Talk Elections

Delegate Oakvale suggested to wipe all laws approved in the latest years.
Obviously there's nothing in the Constitution about it, but it might be inserted.

Considering that we will more than likely reduce the number of regions, leading to a legislative reset in the regions, I think a restart at the federal level is necessary as well.

of course there is…?

you just don't include viii.1.4 in the new constitution

     Not including anything would leave the matter open to litigation and whatnot. It would be better to just include amend the clause to say that legislation is not carried over.

A legislative reboot is an absolute must: without it, any changes we might make to the structure of the federal government or the Regions will only slow the decline of Atlasia. We need to give a new generation of players the opportunity to shape the future of our Republic without the hinderance of 11 years worth of legislation.

I like Evergreen's idea in theory, but I agree with Classic Conservative that it would be overly confusing. Perhaps we could allow 2/3 of the Regional legislatures to veto federal legislation instead?

I'd also add that for simplicity's sake it would make sense to simply adopt the current US legislative situation, like we did back in 2004. It might be fun to have people argue about Obamacare.

Maybe parts of it, like non-controversial issues, then we argue on the controversial ones. (AKA A.C.A.)

I fully support a legislative reboot:


This is a really bad idea. For one thing the separating of controversial bills from non controversial ones will take ages, for another it would lead a massive gap in, say, healthcare policy as no one would know what the current status was, for another you can hardly say we are the US in 2015 but that certain bills didn't pass because that diverges the timeline from 2004 and finally it's precisely the controversial laws which we'd want to have on the books as those are the ones that would provoke debate by amending or repealing.

I disagree it's our own country we aren't the U.S.

I am completely in agreement with doing away with all existing laws passed under the current Atlasia and associated regions.

The NEW ATLASIA should reflect the new generation of players, and it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish this with the NEW ATLASIA and the NEW REGIONS being encumbered with years of past legislation.

And I say this in full knowledge of the fact that there is even a Northeast law on the books called The Winfield Doctrine, which would as well fall under this proposal.  :)

And nobody is going to want to go through legislation from the past and separate the sensible from the ridiculous, and this would be open for argument which legislation falls into which category.  Bedsides, some power obsessed Governor could simply veto the repeals anyway. 

I say let a NEW ATLASIA start from the beginning with a fresh mandate.  Let a NEW ATLASIA set the tone and have NEW debates for the future, not the past.

I support it

If we're going to do this, then we should do this. A full on legislative reboot is something I support. I do have worry that it just going to create a bunch of easy low-hanging fruit and people will just immediately rush to re-enact s**t we already had, but people have been doing that for a long time anyway, so who cares.

In full support of the reboot too. Perhaps we might see a legislative frenzy at the start, but that is far better than having very little room to manuever in terms of bills as is the case today.

I'm supporting it as well.

I as well, like Morikai, have fears that legislators may rush to bring back in some of the idiotic, ridiculous, disgusting, revolting, stupid legislation from the old Atlasia,

Hopefully they would have more sense than that, but you never know.

That is why I said before it would be good if we had some way of constitutionally preventing trivial junk from being introduced into the federal or regional legislatures.

That would be ideal, but I cannot think of any way of doing it that wouldn't be completely subjective.

     Prohibit "suggestion laws" that don't actually accomplish anything (like defining regional symbols)?

I recently remembered this quote by Jefferson, and it reminded me of an idea of his that, while unworkable in the real world, might just be a good mechanism to have in Atlasia: the automatic reboot. In other words, we state in the Constitution that after a given period of time (say, three or four years), all federal and Regional laws currently on the books become null and void, allowing the new generation of players to start afresh. Thoughts?

Obviously we should keep some laws (for example, laws against murder, rape, and robbery), but other than that, I support a clean slate.

This is one school of thought certainly worthy of consideration.

I bring up this matter because during the many times I have been elected to the Northeast Assembly, once a particular coalition got their hands on the levers of power, they abused this power and betrayed the region with legislation such as:

Passing a law that a certain filthy, vile, disgusting, obscene song sung by a filthy, vile, disgusting, obscene band, must be played over and over and over again every day to 5 and 6 year olds, and that anybody, parents, teachers, who opposed this filth would be subject to 10 years in prison and a $100,000.00 fine, or whatever.

