A few thoughts from your PO; AMENDMENTS AT VOTE

[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 )

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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

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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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. 

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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?

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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?

This a fundamentle disagreement we have on whether the feds can force or compel a region to reform, or whether we are at there mercy. Personally I think its the latter.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

As do I.

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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

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

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

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.

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The Problem is you can have Anti-Regionalists be elected Governor.

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

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.

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

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!

And quite corrupt as well.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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, 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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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?

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.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Come on... Do something.

What do you want done?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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.