A few thoughts from your PO; AMENDMENTS AT VOTE

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We actually have regional judiciaries?  Who is on them?

Dibble, Verily and the Mideast is appointed as needed. So there is really only two.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Sorry all. Religion before forum.

I have to ask everyone to give this time. While it would seem appealing to simply gather the hodge-podge and bring it to a vote, you risk simply ending up with a mess, rather than any coherent plan to promote competition and activity. Bear in mind that these reforms aren't meant to mean much at face value. Rather, the potential impact that they have in promoting wider, top-down change is what we must ensure. And that takes time.

@NC Yank (and everyone else, really):

I would agree to apportion far more power to the regions (for their courts, jurisdiction, etc.), as well as establish a CoG, if we could eliminate the regional Senate seats. The issue really is I hesitate to add seats in the current, non-competitive environment here. That said, I ran my Senate campaign on a platform promoting regional sovereignty, and I meant it.

Let me outline the benefits to a CoG-chamber without regional Senate seats:

• Each region gets to choose how to elect its governor.
• We eliminate the redundancy of a region-wide vote on its Senator followed by a region-wide vote on its Governor.
• Provides greater power to regions at the federal level than the status quo (at present, regions need all 5 senators to vote Nay to block a bill, a CoG would only need 3 in agreement).
• Makes Governors more important in elections, prompting competition, especially with the regional senator position removed.

With all that, I have no problem moving certain powers, that we can work out if you accept this premise, from federal domain to the regions. In my view, this would make Governors even more important, as well as promote the creation of coherent regional legislative structures (whether legislature or initiative).

No worries, I have actually considered taking Sundays off from the forum, but alas its Sunday and I am here.

I will just mention that bullet points 1,3 and 4 can be achieved without removing the Regional Senate seats. You could have a proposal where you keep Regional Senate seats and have them be appointed by the Governors who are also members of the CoG. Each candidate for Governor can state who they will choose for the position before the election. So the election for Governor has three important factors

1. Who will Govern the Region?
2. Who will represent the Region in the CoG?
3. Who will they appoint as Regional Senator?

It elimnates the Regional Senate elections, without eliminating the Regional Senate seats. You can have it so the Assembly has to confirm the choice for Regional Senate seat(to get the assemblies involved) and every two months have the people of the region have an approval vote, If a majority disaproves of the choice the Governor has to appoint someone new and the Assembly has to approve them. It keeps the Governor, the Assembly and the Regional Senators on there toes. It still makes the Governor elections more competative, w/o removing Regional Senate seats. It encourages but doesn't force the creation of Assemblies(Those without Assemblies just have the approval vote every two months).

In terms of the Regions I would support the removal of the Judicial officers(Like the ME have them instead be appointed as needed, since they aren't needed they will effectively not exist), and the Lt. Governors if they find it necessary to sustain an assembly. Regions who want to keep the intiative whether it be praticial reasons or for reason of tradition thats fine as long as they can find ways to make them more exciting, and active. Maybe throw an abortion ban up each time to motivate people to vote, or removal of the income tax.

If any offices are created, it will be very few like at most 3 or 5. At I see three assemblies being created thats 9 people. Eliminating Lt Govs and Judcial officers eliminates 6 positions. Thats adding three offices but if only two Regions create Assemblies we break even. Not entirely undoable. And the CoG and the process by which Regional Senators are appointed will give us the needed Regional activity, even more then Purple States proposal in my opinion.

Would this be an exceptable compromise?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

No worries, I have actually considered taking Sundays off from the forum, but alas its Sunday and I am here.

I will just mention that bullet points 1,3 and 4 can be achieved without removing the Regional Senate seats. You could have a proposal where you keep Regional Senate seats and have them be appointed by the Governors who are also members of the CoG. Each candidate for Governor can state who they will choose for the position before the election. So the election for Governor has three important factors

1. Who will Govern the Region?
2. Who will represent the Region in the CoG?
3. Who will they appoint as Regional Senator?

It elimnates eliminates the Regional Senate elections, without eliminating the Regional Senate seats. You can have it so the Assembly has to confirm the choice for Regional Senate seat(to get the assemblies involved) and every two months have the people of the region have an approval vote, If a majority disaproves disapproves of the choice the Governor has to appoint someone new and the Assembly has to approve them. It keeps the Governor, the Assembly and the Regional Senators on there toes. It still makes the Governor elections more competative competitive, w/o removing Regional Senate seats. It encourages but doesn't force the creation of Assemblies(Those without Assemblies just have the approval vote every two months).

In terms of the Regions I would support the removal of the Judicial officers(Like the ME have them instead be appointed as needed, since they aren't needed they will effectively not exist), and the Lt. Governors if they find it necessary to sustain an assembly. Regions who want to keep the intiative initiative whether it be praticial practical reasons or for reason of tradition thats that's fine as long as they can find ways to make them more exciting, and active. Maybe throw an abortion ban up each time to motivate people to vote, or removal of the income tax.