Can you imagine a responsible Assembly actually passing such a travesty?

I was finally able to get a new Assembly to join me and repealing this atrocity.

But my point is, why should this stupidity and ignorance even be allowed to make it to the bill and debate stage?

The new constitution HAS to have a clause banning this type of behavior, surely.    

These laws can be passed in the new Atlasia.

If we started trying to pick  what stays and what goes we would have a group who thinks a certain law should stay and another group who thinks that same law should go.

The expectation would be that if we do a legislative repeal, we will simply revert to the status quo in America right now, then work from there. Laws are already in the books on those things. :)

I can see what you mean. My point was that we need a base-line, but not to destroy all the work Atlasia has had put into it.

So, correct me if I' wrong, but the only vote here should be simply whether or not to do it. If we do it, then we don't include a clause in the constitution stipulating otherwise. If we vote against wiping laws, then we add that clause. Are we also wanting to wipe judicial rulings?

I understand where you're coming from, but in the interim, we would temporarily be legalizing rape, murder, etc. and allow people to get away with the with no consequences.This seems reasonable.

For the sake of continuity, I would advise against using post-2004 U.S. laws as the basis for the new statute.

So, things we need to decide...
1. If we do the legislative reboot, at what year in US policy do we start?
2. Do we get rid of judicial rulings as well?

For 1), I would recommend doing it now - the biggest piece of legislation we have recently had is Obamacare, and I am reasonably certain something similar to it would easily pass anyways (See Fritzcare). As for 2), I would say yes, since many of the rulings are based on laws that we would be repealing.

Therefore, I propose that we leave a section out requiring that legislation and rulings to roll over. Since this is non-binding I don't know if any more than that is required to get a vote on it.

     We would most likely just use United States Federal Statute as our base. If you were to check, you would find that Atlasia has never passed a law prohibiting murder; that's because it was already illegal through American law.

We need a complete legislative reset I've said this before we've done everything we could've as a nation, we've solved almost every issue.

     It's not just having solved every issue, but even knowing what's been done. The statute is so large now, it's nearly impossible to know everything that's in it. As such, you get laws that overlap incoherently because they were passed without knowing what came before.

Exactly we have to many laws on the boasks about the same subject and since we also use the former U.S. Law we have a lot more than we need.

That's similar to some reforms proposed in Mark Levin's book The Liberty Amendments I'd make it 3or4/5 for an override on federal legislation been as we're sticking with 5 regions.

I fully support this. On a regional level, however, I'd like to have a vote of the people on wiping laws.

The new Constitution will have to be approved by the voters, so this is already in place.

I'd be fine with using the current US laws as a base. I don't think wiping them completely is a good idea. We have to start somewhere and go forward.

Wiping laws? Count me in! :D

Seriously, though, a legislative reboot makes sense. The echo-chamber is a bit ominous--I'd love to hear someone give a devil's advocate critique on it--but I guess that isn't always a bad thing.


Well, we need to start somewhere, right? Unless I've missed something (which is always a possibility) we'll need to choose some pre-existing set of laws. Modern-day US makes the most since, doesn't it? That's what the founders of Atlasia did.

If anyone has any creative alternate ideas, I'd be more than happy to hear them!

     I guess the devil's advocate point of view is that people become attached to their accomplishments. Wiping them all out would alienate long-time players who would effectively be left as if they had never existed.

I would go along with the policy of wiping all laws from the records, using the existing United States laws as a base, allowing for a new beginning for a new Atlasia.

Not really. I suppose it depends on how the wiki is restructured. It would be more hope that the old laws are left on there under the Senates on the Statute page, but with a divider or something seperating it from the new era's statute's and a note stating the terms of the legislative reset. That way they are part of the historical record, even if they no longer have the force of law.

The purpose of a legislative reset is so that new players have a better idea of where to start from without having to dig through 11 years of wiki pages. Deleting all the US statutes as well goes to the other extreme and once again fails to accomplish that primary task behind the legislative reset.

Would you be open to support wiping regional governments's laws too, in order to let regional governments be more active?

this has to be part of the deal, yeah. there's a lot of old stuff that's awful in various ways (and in the pacific's case, plenty of new stuff as well)

     If our concern is having 11 years of statute confuses new players then it is probably even more important to reset at the regional level, where many new players get their start in the game.

