SB 104-13: NPC Elections Visibility Act of 2021 (Passed)

[wxtransit]

Thank you, Mr. President.

I will be the first to recongize that this bill is not particularly groundbreaking. Much of the bill's actions are usually already taken care of by the Game Moderator, and much of Section IV is intuitive based on the very nature of news stories produced by the GM. However, this bill does still accomplish several important aims.

First, the bill helps to engage our nation more directly with NPC elections. By ensuring each state is represented at least once every four months (left intentionally vague aside from that requirement as to allow the Game Moderator freedom as to how to design their stories) and that party leaders are able to directly engage with governing/legislating in state politics, NPC elections gain greater visibility, become more engaging, and have more of an effect on Atlasian poltics.

Second, this bill provides a framework for establishing greater visibility of NPC elections. It is clear to Atlasians on both sides of the aisle that the overall activity of our nation could be improved, and I believe now is the time to explore innovative solutions to help solve this problem. As NPC elections are one of the newest assets with the most potential and yet are only frequented by one to two people from most parties, I believe we are underutilizing NPC elections in our political framework. We are at a crossroads as a nation, and we should utilize all of our assets and ingenuity to think outside the box and seek real solutions to our problems. For example, we could have a special "NPC seat" added to regional legislatures in each election cycle that is determined off of the party that holds the most governorships in each region at the time (such a member would be a real player appointed by the party chair -- obviously, such a specific proposal that deals with regional legislative seats should be handled by the regional legislatures themselves, but I wanted to put such a proposal forward just as an example of what we can do). While the contents of the preceding paragraph do not directly relate to the bill as currently written, I believe that this bill serves to generate discussion on the state of NPC elections (and, if the Senate agrees on something that could be changed, such a proposal could be added as an amendment to the current bill).

And finally, this bill also helps to generate discussion about the office of Game Moderator. While this aim is technically not directly related to the bill, the bill does affect the GM, and as such we would need an active GM to carry out the requirements of the bill.

[wxtransit]

Going to wait to hear from Transit and Peanut but I doubt the GM office currently has the capability to make this reality. Even without the NPC elections I would like to see the provisions of this act become reality but this would certainly difficult without the GM getting additional support, perhaps from a newly appointed deputy?

Absolutely agreed. Not only would a deputy assist in the functioning of this bill (obviously, I had in mind several news stories combining multiple states as the aim of this bill, but if the GM's office wanted to make a story about each state individually, that would likely require some assistance), but a deputy would likely assist in the recent pattern of inactivity in the office.

[wxtransit]

I do wonder how much of this could theoretically be compared against the existing Burr System which Lumine set up for the NPCs, in the interests of consolidation of all NPC-related directives.

Good point, Lumine's directives certainly go the distance on codifying major elements of the NPC system, including establishing the points system and other key elements of the game as we know it today. However, several aims of the Visibility Act (including the codification of regular news stories for each state/group of states and GM consultation of partisan officials to determine the actions of selected state officials, perhaps the more groundbreaking of the two) are not currently represented through the directives of the Burr System. As such, the only way in which these two aims can be codified as core components of the NPC elections system are through the passage of a bill such as this one, or the GM himself announcing directives designating these aspects as corollaries to the current Burr System.

[wxtransit]

We still need Peanut to comment first. Contacting him.

I did as well last weekend, this action being the reason for my refraining from commenting in this thread since.

[wxtransit]

I am okay with Section III, though it does pose some problems itself in terms of the added difficulty to the process it is relatively more manageable the second area of concern for me and that would be the four month cycle in Section II. While I get the benefits of having a more expeditious cycle, I would worry greatly that this would essentially amount to a giving cycle requiring 50% more work to be completed and thus risk the ability for it to be completed at all seeing as we have already missed a cycle under the present arrangement.

Also for the record, I would certainly be open to reducing the frequency of the cycle in Section II to every two election cycles (eight months) if Peanut felt necessary (or another cycle if needed), as I certainly agree with the points you have made. Section III does add some difficulty to the process, though I believe it would be less than any burden posed by Section II and the overall benefit in engaging actual players far more in NPC election outweighs any burden, in the interest of creating a more engaged future of NPC elections.

[wxtransit]

If I may offer an opinion, and while I can't speak for Peanut, I feel a project of this sort - a worthwhile idea on its own - would not only require a deputy, but also changing the timing of NPC elections. Although being burnt out myself had much to do with RL, I have grown to believe having them take place each month is asking too much and adding too much pressure. The system would work better, I think, if we had them every two months, whether that is by extending the campaign period to last two months, or, preferably, taking a break each month to prevent player and GM exhaustion.

If there were steady breaks, it would probably become more feasible for the GM - and/or deputies - to spend more time on simulating governance.

I very much agree on both points, and your last point about governance could enrich the nature of Section III. Would an amendment to the schedule have to go through the regional legislature or could it be added as an amendment to this bill?

[wxtransit]

I’m not sure if that system would be better, considering the stress some of us may go through making so many events. Look at May.

