SR 108-14: No Rule of One Rules Package (Passed)

[West_Midlander]

Amendment.

I don't see any reason to raise the threshold for simply bringing legislation to the floor and the "in good faith" section is totally subjective and could be abused by any PPT so raising the threshold to 2/3 seems unwise.

Section 3

Article 3 of the Official Senate Procedures and Rules for Operation is amended as follows:

Article 3: Amendments

1.) During the course of debate on legislation, any sitting Senator may offer amendments to the legislation. The President Pro Tempore may in good-faith remove amendments from consideration that are functionally impractical, frivolous, directly unconstitutional, entirely non-germane to the broader subject of the bill, or lack clear intent regarding the changes to be made. The amendment sponsor shall have 24 hours to object to the decision by the PPT and may overturn the action with the concurrence of 12/3rd of his fellow Senators. Unless stated otherwise in the amendment, components of the underlying legislation not referenced in an amendment will remain unchanged.

...

[West_Midlander]

Aye

[West_Midlander]

Aye. Though I'm not entirely sure which would be better, I'd err on the side of not letting the PPT control this entirely. It's relatively easy to get 1/3 of the senators to support the PPT on something that might be crazy in this environment.

My understanding is that the 1/3 Senators requirement (currently 2/3 in this legislation) is only needed to overrule the PPT tossing out an amendment while there is no 1/3 or 2/3 requirement needed to allow the PPT to toss an amendment.

Ideally, this would never have to be used because the PPT (talking in an abstract, not about WD [as the current PPT] specifically) should conduct himself (talking in an abstract, not about WD [as the current PPT] specifically) in an upstanding way where he does not attempt to carry out the duties of his office in a political way that abuses the process but this is a concern because of recent actions (which have thankfully come to an end for now) by some individuals.

I fear that since historically PPTs have been elected on a party-line vote as with other things of import, any PPT elected by any majority could abuse the process, especially if the sweeping authority of the PPT is expanded as was passed into this legislation by requiring 2/3 Senators to object to tossing an amendment instead of 1/3. If all individuals conduct themselves in a proper way, this won't even be a common occurrence at all. All I am asking for is to return to the original requirement (1/3) under the Senate rules.

[West_Midlander]

To clarify, "in good faith" is already in the bill. This amendment only seeks to lower the requirement to overrule a PPT on removing an amendment from the floor to what it was (1/3 Senators).

[West_Midlander]

Aye

[West_Midlander]

Aye