SENATE RESOLUTION: J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A RESOLUTION
To reduce gridlock and streamline Congressional rule changes

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives and Senate assembled:

Section 1. Title

1. This legislation may be cited as the J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution.

Section 2. Recognizing the Need for Reform

WHEREAS, legislative debate under the bicameral system has slowed to a crawl;

WHEREAS, many bills go without comment by all but a handful of members in each House;

WHEREAS, the glacial pace of passing and debating legislation, as well as the difficulty of monitoring legislation that moves between two chambers, unnecessarily complicates the work of the Congress;

WHEREAS, the voices of both regional and federal interests in the policymaking process must be heard in the course of Congressional debate;

WHEREAS, procedural reforms should incorporate the unique interests both chambers have in the lawmaking process,

IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that Congress must move towards a model of debate in which both the Senate and the House of Representatives debate legislation in permanent joint session;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that such a model of debate must originate from a package of rules jointly debated and approved by both chambers;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the best way to reach broad consensus on a new rules package is through a special joint session of Congress.

Section 3. Working Towards Real Procedural Change

1. The President of the Congress shall preside over a special joint session of Congress for the purpose of modifying the rules and procedures of both legislative houses, and unifying their procedural governance under a single set of revised rules.
a. The revised rules shall take effect upon their approval in the special joint session by both houses of Congress.

2. The special joint session shall deliberate for thirty (30) days, or until Congress approves the new set of rules.
a. Congress may further extend the special joint session for as long as it sees fit to do so.

2. The special joint session shall commence immediately upon passage of this resolution by both Houses.

Sponsor: Blair
Senate Designation: SR27:03

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Initial debate is commencing with 24 hours for sponsor advocacy and 48 hours for member responses.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

There is no gridlock on the Senate side of things. The longest bill languishing on the floor recently was a flawed House passed bill that members insisted be fixed or failed and after no one sought to fix it, it was removed. That is not gridlock unless it was during that time precluding another bill's access to the floor, which as far as I am aware and as I was told by MB before the term began, "there is no backlog from the House side for Senate consideration". Therefore the 'delaying the inevitable" death in the hopes that someone might take it up came at absolutely no cost to the functioning of this chamber.

The reason bills take so long is the inability to get members to actually, speak and amend them. A problem you cannot legislate out of existence, though technically you could elect your way out of these problems if there was the political demand for such.

Here is the real problem. There is no way to administer this that would actually fix the problem at hand. How on earth does administering two separate chambers through separate votes in the same thread, not become a convoluted mess?

Joint session was only done once, in December 2016 when Ted was Federalist House Leader. It worked for a short period of time, to achieve a specific objective, because it was done in real time and on Mibbit, but several people were not available at the set time including myself as VP. Assembly lining up or down votes might work to clear a backlog of noncontroversial bills, but it is not a long term healthy option for a deliberative chamber.

The reason why the Senate dating back to the mid 2000s and the House back to the reset is organized the way it is, is precisely to maximize the opportunity for debate and engagement by the most members possible. Joint session just are not efficient for this purpose and with present levels of engagement and activity would inevitably collapse, that is why we haven't done them much.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would recommend is that a good place for this would be in a situation where there is a big backlog of bills to the other chamber, having a joint session to eliminate that backlog. Organizationally would be a problem because the most effective way is to have everyone on at the same time, realistically it is very hard to do that, but I think that would be a place where you could experiment with it.

Eventually we might be able to get to a point where most the "bills from the other chamber" would be handled in joint session, and of course administered by the PoC or his appointed deputy. You hold a snap vote on whether to hold something over for debate, then it leaves the Joint Session and gets a slot, and if not it gets an up or down vote just like bills returning as amended by the other chamber. I think that would resolve most all complaints of the delay between chambers. Either case, it is going to be the PoC or deputy  taking charge of the situation to make it happen and there really isn't going to be any systemic way around that necessity, hence why we moved forward on the senate side with the Deputy PoC proposal.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

[snip about compromise proposal]

I could get behind this. Definitely makes the idea less complicated.

For whoever is considering all this now: I'm very busy with school right now, but over the weekend I can write an amendment that would change this resolution to an enactment of the rules Yankee described over the weekend.

Spitballing here, but I wonder if it might be worth it to add a sunset clause -- give the revised rules a try for the next Congress, and let them make it permanent if the new setup is working, but include an off-ramp if it goes South. Might also allay the concerns of some people who think this is politically motivated

Understandable, I expected a loss of attention spans on Thursday and for me Friday was hectic at work even with "modified Black Friday" sales, it was still bad (and worse since there were technically three such in store situations over the past month and so the Covid numbers are going to be horrific).

As to sunset clause, perhaps. Since we are dealing with bills the VP would be handling anyway in this situation hence the "bills from the other chamber" mention, I guess it comes down to what you have in mind for administrative details and how conducive that is to a hard stop at the end of a session, which will be be on New Year's Day (1st is a Friday).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am going to go ahead and call 24 hours on objections.

That said, I need to make note that I need to restructure the outer box format because constitutionally speaking, our vote can only be applied to Section 2.

I did this once before, with the whole Amendment explanation resolution, that combined rules changes for both chambers but were boxed separately and vote applied accordingly.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.

A RESOLUTION
To reduce gridlock and streamline Congressional rule changes

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives and Senate assembled:

Section 1. Title

1. This legislation may be cited as the J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution.

Section 2. Amendment to Senate Rules

1. Article 11 of the New Senate Rules Resolution is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

People's Regional Senate

Section 3. Amendment to House Rules

1. Article 10 of the House of the Representatives Rules and Procedures for Operation is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

People's House of Representatives

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Did I miss anything in that text?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senators have 24 hours to object.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It won't get lost, it is linked on the noticeboard. The 24 hours only expired 90 minutes ago or so.


A Final vote is now open on this legislation, Senators please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

AYE

I think we can give Ted a chance to make this work.


I would call 24 hours, but the vote ends in less than 12 already.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Final Vote on J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution:

Aye (4): Blair, Devout Centrist, NC Yankee and Scott
Nay (2): LT and Tack
Abstain (0):

Didn't Vote (0):

This resolution has passed.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The amendment is adopted.

A RESOLUTION
To reduce gridlock and streamline Congressional rule changes

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives and Senate assembled:

Section 1. Title

1. This legislation may be cited as the J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution.

Section 2. Amendment to Senate Rules

1. Article 11 of the New Senate Rules Resolution is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 4-2 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

Section 3. Amendment to House Rules

1. Article 10 of the House of the Representatives Rules and Procedures for Operation is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

People's House of Representatives