The Senate: Introductory Business

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am not going to unsticky the 30th noticeboard until we have a handle on the bills that were left in limbo and how we are going to handle them.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

a.) The first 15 open threads shall be open to all legislations initially regarding bills, resolutions or constitutional amendments. If the sponsor already has two or more pieces of legislation on the Senate floor, legislation from Senators who do not shall take priority until all such other legislation is completed. The PPT shall be the president officer for these open threads.

I think you meant "presiding officer" not "president officer".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I don't recall there ever being a Deputy President of Congress,

Meanwhile FalterinArc be like "Am I a joke to you".

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

4.) Veto Override and Redraft proceedings shall not be conducted in a slot and thus not subjected to any limits on the amount of legislation on the floor, but shall be conducted in their original threads. If a redraft or override comes to the Senate from the House, it shall be administered in its original thread for that chamber with the same Presiding Officer.

Something I noticed while glancing over the text is that this mentioned the House.

The whole second sentence there can be removed as it serves no purpose now. The first sentence contains enough to handle the matter in a single chamber legislature I should thing.


This one is partially my fault. Scott used the "New Senate Rules Resolution" for his initial draft, which had been renamed and modified heavily by an amendment I introduced after Scott had left. Scott used the wrong text thus as the basis for his initial draft and then upon him showing it to me last week, I discovered this situation and we painstakingly edited the April Rules amendment into his text line by line at 4 AM and I was using a computer wired to a TV almost ten feet away from its keyboard.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Could we possibly change the name to the traditional: "Official Senate Procedures and Rules for Operation (OSPR)"? It has a long association with the unicameral Senate and isn't as bland as "Senate Rules". It is also very similar to the names of the rules documents that both chambers of the bicameral Congress ended with (House flipped Rules and Procedures I think though).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

3.) A bill shall be sent to the president after it has been approved by the Senate. The leader of the chamber it most recently passed shall notify the president.

Found another one in Article 11.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Article 5: Motions to Table

1.) Any Senator can, during a period of debate, with the support of one other Senator, introduce a motion to table the legislation.

2.) The PPT shall open a vote on the motion to table. This vote shall last for a maximum of two (2) days during which time the Senators must vote. Voting may be declared final at any time if the motion to table has been approved or rejected.

3.) For the motion to table to pass, two thirds of those voting (excluding abstentions) must support the motion.

4.) Tabled legislation shall be taken off the Senate floor by the President pro Tempore.

References to PPT and President Pro-Tempore here should be changed to presiding officer since a tabling motion could happen in a VP controlled thread.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Article 8 references 3 Senators needing to sponsor censure and expulsion. While I am not saying assertively this needs to be increased, it is something we should consider since previously (unless I am mistaken) this was the same with the bicameral Senate and amounted to half the chamber, whereas now it is 1/6th of the chamber.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Article 8 references 3 Senators needing to sponsor censure and expulsion. While I am not saying assertively this needs to be increased, it is something we should consider since previously (unless I am mistaken) this was the same with the bicameral Senate and amounted to half the chamber, whereas now it is 1/6th of the chamber.

Similarly it also needs only 2 sponsors for a VONC on the PPT, which seems low to me now with the size of the current body.

Yea, these are precisely the things that need to be addressed and precisely the kinds of things that were copy pasted through in July 2016 leading to problems later.

Would 9 for Expulsion/Censure and 6 for VONC be reasonable?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

What about this Scott?

Could we possibly change the name to the traditional: "Official Senate Procedures and Rules for Operation (OSPR)"? It has a long association with the unicameral Senate and isn't as bland as "Senate Rules". It is also very similar to the names of the rules documents that both chambers of the bicameral Congress ended with (House flipped Rules and Procedures I think though).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I just realized hilariously that I was Senate PPT when Scott joined the site.

Anyway in 2011 and probably to 2013, Final votes were 7 days long and amendment votes were 5 days long. Then it was reduced to Final Votes = 5 and Amendment votes =3 and then I think with the reset it was uniformed at three, and like with many things, Tabling motions was overlooked and was set at 2.

Maybe 5 days all around?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How many days for tabling votes in that proposal, Scott?

Also if that four days doesn't include sponsor advocacy, am I assuming that is a five day total for initial debate period (advocacy plus initial responses)?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How many days for tabling votes in that proposal, Scott?

Also if that four days doesn't include sponsor advocacy, am I assuming that is a five day total for initial debate period (advocacy plus initial responses)?

Four days, all-around. And yes.

If yes, then you might want to say five days (120 hours) in the text since the text is structured to be inclusive as such. Under the previous senate rules it said "3 days" but was broken down to 1 for Sponsor and 2 for everyone else.