If any offices are created, it will be very few like at most 3 or 5. At I see three assemblies being created thats that's 9 people. Eliminating Lt Govs and Judcial judicial officers eliminates 6 positions. Thats That's adding three offices but if only two Regions create Assemblies we break even. Not entirely undoable. And the CoG and the process by which Regional Senators are appointed will give us the needed Regional activity, even more then Purple States proposal in my opinion.

Would this be an exceptable acceptable compromise?

It would be, but you're spelling and grammar makes it totally unacceptable.

Actually, I sort of like it, but what do I know? I'm not a delegate.

Reporters .

I wish you were a delegate. Then we could be sure whatever proposal comes out of here would be grammatically correct. I am glad you are at least favorable to this idea.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

No I said that it will create "AT MOST" three and that more then likely it evens out. Appearently you refuse to compromise on removal of Regional Senate seats. You are dead set against them existing at all and you are determined to at least accomplish there elimination through this process. It does add to the game. It makes Governorships all the more important and it brings about the necessary Regional Activity, which I think is going to do more to helping the game then reducing offices, anyway. What if no Assemblies are created. Then my plan creates a net minus of 6 positions. I think it will either even out or reduce the number of offices overall.

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

Right.  If anything, it saps even more active players from national elections... exactly the opposite of what is desirable.

Absolutely clueless bullsh**t. The people that are not appointed, or lose the Governorship can run Nationally since they rarely if ever coincide. To say it saps players from the national scene is very pressumptious since your plans do the same to the regions and that is in my opinion where the most activity is needed.

Would this be an exceptable compromise?

Absolutely not.

It seems to me that you people will not except any thing that doesn't remove wide swaths of Atlasia, combine branches of Gov't that should be separate, and remove all regional influence. European Democracy by the back door. I knew they wouldn't give up so easily and now I know that they did not.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

No I said that it will create "AT MOST" three and that more then likely it evens out. Appearently you refuse to compromise on removal of Regional Senate seats. You are dead set against them existing at all and you are determined to at least accomplish there elimination through this process. It does add to the game. It makes Governorships all the more important and it brings about the necessary Regional Activity, which I think is going to do more to helping the game then reducing offices, anyway. What if no Assemblies are created. Then my plan creates a net minus of 6 positions. I think it will either even out or reduce the number of offices overall.

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

Right.  If anything, it saps even more active players from national elections... exactly the opposite of what is desirable.

Absolutely clueless bullsh**t. The people that are not appointed, or lose the Governorship can run Nationally since they rarely if ever coincide. To say it saps players from the national scene is very pressumptious since your plans do the same to the regions and that is in my opinion where the most activity is needed.

Would this be an exceptable compromise?

Absolutely not.

It seems to me that you people will not except any thing that doesn't remove wide swaths of Atlasia, combine branches of Gov't that should be separate, and remove all regional influence. European Democracy by the back door. I knew they wouldn't give up so easily and now I know that they did not.

You're not going to win over any delegates this way.



Straw Man!!!!

Oh, and if have to use straw man, at least spell presumptuous correctly. Can't help it.

I am merely stating the truth.  When typing fast spelling is not my first priority. When it takes two minutes for me to load a post(thanks to my dial-up) you learn to cut corners to save time.

While your compromise plan does eliminate elections for regional Senators, it retains the offices.  By your own admission, your total plan results in a net gain of 3-5 positions.  We have too many positions and not enough active players to fill them all, whether elected or appointed.  Granted, making it an appointed position eliminates the need for having an opponent in elections.  But it does nothing to add to the game.

Right.  If anything, it saps even more active players from national elections... exactly the opposite of what is desirable.

Absolutely clueless bullsh**t. The people that are not appointed, or lose the Governorship can run Nationally since they rarely if ever coincide. To say it saps players from the national scene is very pressumptious since your plans do the same to the regions and that is in my opinion where the most activity is needed.

How is it presumptuous?  By definition, those players who are appointed will not be running for anything nationally (or regionally, for that matter), unless they want to jeopardize their job security for some reason.  So you'll be removing them from making national elections more competitive.

I think we are all being a little presumptuous. For instance who says the freed up posters will run for office? What if they don't? You are also being presumptuous when you claim that my plan will DEFINATELY lead to a net creation of offices, chances are infinately greater that it won't.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For me, a CoG and an at-large 10 seats Senate is an good compromise.

^^^^

It may not cut Regional power, but it does cut regional influence, especially if the CoG can only vote and not propose legislation.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This will probably be shot down, but what if there was a way use an electoral college-like system to elect half the at-large senators. This way, regions would have some influence of part of the legislature. Not sure how it would be done, but...

I wouldn't mind giving regions some sort of proportional representation system, where larger regions have greater influence, but how that would work is another story.

