A few thoughts from your PO; AMENDMENTS AT VOTE

[Purple State]

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.

[afleitch]

Most of you will be reading this because I dragged you in, kicking and screaming, with my PM blitz.

Damn right. But it was needed

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.

[Vepres]

*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.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     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.

[Marokai Backbeat]

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

[Lief 🗽]

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

[Purple State]

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.

[Vepres]

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

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.

[ilikeverin]

* 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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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

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.

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 )

[Purple State]

* 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.

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?

[ilikeverin]

* 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.

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

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

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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.

[Vepres]

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.

[Vepres]

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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.

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.

[ilikeverin]

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.

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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.

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.

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.

[Purple State]

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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.

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.

[Lief 🗽]

* 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.

I like these ideas.

[Vepres]

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 must be logged in to read this quote.

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.

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.

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.

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".

[Purple State]

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

[Vepres]

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).

[ilikeverin]

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

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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.

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.

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.

[Purple State]

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).

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.

[Vepres]

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).

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.

[Purple State]

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

[Vepres]

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

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

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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.

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Depends on what the other reforms are.

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Maybe

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