Agreed.

Most definitely.

Wiping all federal laws and all regional laws is really the only way to go for a new Atlasia.

I move for a principle vote one wiping all current regional and federal laws and replacing them with the US laws up until the moment the constitution goes live.

I second this motion.

I third it - although I don't support wiping every law.

This step must be taken for a truly new Atlasia.

Otherwise, Atlasia will forever be mired in the swamps and wastelands of the past.

How can we wipe all laws and replace them with US laws until the point of reset? This convention isn't binding until it is in terms of affecting change, right? Wouldn't the Senate have to do such a thing, or am I misunderstanding what is being stated here?

I think, similar to the last constitution, the plan is just to insert a line saying something to the effect that all previous laws are repealed and so on.

Anyway, given it's been like 4 days can we have the principle vote now?

Oh, well I misunderstood. Note the word in bold: I thought someone was suggesting that we somehow nullify all of the laws right now via the ConCon (somehow), before ratification.

Yes, lets move ahead with this. It's pretty clear that a consensus on the issue has been reached.

In addition, I suggest that this be the format of said vote:

I like Truman's format.

Yeah, a principle vote is the best thing to do.
But I have decided to split the question about wiping laws between federal and regional laws. It's better.

This principle vote will last for 48 hours. Delegates, please vote.




I'm not sure the ConCon can act about wiping current laws. So the Senate will have to follow this ConCon principle vote and act on this matter.

Seems pretty straight-forward to me. A fresh start is needed, and I think it would be difficult to keep regional laws if we're consolidating. As to the third question, the third option is simply out of the question. Reverting to 2004 will require more effort as a lot has changed since then - starting now puts everyone on good footing and allows us to have debates that are relevant IRL, which should draw in more interest.

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


What should be the basis of the new Statute?
[  ] We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
[X] We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
[  ] All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed

     The way to go about this seems pretty straightforward to me. Let's do this.

It can. We would simply include a clause in the Constitution saying, in effect:

Wait a second, are some people advocating repealing ALL laws? As in, including US laws made before 2004? Forcing us to go through the tedium of making laws for every single thing? Or have I misunderstood the last answer to that last question?

Yes, and I'm frankly surprised to not see more conservatives supporting such a measure. They're basically saying, "yeah - go ahead and give me an automatic liberal base-line from which to start over".

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


What should be the basis of the new Statute?
[  ] We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
[X] We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
[  ] All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
[;D] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
[;D] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


What should be the basis of the new Statute?
[  ] We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
[;D] We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
[  ] All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed

     I like to think we're realistic enough to not want to spend months passing laws to ban murder or set up armed forces. ;)

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


What should be the basis of the new Statute?
[  ] We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
[X] We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
[  ] All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed

This is my vote as well

What a shame then!

The whole point of the reset was to 1) make it so newer folks would more easily acclimate to the legal situation in the game and 2) provide an opportunity for devolution to occur. But the former was the primary concern as far as the reset was concerned and therefore matching with current laws is best in terms of accomplishing that. And we can still accomplish devolution as well and just repeal any further Federal laws in areas delegated to the regions.

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
(19) Yes
(2) No
(0) Abstain

Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
(18) Yes
(3) No
(0) Abstain

What should be the basis of the new Statute?
(0) We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
(16) We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
(4) All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed
(1) Abstain

Thank God.

I propose the following amendment:


Delegates have 24 hours to object.

EDIT: 1.1 has been amended to reflect the threshold set in place by the current Constitution.

I object.


This is asking for trouble from a legal standpoint and would put the new constitution on shaky ground. Some would deny its legality, and that is not something Atlasia can afford during such a critical transition period.

This convention lacks the authority to change anything except for the process defined in the current Constitution. There is no way we can create an alternative process, without risking, the whole project being tossed out.

     It may only be necessary to nullify statute passed by the Senate or by the Regions. The Constitution is customarily replaced when a new one is passed and anything else can stand or fall depending on how much its operation hinges upon nulled law.

A vote is now open on Truman's amendment. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

---

I included "Constitutions" in the list of things to be nullified primarily to clarify that the old Regional Constitutions go out of effect with the current federal Constitution.

