at 8PM on Wednesday, February 10.

I'm going to propose an amendment to fix typos and avoid the use of the word "you", which I hope will be deemed friendly:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This doesn't mean I support the bill - I don't think the Northeast government should force airlines to cut fares for anyone or tell people how to regulate their weight.

[cinyc]

There will be order - and the gentlemen will suspend.

You are always free to move to consider more than one item at a time under the SOAP.  If you do not, the legislation of this region will follow the order in which it is in the queue subject to the 2 piece per Representative limit, as required under the SOAP.
 
Regardless of what any particular Representative thinks about the merits of a bill, it was important to the sponsor and will be treated as such by the Speaker.  As the GM points out, this bill could be used as a vehicle to deal with the obesity epidemic - if we think that is something the government should be dealing with.  I personally do not think it is, but others may have a different opinion.

Rep. cutie_15 - please don't resign because some Representatives don't like your bill.  If every representative resigned because others don't like what is being proposed, we'd have no Assembly at all.

[cinyc]

Rep. cutie_15 - please don't resign because some Representatives don't like your bill.  If every representative resigned because others don't like what is being proposed, we'd have no Assembly at all.

It is not that they don't like it, it is them being rude. I can't stand rude people.

The rudeness must stop - and will stop.

Have you officially tendered your resignation to the Governor?  If so, this bill will be taken off the floor.  I also need to know how many Representatives we currently have for voting purposes.

[cinyc]

Rep. cutie_15 - Is my proposed amendment friendly?  If it's not, I'll have to consider withdrawing it or whether to hold a separate vote on it.

[cinyc]

Rep. cutie_15 - Is my proposed amendment friendly?  If it's not, I'll have to consider withdrawing it or whether to hold a separate vote on it.

well yeah. But why the weird lingo?

Most of our laws are in legaleese.   

Friendly means we don't have to hold a separate vote on an amendment because the sponsor agrees to it.  Unfriendly means we have to hold a separate vote because the sponsor doesn't agree to it.

What about Rep. Doctor Cynic's amendment?

[cinyc]

Because all proposed amendments have been deemed friendly, it's time to vote on final passage of the Health Act:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

This vote will remain open until the earlier of 8:40 PM on Thursday, February 11, 2010, or when all Representatives shall have voted.