Legislation Introduction Thread

[Peter]

I think President of the Senate Peter Bell (since Gabu no longer has the power) should create a new legislation thread.

Until we have a moderator who is vaguely active to change the sticky, I'm going to leave it as it is. Once John gets the moderator power, I'll post a new one.

[Peter]

And a certain constituent of mine would like this introduced as well:

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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.")

[Peter]

I hereby adopt Al's National Sin Tax Bill. I will amend it once it reaches the floor.
State and Defense Merger Bill
   1. The Department of State and Department of Defense are hereby merged to form the Department of State and Defense.
   2. The principal officer of the Department of State and Defense shall be the Secretary for State and Defense.
   3. All previous duties that have fallen on either the Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense will now fall on the Secretary of State and Defense.
   4. The Secretary of State and Defense shall occupy the position in the Presidential Line of Succession, as defined by the Line of Succession Act (F.L. 6-5), presently occupied by the Secretary of Defense and Forum Security.
   5. This Act amends Article VIII, Section 2 of the Federal Constitution as is necessary to implement its provisions.
   6. This Act shall take effect on 3 March, 2006.

Election Time Constitutional Amendment

All elections to the Presidency and the Senate mandated under this Constitution shall begin at 1800 Eastern Standard Time on the Thursday before the second to last Friday of the month in which they are scheduled to take place, and conclude exactly 72 hours later, except in the month of December, when elections shall begin at 1800 Eastern Standard Time on the second Thursday of the month and conclude exactly 72 hours later.

Dean of the Senate OSPR Amendment
Section 1
A new Clause 3 is added to Article 1, Section 2, reading as:

The Dean of the Senate is defined as the serving Senator, who is not the President Pro-Tempore, with the longest continuous service in the Senate in his or her present stint of service. For the purposes of this clause, continuous service begins at the moment of swearing-in in the first term of the stint of service.

Section 2
Article 2, Section 3 is hereby struck, and replaced with the following:

Section 3: Absence or Vacancy of both the President of the Senate and the President Pro-Tempore
1. If:
    i.The Presidency of the Senate is vacant and there is no PPT in office or,
    ii.One of these offices is vacant and the other office holder has been inactive for five or more days or has a declared absence or,
    iii.Both of these office holders have been inactive for five or more days or have declared absences,
Then the Dean of the Senate shall be the Presiding Officer of the Senate, possessing all of the powers and prerogatives of the PPT.

2. Limits placed on individual Senators serving as PPT by this OSPR for prior service as PPT do not limit any Senator from Presiding over the Senate in their capacity as Dean of the Senate.
If anybody has comments/improvements/otherwise before any of these bills reach the floor, please make these known to me either in the comment thread, or via PM, or osmosis.

[Peter]

Asbestos Ban Amendment Bill
Whereas,
   1. The Asbestos Ban Act bans the mining, sale and use in construction of asbestos within Atlasia.
   2. The Senate recognises thats these restrictions do not appear to have been grounded in any enumerated power granted to the Senate by the Second Constitution

Therefore,
   1. The Asbestos Ban Act is repealed.
   2. The Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury shall have necessary power to regulate the importation and exportation of asbestos into and out of Atlasia as they shall feel necessary to protect the public health and the environment.
   3. The Secretary of the Treasury shall have necessary power to regulate the transportation of asbestos throughout Atlasia through the issuing of licenses and other regulations that he feels necessary to protect the public health and the environment.
The text of the original act can be found here.

[Peter]

Useless Defense Spending Repeal Bill

1. The Missile Defense Initiative Act is repealed.
2. All appropriations associated with the above are terminated.

[Peter]

After consulting with the President, Vice-President, and SoFA and receiving no objections, I offer the following Constitutional Amendment which addresses many of the concerns from the recently passed Election Time Constitutional Amendment that would make it more difficult for certain members to take the position of SoFA by adding flexability to the voting time. I would appreciate it if a Senator would sponsor this.
Thanks.

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Whilst the recent Amendment did have issues that I didn't anticipate, this actually creates more than it resolves and I'm honestly surprised that 4 people didn't anticipate these at all. Elections ending on a Sunday makes sense for very obvious reasons - much easier to certify in a timely fashion because people will not be at school/work. The Amendment you propose doesn't really make clear which voting booth it is referring to, thus possibly meaning it applies to all voting booths, which arguably would touch Constitutional Amendment booths and thus reduce their open time from one week to 3 days.

I introduce this instead:

Flexi-time Constitutional Amendment

   1. Regular elections to the Senate and Presidency shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on the second to last Thursday of the month in which they otherwise would have started and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.
   2. Special elections to the Senate shall begin within ten days of the vacancy occurring and shall begin between midnight Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday and 0001 Eastern Standard Time on the first Friday thereafter, and shall conclude exactly 72 hours after beginning.
   3. The exact time at which a given election or vote shall begin may be determined by the voting booth administrator subject to such restrictions as may be imposed by Law.
   4. The Ninth Amendment is repealed.

[Peter]

Peter Will Fix It Bill
Section 1
Section 16 of the Electoral Reform Act is hereby amended to read:
   1. After passage by the Senate, Sections 5 through 17 of this Act shall take immediate effect.
   2. Sections 1 through 4 of this Act shall only take effect in the event that in a national public poll (where all votes shall be cast by public post), which last for exactly one week, a majority of those registered voters who cast votes shall vote in favour of the adoption of Sections 1 through 4.
   3. The aforementioned national public poll shall be administered by the Vice-President.
   4. In the event that Sections 1 through 4 of this Act do not take effect after the national public poll then Sections 1 through 3 of the Unified Electoral Code Act shall remain in effect withstanding any language in Section 17 of this Act to the contrary.

Section 2
Any national public poll begun commensurate with the previous Section 16 of the Electoral Reform Act is hereby null and void.
I wouldn't mind if we could dispense with the usual trivialities so that I can fix the problems that need to be fixed.

[Peter]

This will obviously not be considered on my watch, but I urge my colleagues and successors to consider it in the next session. I have in particular been alarmed at the fact that various executive orders which can have a profound effect on, for example, what registration changes are allowed and not, have not been transcribed to the wiki in any fashion.

Citizen Access to Law Bill
Whereas,
   1. It is desirable that all citizens should be able to access the Laws that affect their lives in a simple and convenient manner.
   2. The Atlas Fantasy Wiki provides a method of delivery for such a goal.
   3. Several executive orders have been promulgated by various executive officials, but these are not consistently recorded.

And whereas, the Senate recognises the hard work of the sitting Attorney General and his predecessors in maintaining a Statutes at Large and expresses to him and his predecessors their thanks.

Be it herein enacted,
Section 1: Duties of the Attorney General
   1. The Attorney General shall maintain a list of the Statutes that become Law on the Atlas Fantasy Wiki.
   2. The Attorney General shall maintain a list of the Constitutional Amendments that are ratified by the Regions on the Atlas Fantasy Wiki.
   3. The Attorney General shall include with these, various details that he considers informative and descriptive to the subject matter.
   4. In the event that there is no Attorney General or the Attorney General is on an extended leave of absence, the President may vest these powers in another executive officer as he sees fit.

Section 2: Executive Orders
   1. Any executive officer who promulgates an executive order consistent with their powers granted by Law is responsible for recording such order on the Atlas Fantasy Wiki in a manner that is reasonably accessible to ordinary members of the public.
   2. The Attorney General is directed to make efforts to catalogue executive orders passed prior to the passage of this Act and record these on the Atlas Fantasy Wiki.