The two-thirds portion was a typo - I mistakenly thought that the current threshold was 2/3, rather than 3/4. The amendment has been edited accordingly.

AYE

Aye

Nay

     Nay

I was pondering this earlier today, but the implementation of this is a critical matter.


I think that there needs to be a universal date established for the election of Regional Constitutional Conventions. These conventions would have to choose the first six Senators otherwise it could be months before the Senate is functioning. There also needs to be an election for The People's House, perhaps an irregular election, followed by the regular schedule followed thereafter.

Only after these Regional Conventions, Senators and House members have been elected can we begin functioning under the new Constitution. If the Presidency is changed to the point where Adam's term doesn't transcend the Constitutional change, then that has to be held as well.

I may be wrong with my history, but the country remained governed by the Articles of Confederation Government until Washington took office. Back in those days, gov't was not a 24/7 business, so they had it easier in some ways. I cannot support the President operating in the absence of a legislative branch during this process, after what happened last summer. I told Adam this point blank on IRC the last day of the election.

We will know the boundaries as soon as the Constitution is ratified. Lets say the first weekend following ratification, an election shall be held under the new boundaries for Regional Constitutional Conventions, administered by the present Secretary of Federal Elections Homelycooking or successor should he leave office (ERROR, Office created by legislation under Third Constitution!!!!!). These conventions shall then have a set period of time to select Regional Senators. Perhaps the same weekend, perhaps the following weekend, the first election for People's House. If the next weekend, then by the Monday no less than two weeks after ratification you can be up and running. The old constitution can then lapse at noon on the Monday following the second weekend following the ratification.

Regardless, this requires the old constitution to remain in effect past the point of ratification, even if just a week or two.  

So NAY

Abstain

By a vote of 2 Ayes, 5 Nays, 1 Abstention, and with 17 members not voting¹, this amendment has failed to be adopted.

¹ Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves

---

I think Yankee brings up a very good point: while my inclination is to be a succinct as possible, this is one point where we should spell out the process in detail.

Nay FTR.

I'm sorry, but it is absolutely pathetic that over 2/3s of delegates didn't vote on this.

Is there a limit on how many votes a delegate can miss before they are kicked out? I'm tackling a plethora of RL issues and am still able to show up to vote.

I agree.

This is ridiculous.

If they don't participate, out they go.  It should be automatic.

And I really cannot understand this convention burdening down future generations of Atlasian lawmakers with the ancient laws of the past.

I had thought that the very least we could have done was to have given the new Atlasia a fresh start, unencumbered by the thousands of laws from ancient history, some good, some bad, some stupid, some pathetic, some that make no sense at all.

But no, we have decided, in our wisdom, to saddle the new Atlasia with this burden.

Way to go. 

Nay for the record.

Abstain for the record.
Sorry for not voting in it.

Possibly the best way to make sure that people vote is the PM delegates when there is a vote. Many of the delegates may have been unaware that there was a vote.

Thanks Truman for implementing this. :)

Happy to be of service. Unfortunately, the forum limits me to 20 PMs per hour, so five of us will just have to remember to vote on our own. ;)

Yeah, I had no idea there was a vote happening until just now since this convention is terribly organised.

We should debate one issue at a time, not have a bunch of simultaneous threads open.

EDIT: Can I move that votes be invalidated without a certain level of turnout from the delegates?

As Presiding Officer, I have taken steps to ensure that everyone is on the same page from here on out; nevertheless, the delegates who missed the vote have no-one to blame but themselves for their absence. There are only three threads on this board in which issues are being actively debated: it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to scan through each of them and vote on proposals as necessary. For reference, the Senate regularly debates up to ten different proposals at a time and most active Regional legislatures have 2-3 bills on the floor. I'm willing to bet that almost everyone here has served in a Regional legislature at some point, so this arrangement should not come as a surprise. Provided you're willing to log in at least once a day, it should not be unreasonable for you to keep up with all that is going on without someone hovering over your shoulder.

My job is to enforce the Rules of Order and to keep debate from getting off track, not to babysit the delegates and make sure they do their jobs. If sending out a PM blast announcing each vote is what is needed to keep everyone from dozing off, I'm happy to do it, but let's not pretend that 17 delegates didn't show up for work because they couldn't figure out which thread they were supposed to click on.