However that citizen written story idea is good, presumably anything that could be seen as partisan can be vetoed by the GM.

Agreed on both counts. I'm still awaiting Peanut's feedback, and considering his integral part in this bill I'm withholding some thoughts I am planning on bringing up with respect to changing the timeframe (though it would have to first be introduced regionally and is thus technically out of the scope of this bill) and other thoughts until he returns.

[wxtransit]

Sorry, but the more I read this bill the less I see it actually working in practive,

For a modest rule change, currently campaigns are graded by homestate and then home region. Why not give subregions somewhere between that system that gives both players and non-players the ability to subregional campaigners and more to elected officials (including legislators) extra credit for that as well, especially since they directly represent the people who elected them?

I am inclined to agree, specifically given the fact that feedback has not yet been delivered on this bill. As such, given the fact that this session is winding down, and given the fact that several new avenues of reforming NPC elections have been brought up in this bill, I will be introducing a large-scale amendment sometime either tonight, Monday, or Tuesday. I am also supportive of the inclusion of subregions into the NPC process, though I am a bit confused about your application -- are you suggesting that subregions be taken into account for "home subregion effect" or that NPC legislators are elected on a subregional level and they are allowed to campaign for NPC elections?

[wxtransit]

glad to see the GM has risen from the dead

And then the thread died.

If need be, I can return to revising this bill with a new amendment (which I paused indefinitely when the GM announced he would have a statement on the bill). I'll probably wait a tad bit longer for some feedback but ideally would like to have at least some substantive discussion on either the bill or an amendment progressing towards a vote before the new session starts (perhaps I am too optimistic with that assessment though).

[wxtransit]

After mulling over making some more drastic changes, I realized that perhaps the easiest way to go about getting some real, quantifiable change with NPC elections would be to focus on one aspect rather than address multiple. Whenever the GM is able to elaborate on his comments, I do think those should be incorporated into such a bill, but for now, I will submit the following amendment.

As a strict activity requirement will likely be too big of an ask and as any changes to the NPC cycle are outside of the scope of this bill, the only change I made in this amendment was to make part two of section two read as a suggestion rather than a requirement. (Additionally, I added a time limit on party leader requests, allowing the GM to conduct business in a timely manner while also not rushing party leaders as a week is a reasonable length of time.) I would have liked to see some input on a new direction that this bill could take the GM's office and NPC elections towards, however, that input has not been posted yet and I would like to see something passed on the NPC front. I would be certainly willing to introduce a new bill once feedback is received to initiate more structural and deeper overhauls to the NPC system if such feedback is received after the conclusion of debate on this bill, but I do think that a significant amount of time has already been spent waiting for feedback and the nation deserves some action on this front.

My reasoning for focusing on the communication aspect even given the current state of activity is that it is a change that quite drastically affects the NPC process, engages more players with the actual governing aspect (hopefully making the process more fun for everyone), and was well-received by the Senate. It would not take a considerable amount of effort to implement as there are frankly not that many stories that are posted in a given period (and feedback from party leaders on the direction of a story would not be too hard to obtain, just being a few simple DMs every few days at the most), so I am confident that such a change would overall make the most observable and beneficial change with the least negative impact on the workload for the GM's office. And, such a change would only be in effect when stories are actively being published, which means that the GM could decide their own workload under this change as they decide when stories would need to be written.

Given these reasons, I feel that this change would be the one worth focusing on when striving to see this bill passed through the Senate.

AN ACT
Establishing greater visibility for NPC elections.


Be it enacted by the Senate of the Republic of Atlasia assembled:

Section I. Title.

This legislation may be cited as the NPC Elections Visibility Act of 2021.

Section II. National news updates.
1. The Game Moderator shall post updates on actions taken by state governors and state legislatures as a part of the national news cycle.
2. The Game Moderator's office should strive to cover each state at least once a year.

Section III. Determining state-based actions.
1. In order to determine the actions of specific legislators, groups of legislators, or governors, the Game Moderator should consult the chairman of the national party (or a publicly announced designated official by the party chairman) that the officeholder is a member of to determine said officeholder's actions. If a group of officeholders consists of officials from multiple parties, the Game Moderator should consult the leaders or designated officials from each party involved.
2. If no party chairman or designated party official is available for such an officeholder (if, for example, said officeholder is an Independent), then the Game Moderator shall determine the actions such officeholders take. Additionally, if an official as identified from part one does not respond to a request from the Game Moderator's office within a week, the Game Moderator reserves the right to determine the actions of such NPC officeholders.

Section IV. Effects on current actions taken by the Game Moderator.
1. State-based actions, on the advice of partisan officials or on the decision of the GM (as determined in Section III), may affect or be affected by national news stories.
2. State-based actions have the potential to affect regional unemployment rates.

[wxtransit]

It would be nice if the current GM *cough cough cough cough* would give us some indication as to when or if he plans to continue these...

Its been 12 days since he last posted.

:/