If we go back to my original amendment about reform, we could leave regional Senate seats be and create a lower house, one with certain limited powers, that is made up of X members of each region, based on population and reapportioned every few months as determined by the SoFA. We wouldn't change regional boundaries, but just update their proper representation.

We could also require that those members of the lower house be chosen (as determined by the region) from among their regional elected officials. So this could mean Governor, Assemblymen, etc. Whatever the each regional Constitution dictates.

Thoughts?

I think that as long as any proposal includes that, I will go along with. So you would have my support on that.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For me, a CoG and an at-large 10 seats Senate is an good compromise.

^^^^

It may not cut Regional power, but it does cut regional influence, especially if the CoG can only vote and not propose legislation.

OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!

If you have regional influence, I want special influence for right-handed people.

How many babies have you eaten today, Xahar? What happened to your Revolution, you didn't give me a chance to fire my wiff of grapeshot. .

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'll try to write something up tonight after work. You can all try to work something out on your own in the meantime. Does anyone want to answer my earlier call and tell me what you're willing to give up? Or is everyone staunchly opposed to any variation of what they envision?

As I said before I am willing to cave on the Lt. Govs, the CJO's, the Assemblies in one or two regions and one region(4 regions is my minimum). 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For me, a CoG and an at-large 10 seats Senate is an good compromise.

^^^^

It may not cut Regional power, but it does cut regional influence, especially if the CoG can only vote and not propose legislation.

OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!

If you have regional influence, I want special influence for right-handed people.

How many babies have you eaten today, Xahar? What happened to your Revolution, you didn't give me a chance to fire my wiff of grapeshot. .

I'm getting bored of it.

But no, seriously.

What do regions have intrinsically that entitle them to special influence? I've been asking this for well over a year now.

But I was having fun. .

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I see no outright deal breakers in this proposal, however I would prefer some time to study it in detail and compare it to the current constitution.

However I do find it exceedingly interesting that the distinguished presiding office no longer deems necessary the reduction in the the number of office holders. Indeed from what I can see the distinguised presiding officer is adding a considerable number of offices far more then even my plan did. Would the distinguised presiding officer care to explain his sudden change of heart on this matter?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I see no outright deal breakers in this proposal, however I would prefer some time to study it in detail and compare it to the current constitution.

However I do find it exceedingly interesting that the distinguished presiding office no longer deems necessary the reduction in the the number of office holders. Indeed from what I can see the distinguised presiding officer is adding a considerable number of offices far more then even my plan did. Would the distinguised presiding officer care to explain his sudden change of heart on this matter?

I don't actually add anything. The 10 members of the House would be drawn from existing officeholders on the regional level (i.e. governors, lt. governors, assemblymen, CJOs). While the regions may add offices on their own, the proposal does not directly create positions.

Also, what led me not to reduce the number of seats is that there was no seats I could remove. You wouldn't accept the removal of regional senators and there was no way at-large seats, the more exciting races, could be removed. I will hear ideas for what seats can be removed if anyone has thoughts.

I am sorry, as I said I need to study the thing in detail, I didn't notice that this would be like dual office holding. Let me read, compare, and think and I will get back to you on this. Oh I am not criticing the proposal for not reducing offices, I still do not see the necessity in reducing them. But the left will not except this proposal, I can tell you that right now. They want offices reduced yesterday.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My proposal (and no, its not a carbon copy of my previous proposal, read carefully):


The following shall be included in Article I as Section 2: The House, with subsequent sections renumbered accordingly:

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Article I, Section 5 shall hereby be renumbered Section 4 and read as follows:

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Article I, Section 8 is hereby removed repealed. (undecided)

Article IV shall hereby read as follows:

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Some of my disagreements with Purple State's proposals are major, some are minor, and some are just fixing errors.

You also forgot amending the very first sentence of the article, which should read, "All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in the Congress of the Republic of Atlasia, which shall be composed of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives, which may also be referred to as the House." (and similarly replacing "the Senate" with "Congress" elsewhere in the article as necessary).

Such a proposal, I have considered already, amd I would dub it Americanizaton. I would love to have that system in place today. However the electorate isn't ready for "enlightened ideas" though. Someday my friend, someday.  

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For me, a CoG and an at-large 10 seats Senate is an good compromise.

^^^^

It may not cut Regional power, but it does cut regional influence, especially if the CoG can only vote and not propose legislation.

OH NOES!!!!!!!!!!

If you have regional influence, I want special influence for right-handed people.

How many babies have you eaten today, Xahar? What happened to your Revolution, you didn't give me a chance to fire my wiff of grapeshot. .

I'm getting bored of it.

But no, seriously.

What do regions have intrinsically that entitle them to special influence? I've been asking this for well over a year now.

But I was having fun. .

Then recruit people to my side.

But first, answer my question.

You missunderstand. I was having fun putting you guys in front of the firing squad.