I am uncomfortable with this for a number of reasons. First, there is nothing in the Rules of Order that allows the Convention to establish a quorum, and we would be opening ourselves up for a lawsuit should we choose to do so anyway. Second, this would hypothetically allow a minority of the Convention to block the passage of unfriendly legislation by refusing to vote, which is something I will not allow to happen.

I agree completely with Senator Truman on the first point.  It is up to the delegates to check in to see what is going on and what is being voted on.  If some delegates miss some votes, that's the way it goes.  They can take more care for the next time.

As to the second point, there is no way that the Chair should have the authority to invalidate votes unless a certain level of delegates turn out.  If delegates don't turn out, they don't have a say in the way that particular vote goes.  Invalidating votes would add too much lost time in the entire process.   

     I would also point out that the Northeast once had a similar process for amending its Constitution. It proved a disaster because 50% turnout proved unfeasible and they were locked out of the Constitution for quite some time until they managed to pass an amendment changing it.

     Likewise, the RPP once had such a rule for adopting bylaw changes (I think that's what it was). When DWTL found himself on the losing side of a vote, he and his supporters retaliated by invalidating their ballots in an attempt to stop it from passing.

     Quorums sound like a good idea on paper, but history has borne out that they do not work in the context of Atlasia. Should interest in the Convention continue to worsen, we may soon find ourselves in a position where it is not possible to continue the Convention. I expect that is not the intent of Senator Oakvale's proposal, and that implementation of it would not be productive.

I'm in the process of drafting a new amendment, and this is what I have so far re: implementation (keep in mind that this is a rough draft, not an official amendment):

1. Once the Constitution has been ratified, the Pres. appoints a SoFE to administer the election of a new Pres., VP, and HoR.
2. The SoFE also administers the election of Regional "Transitional Committees"
3. Committees organize election of new Senate, write Regional Constitutions

I'm unsure where the legislative reboot should go in all of this. Part of me thinks it should happen immediately after ratification, but that creates a troublesome period where there is no official power that can administer the election of the new government. The other part of me thinks that the reboot should happen after the above transition, but that creates a whole new set of problems, namely: how do existing election laws figure into the election of the new gov't?

Thoughts?

Yeah, I totally agree with how Truman's handled it. Sending out PMs is a great way to help, but it's our faults if we miss votes. Also, I agree that a quorum wouldn't work.

Regarding the Senator's amendment, I'd say to do it after the transition, so that we can start off Atlasia: The Next Generation with everything fully functioning, instead of trying to tie our shoes while we're still putting our pants on.

I've found the PMs very helpful.

Based on the recommendations of the Convention, I hereby offer the following amendment. Delegates have 24 hours to object.

Object I think 2/3's is right 3/4 is a little too steep

The thing is, we don't have a choice in the matter: the current Constitution requires that any replacement be approved by 3/4 of the Regions.

Exactly, and as I said on the previous page trying to pull a US style situation and violate the previous process, would open the door to challenges that could wreck the whole process.

     Because we have five regions, either option would require the assent of four of those regions. The fraction here doesn't actually make a difference.

Aren't we reducing to three though? This would mean that 3/4 would require all three regions to approve - whereas 2/3 would require only two.

Consolidation is being enacted as part of the new Constitution; as such, the Three Region Map won't go into effect until after ratification.

---

A vote is now open on Truman's Amendment. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

Aye

AYE!

Aye

Aye

Aye!

Aye

Aye

Aye

Yup

Abstain

About a day left of this.

Abstain

     Aye

By a vote of 14 Ayes, 0 Nays, 3 Abstentions, and with eight members not voting, this Amendment has been ADOPTED.

Are there any proposed changes/additions to the text of this Article, or shall we leave it as-is?

Tomorrow, if there are no objections, I will call a final vote on this Article.

Seeing no objection, we will now proceed with a final vote on this Article. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

Aye

Aye

Aye

Aye!

AYE!

     Aye

Aye

Aye

Aye

;D

aye

Aye

Aye

By a vote of 17 ayes, 0 Nays, and with 7 members not voting and 1 vote invalid, this Article has been ADOPTED.

As such, I hereby declared debate to be CLOSED in this thread.

Huzzah

Indeed, this is a great victory for the Atlasian people!