Legislation Introduction Thread

[Joe Republic]

That's fine by me.  I more or less copied that list almost exactly from the Election Procedures, Certification and Challenges Act.

[Joe Republic]

Also, I would note that the PPT has considerable latitude in which Senators to appoint: he may appoint any Senators. However, the President seems to have no choice in which members of the Cabinet to appoint. As a matter of principle, since the Presidency's powers seems to have already been so restricted, I would suggest that the President be permitted to choose any two members of the executive branch (including himself, if he pleases, just as the PPT may do).

I'll agree with that reasoning, though I still think the SoFA ought to be included too.

[Joe Republic]

I dont think it would hurt to add a few Governors in there to rep. the regions, Master.

Er, why would we include the regions in a reform that only affects things at the federal level?

I was going to ask the same thing.  Still, the Commission would include four Atlasian citizens who don't currently hold federal office, so I guess a couple of Governors could be picked anyway.

[Joe Republic]

I figured that it was mandating a temporary measure that would probably precede an actual bill (i.e. to change the system).  If you'd prefer it was a bill, that would be ok though.

[Joe Republic]

Why would we want Greenland?  At least there turned out to be oil in Alaska, but there's nothing in Greenland but eskimos and polar bears.  We could rename it 'MasterJedi's Folly'!

[Joe Republic]

My my, that certain constituent of yours has been busy.

[Joe Republic]

I honestly don't see the urgency of those bills, particularly so close to an election.  As the second bill requires the constitutional amendment to pass, can we really pass the amendment without debate and expect the regions to ratify it in time for the elections?  I'm not sure we can do that, and I'd rather not be on the sorry side and end up with a disgusting mess of one or two regions still voting on the amendment's ratification when the SoFA opens up the polls for the midterms, rendering the entire debacle useless until February.

The likelihood is that the bills will be passed in time for the next round of elections in February.  That is my own preferred option.

[Joe Republic]

(snip)

Just noticed this, which is a good thing.

The use of the word Amendment in the title of this legislation suggests that this is written as a Proposed Constitutional Amendment, which means that the author is going to a whole lot of trouble that neither he nor the rest of us need to go through.

Article VIII, Section 2, as suggested by its title is a Section of Miscellaneous Carryovers - things that had previously been designated by the Constitution and never prescribed by statute. I always had found this fact utterly ridiculous - of course the Senate should have power to alter, abolish or create executive departments as it wishes, and so this section was left open to being modified by simple legislation as opposed to the unwieldy constitutional amendment. (see Clause 5: "The Senate shall have appropriate power via legislation to repeal or amend anything in this Section.")

Aha, I misread that.  Thank you for the input too.  Technically speaking though, it is still a constitutional amendment, so the name still applies.  But once it reaches the Senate floor, you can be sure I shall mention this.

[Joe Republic]

It's probably not a good idea to endorse the activities of some subversives within one of our key allies' borders.  For the record, I'll be vetoing it if it ever got that far.

[Joe Republic]

I didn't say it was illegal, but I'm starting to get upset with Al:  he keeps bumping unimportant legislation.  That power should be used very little, and only when the legislation is important.

With respect, the legislation I asked him to bump is very important to the majority of my own legislative program.  To be honest, I have grown more than a little impatient with waiting for the Senate to finish dealing with things that I feel are not crucial to keeping this game running smoothly.

[Joe Republic]

I'll be challenging the bumping of the legislation if Defarge agrees FYI

Any particular reason?

[Joe Republic]

It's not so much to do with finding a senator to sponsor my bills.  I'm grateful to both my senators for being extremely helpful in this respect.  It's more to do with legislative expediency.

Perhaps we could have one 'legislative stream' for forum affairs bills, and another for everything else?