The break down like this was of my own execution and wasn't specifically broken down in the rules if that makes sense. I just took the minimum debate time, applied it this way and then used it as a benchmark a couple years back to push for responses and track Senator engagement thus (though this latter part fell by the wayside b/c of time constraints)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Sestak suggested 6 for Expulsion/Censure and 4 for VONC.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Thank you for the clarifications! Apologies if my initial post came off as "taking a hacksaw." I have just been leery to see any establishing document pass without a fine-tooth comb ever since my experience with the Philadelphia Plan (which was a learning experience for me).

As for your second point, my intention was actually the other way around -- I was suggesting that Article 5's existence rendered Article 4.3 unnecessary; I fully agree with the existence of Article 5.

For me it is the memories of the early days of the Fourth Constitution and especially the Fourth Senate while I was President, but the end result is the same. Fine tooth comb.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Explanations/What I did not change:

1. Technically yes, wxtransit, the passing of responsibilities is permanent under the current text, but we've never encountered a situation (at least to my memory) where a senator passed seniority down to someone else. Perhaps Yankee would know?

2. I actually think section 5 is appropriate standalone, because tabling of bills (in effect, stopping debate and not allowing a bill to receive a formal up-or-down vote on its merits) is not something that should be common or seen as a standard part of debate.

3. Technically, yes, if one senator votes to table a bill and eighteen either abstain or don't vote (the effect is the same and abstentions and non-votes are only counted differently), the bill is tabled. But this is extremely unlikely to happen and if a senator does not wish for their vote to be counted, their abstention or non-vote should not have any impact on the bill in question.

Everything else wxtransit raised has been accounted for and modified accordingly.

Their actually is nothing in the text that explicitly dictates permanent or temporary so really it comes down to the declaration of passage itself by the Dean. The Dean may set a period of time, make it indefinite and potentially reclaim it at will.

We have not had this situation manifest except where Razze designated someone to administer the Speaker voters, though I am not familiar with that first hand. Perhaps Cao or someone has more direct knowledge of that situation.

One area where I do have experience with pertains to the Vice President and since Jan 2010 onwards (after a court case by Fritz) legally the ability to administer the Senate rested with the VP and only through delegations of authority did the PPT perform such. It was this legal arrangement that allowed for us to split administration in 2013 since the VP would just op to retain management of those items himself.

Lastly, I would often delegate ongoing authority to the Deputy PPT in the hopes of fostering a first come first act approach to procedural motions. This was not a complete delegation of power or designation, as the intent was to allow for both to operate simultaneously to try and move stuff faster.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Art II§8: Personal aesthetic comment here, but I really dislike the colon usage. In part because it causes thread title to have a double colon; for instance you'd have a thread labeled
SB 104:05: Free The Penguins Act
when I think either
SB 104-05: Free The Penguins Act or SB 10405: Free The Penguins Act
look a lot cleaner.

That is because the colon usage one would not have appeared at the beginning of the bill title.


There actually isn't double colon usage, colon and the dash switch places and the placement of the number is at the end.  Of course I never put them in the bill title anyway, and instead just put them in the OP and in the Noticeboard. This allowed for quick identification of a VP administered thread versus a PPT administered thread b/c the VP always did.


Examples:
SB 30-01: Fair Play in Gaming Act - Passed 5-0
SR 30-10: FGPA Act 2021 6-0
Lady Liberty Refugee Act - SB30:08 - Passed 4-0
Repeal of the Mask Mandate Act - SB30:17 - Passed 6-0

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Art. X§3: BURN IT WITH FIRE. This is arguably unconstitutional and a blatant violation of the principle of separation of powers. The Supreme Court should not be interfering in the internal workings of the Senate for any reason. The Senate, constitutionally, has the absolute power to resolve its own rules disputes and should itself be voting on any disputes that it cannot otherwise resolve.

This probably dates to the mid 2000s and the Second constitution, which may or may not have allowed for this.

Art. XI§3: the bit about the "chamber it most recently passed" is vestigal now and can be removed.

I highlighted this on a previous page, Scott might have overlooked it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Art II§8: Personal aesthetic comment here, but I really dislike the colon usage. In part because it causes thread title to have a double colon; for instance you'd have a thread labeled
SB 104:05: Free The Penguins Act
when I think either
SB 104-05: Free The Penguins Act or SB 10405: Free The Penguins Act
look a lot cleaner.

That is because the colon usage one would not have appeared at the beginning of the bill title.


