Okay, this would greatly, overwhelmingly, increase the Presidents power. This gives him the write to amend, and it gives him the right to give preferential treatment to the bills. The purpose of these amendments seems to be that they would allow the Senate to become the play-thing of the President. That a President can interfere in Senatorial activities and become nothing more than an extra-parliamentary Prime Minister. This would take the President out of his place in the executive and give him more of the role of a legislator. A non-voting Senator who can influence legislation just the same.
This, in effect, takes away the powers of the Vice President as President of the Senate. It is the design of our constitution that the Vice President should act as the President's liason with the Senate. That is why he is given the powers to open and close votes, that is why he is given the power to debate along with the other Senators and that is why he may break a tie.
Implementing this amendment to the OSPR will naturally make the Vice President's job redundant. It will weaken the power of an already weak and lackluster office. It will change the balance of powers given in a Presidential system, it will take away the soft power that a President must use to get his legislation passed, and replace it with a system in which the President continues to become more and more a part of the legislature.
I am one of the few people who actually supports a conversion to a parliamentary system. I have always liked the way in which such a system governs a country but in order for a parliamentary system to work the parliament must choose its leader. These amendments, in effect, make the President a non-voting member of the Senate and gives him some of the powers assigned to legislators.
So? we already let the court tell us how to do our own bussiness we might as well let the prez do so too.
