Consolidated Southern Code Forum Thread

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I am opening this of my own discretion now. In this thread, members of the IDS are encouraged to discuss matters of regional law. One of my major goals is to find laws to combine for the sake of creating a more navigable statute. With that said, I welcome all efforts to seek education and clarification on our laws. I also welcome citizens of other regions to give input and suggestions.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Because we wanted to see if the federal government would notice. They didn't until Jbrase pointed it out a year later.

[Associate Justice PiT]

The federal government has noticed now. I thought the issue of the Dibble had been settled years ago? I was never a proponent of it because I felt it was unconstitutional (the law student in me), but I thought the court had settled the issue?

     It did. That clause is inactive. Then we created another Dibble clause in another law doing our best to resolve the issues that made the first one unconstitutional. It looks like the federal government has never found that one.

     I've noticed that if I propose anything truly controversial, there always seems to be someone around to make a proposal to outlaw it at the federal level (well, twice really). However, if I just put it in as Section 2 of an unrelated bill then nobody notices.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     There is an issue that came to me concerning the Freedom of Contract Act currently before the Legislature. It would eliminate the right-to-work law that the region passed back in 2007. However, we are faced with the issue of the Unified Law Code Initiative.

     Based on the law in question, the bill would result in a reversion to Georgia state law, which is right-to-work. The problem I see is that we have this other law code that none of us are very knowledgeable about, interceding into our own in a complicated fashion. I see that we put this in here for the sake of completeness, so we don't have to pass a law against murder for it to be a crime. That is a commendable and wise thing to do, because we are hardly able to account for every single law that a real-life state needs to function.

     With that said, here is the salient question: is there a better solution?

[Associate Justice PiT]

Would it matter that the federal government outlawed right-to-work statutes a few months ago? The practice is now banned at the federal level, which would mean no region could supercede that law.

     That is a very relevant point. I was hoping to draft a compromise in the Imperial Legislature, but I think I will just roll with my end of the bargain. I don't want to discuss it in public at this time, so please look for a PM on the matter.

     Still, there is the underlying issue that I raised. When I was a Legislator, I proposed a castle law, but I ultimately decided to withdraw it because we already had one grandfathered in. This sort of confusion can be problematic to the process of law, so I still wonder if we can find a better solution.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Bill #361, Consolidated IDS Legislature Rules and Procedures, Section 4, Clause 1.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Bill #361, Consolidated IDS Legislature Rules and Procedures, Section 4, Clause 1.

Thanks!

     Not a problem. By the way, I would like to commend the Legislature on producing an actually useful set of standing rules. The one we had for years before that was pointless and not even observed.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     One thing that I think would be useful would be to combine laws that we have concerning the Militia. These include

*Southeast Militia Initiative
*Militia Use Limited Liability Initiative
*Amendment to the Southeast Militia Initiative
*IDS Militia Structure Act
*Valkyrtweed Act

     One question is how exactly to combine this substantial collection of relevant legislation. Another is whether there are any others that should also be included. For example, the Accountable Militia Bill concerns the permissible usage of the Militia by the region's government. Is this sufficiently similar to be lumped in with these other bills?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Incorporating them into a single page is in essence what I mean in terms of combining them. I was planning on Omnibussing them once we were satisfied with the result. I don't think the structure of the law is excessively confusing here, but it is somewhat cumbersome to have relevant statute spread out to this extent.

     I do see how the IDS Militia Structure Act is redundant with a few sections of the Southeast Militia Initiative, so maybe we should consider repealing the Militia Structure Act? That's a potential course of action to pursue.

     I am not sure how the Valkyrtweed Act is redundant, though. The main reason that I am including it is because of Section 3, which changes the name of the IDS Militia to the Imperial Guard. We may also want to include Section 4 of the Revolutionary Bill No.1, now that I notice it.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I also want to leave the discussion open for the other Legislators since I'd rather not have a majority of the posts in this thread, but I must say that that flag looks better now than it used to.

     I prefer the Imperial Tree, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I like the idea of a new category. Previously, I've just been replacing the text on the main bill's page with the combined text, as well as listing the bills that have been so combined in notes on the Omnibus Maintenance Bill page. That has been far from an ideal arrangement, though.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     One of the things I mentioned in campaigning was greater legislative flexibility. I agree that more activity is useful, but I am also concerned about us running out of things to discuss. How about we start with two slots and open up additional ones depending on how many bills there are in the queue?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     The Appointment List Bill was recently passed by the Legislature, so anyone in the IDS who would be interested in a potential appointment to the Legislature is welcome to post in this thread and declare their interest in being included on the list. I intend to PM some citizens of the region tomorrow, to let them know about this.