Popular Initiative Amendment (Passed/Sent to Regions)

[Sam Spade]

Popular Initiative Amendment

Article I, Section 3, Clause 5 of the Atlasian Constitution shall be created to read as follows:

Any ordinary citizen of Atlasia may propose legislation for consideration by the Senate. To do so, he must:

(a) create a new thread (entitled with the name of his proposed legislation) containing his proposal;

(b) receive the signitures of 15% of the registered citizens of Atlasia within 28 days of creating the thread.

When these requirements are met and verified by the Secretary of Forum Affairs, the proposal shall be added to the list of legislation to be considered by the Senate. The citizen who creates the thread for the legislation shall be thence considered the sponsor of the legislation.

(Sponsor: Ebowed)

[Sam Spade]

Friendly amendment to change spelling of signiture to signature.

[Sam Spade]

Friendly amendment to change spelling of signiture to signature.

Senators have 24 hours to object to this friendly amendment.

[Sam Spade]

Personally, I am happy to support and bring to the Senate any good legislation any citizen proposes, whether I support it or not - always have done so.  So, I guess I see no reason for this amendment.

[Sam Spade]

Friendly amendment to change spelling of signiture to signature.

Senators have 24 hours to object to this friendly amendment.

No one has objected.  The amendment is approved as friendly.

[Sam Spade]

I intend to vote against this bill until it is amended to do something that could not be achieved by a citizen asking their senator to sponsor a bill

But what if neither of their Senators agree with the bill? Say, for example, a left-winger in the Southeast wants to propose a bill. Obviously, neither their District nor Regional Senator is going to sponsor it because the Southeast is dominated by rightists, but, if this bill or something similar were passed, that person and others who disagree with their Senators on issues would still be able to propose legislation.

(I suppose using a leftist as an example is probably not going to convince you, but what about a social conservative in the Pacific?)

Even in that case, aniother Senator is likely to pick it up.  I mean, Ebowed introduced Ernest's bill, despite the fact that the two are on complete opposite sides of the country.

And quite frankly, if I believe the bill is strongly written, I will sponsor it myself.  I have done such things before.

[Sam Spade]

Aye.

[Sam Spade]

Since 24 hours have passed without debate, I shall move for a final vote on the legislation.

[Sam Spade]

We are now voting on final passage of the legislation under consideration:


Popular Initiative Amendment

Article I, Section 3, Clause 5 of the Atlasian Constitution shall be created to read as follows:

Any ordinary citizen of Atlasia may propose legislation for immediate consideration by the Senate. To do so, he must:

(a) create a new thread (entitled with the name of his proposed legislation) containing his proposal;

(b) receive the signatures of 15% of the registered citizens of Atlasia within 28 days of creating the thread.

When these requirements are met and verified by the Secretary of Forum Affairs, the legislation shall be placed before the Senate for its consideration, though only one piece of legislation proposed in this matter shall be considered by the Senate at any one time. The citizen who creates the thread for the legislation shall be thence considered the sponsor of the legislation.


Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[Sam Spade]

Nay.

[Sam Spade]

This bill has enough votes to pass.  Senators shall have 24 hours to change their votes.

[Sam Spade]

With 7 votes in favor, 2 votes against and 1 not voting, the amendment has passed and will be sent to the regions for ratification..


I pause to note that this might be the only time in the Senate when EarlAW and I will be the sole votes against legislation.