There actually isn't double colon usage, colon and the dash switch places and the placement of the number is at the end.  Of course I never put them in the bill title anyway, and instead just put them in the OP and in the Noticeboard. This allowed for quick identification of a VP administered thread versus a PPT administered thread b/c the VP always did.


Examples:
SB 30-01: Fair Play in Gaming Act - Passed 5-0
SR 30-10: FGPA Act 2021 6-0
Lady Liberty Refugee Act - SB30:08 - Passed 4-0
Repeal of the Mask Mandate Act - SB30:17 - Passed 6-0

Also putting colon between the Senate number and bill number is consistent with how amendments are also numbered.

Examples
May 19, 2021, 10:25:20 AM s30:01 NC Yankee amendment to the Fifth Constitution...

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

FYI in my view the Dean doing it has always been strange as it’s a position that’s based purely on length of service and means you can have someone entrusted with an important job who isn’t that active or involved.

Generally, though, would the person elected to the most terms not have a good amount of experience with Senate rules and be at least somewhat involved? Personally, I find it a bit hard to believe that such a person could glide through without knowing how to hold a vote for PPT, though my absence from Atlasian politics for the last two years may prevent me from making an accurate assessment of this issue.

Well if you guys are starting over seniority - which MB seemed to imply is the intent of the language - the most senior individual would be AGA, who with all due respect, is newer to the game and has not presided over debate before.

I did everything I could to be first, but seeing as AGA was in at 12:00:00, it was actually impossible for me to beat that.

Imagine if we tied?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Pre-reset the PPT election was administered by the Vice President.

Rather wished you hadn't gone with the dash between the chamber and bill numbers, as I stated in my previous post on the matter. I find this setup ugly.

Sestak said we need to discuss how to handle cloture votes and what threshold for that is appropriate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

2.) If the PPT determines that a piece of legislation is functionally impractical, frivolous, or is directly unconstitutional, they may, in a public post on the Legislation Introduction thread, remove said legislation from the Senate floor. The sponsoring Senator of the legislation shall have ninety-six (96) hours to challenge this action in a public post, and with the concurrence of one-third (1/3) of office-holding Senators in the affirmative (excluding the PPT), may override the actions of the PPT. (Nasolation clause)

1.) During the course of debate on legislation, any sitting Senator may offer amendments to the legislation. The President Pro Tempore may remove amendments from consideration that are functionally impractical, frivolous, directly unconstitutional, or lack clear intent regarding the changes to be made. The amendment sponsor shall have 24 hours to object to the decision and may overturn the action with the concurrence of 1/3rd of his fellow Senators. Unless stated otherwise in the amendment, components of the underlying legislation not referenced in an amendment will remain unchanged.

Why does the vote in the first except exclude the PPT, but not the second?

Also, would it be possible to edit the OP with each change of the rules instead of posting the whole thing every time?

Standard practice for going on a decade plus now has been to maintain the evolution of a piece of legislation over the course of a debate thread, for accessibility and transparency reasons. Also, many people don't refer back to prior pages of debate and only look at the current one so many would not see an updated OP if such were to be done there.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Pre-reset the PPT election was administered by the Vice President.

Rather wished you hadn't gone with the dash between the chamber and bill numbers, as I stated in my previous post on the matter. I find this setup ugly.

Sestak said we need to discuss how to handle cloture votes and what threshold for that is appropriate.

Agreed, I think the dash for VP/colon for PPT setup makes sense to me.

Okay we'll split it France gets the colon and Sweden gets the Dash.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Concerning the threshold for cloture, hasn't the standard been 2/3 for some time? If there is rationale for changing it to 3/5 I am fully willing to hear it; otherwise, I do not see much of a need to lower it by a minimal amount.

Also, 2/3 of 18 comes out to a nice even 12, while 3/5 of 18 comes to a more annoying 10.8

2/3rds of 10 in the pre-reset Senate was 6.66667, but we always just rounded up to the nearest whole number.

That is why 4 became the magic number for the Regionalist movement.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Concerning the threshold for cloture, hasn't the standard been 2/3 for some time? If there is rationale for changing it to 3/5 I am fully willing to hear it; otherwise, I do not see much of a need to lower it by a minimal amount.

Also, 2/3 of 18 comes out to a nice even 12, while 3/5 of 18 comes to a more annoying 10.8

2/3rds of 10 in the pre-reset Senate was 6.66667, but we always just rounded up to the nearest whole number.

That is why 4 became the magic number for the Regionalist movement.

Guess the new magic number will be either 6 or 7, depending on what happens here.

Well not really, because that was based on threshold for failing amendments (decided in constitution), not ability to filibuster.