Government Proposal Discussion: Presidential Parliamentarian (Closed)

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm eager to hear more details from Lief and other who support this proposal.

At the moment this is what I'm leaning towards, but I'd like to hash out how it would all work.

[Marokai Backbeat]

My support would depend greatly on the powers of the President in this proposal. Is he just a symbolic head of state like in many European countries, or is this an active politician that has actual influence over legislation?

If he's just symbolic....sure why not? Not a bad system.

Probably a symbolic head of state/diplomat. I would also like to hash out exactly how big such a legislative body would be?

[Marokai Backbeat]

My support would depend greatly on the powers of the President in this proposal. Is he just a symbolic head of state like in many European countries, or is this an active politician that has actual influence over legislation?

If he's just symbolic....sure why not? Not a bad system.

Probably a symbolic head of state/diplomat. I would also like to hash out exactly how big such a legislative body would be?

I dunno...probably similar to its current size?

I've always preferred a larger legislature but have concerns over a body comprised of all the citizens. A body double the size of the Senate wouldn't be such a terrible idea in my opinion. It would also give us some interesting new legislative opportunities, such as the creation of committees, which is unfeasible in our current legislature due to it's size, while still retaining the excitement of running for and holding the elections.

I'm eagerly awaiting Lief's ideas.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I don't see why the position of the President cannot be a simple one.

1. Give him the power to veto
2. Give him the power to ask the House to dismiss the government/prime minister in a vote of no confidence.
3. Give him the power to introduce legilslation to the House in the form of a 'Presidential Slot' if you will where he has the power to introduce one bill at a time.

This makes him exercise power and also push for a legislative programme of sorts, which makes a campaign and a nationwide vote worthwhile.

I agree with this. This way, the President can check the PM if he gets out of control.

In a way. The President is accountable to the people. The PM is accountable to parliament and is chosen by them - the President can ensure parliament 'play nice' and if it's the President who's acting up he can be removed at the next election by the people.

I like your ideas for the powers of a President in this system, Afleitch. I don't like the idea of the President having all the power, but the Prime Minister having most of the power with the President having some softer powers of his own would be a good balance. (Perhaps if the President is viewed as the People's representative in contrast to the Prime Minister which is chosen by the Parliament, he could have the power to call elections.)

But what exactly would the Prime Minister do that the President can't? There have to be some powers the other doesn't share.

The parliament would be unicameral, though if regional governments are preserved, perhaps we could have an upper house/council of Governors similar to the German Bundesrat. This isn't really essential to the plan, however, and could be decided later. I would like to include it somehow, but my worry would be finding enough people willing to both serve in the 15 or 20 member Senate and in the maybe 5-6 member Council of Governors.

Allowing dual office holding is the only solution that that problem I can think of. If not flat out allowing dual office holding, at least allowing people to serve as a member of the parliament and as a regional governor.

Depending on if we have regions and/or how many regions we have.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I've always preferred a larger legislature but have concerns over a body comprised of all the citizens. A body double the size of the Senate wouldn't be such a terrible idea in my opinion. It would also give us some interesting new legislative opportunities, such as the creation of committees, which is unfeasible in our current legislature due to it's size, while still retaining the excitement of running for and holding the elections.

I don't think that we currently have enough persons in Atlasia to have a second elected house of government, even with dual office holding. If we had a much larger population in Atlasia, I could support both houses being elected.

As far as I know this proposal just has one elected House, just larger than our current Senate.