SB 2016-004: Senate Rules and Procedures

[tmthforu94]

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[tmthforu94]

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Sponsor: Tmthforu94

[tmthforu94]

Hello,

Before we start discussing other topics, it is important that we have rules in place. These are essentially the rules that the old Senate had. I changed the name back to PPT since the House has Speaker. I also added in Article V quickly to add provisions to the House.

This is pretty rough - I wanted to get something out as quickly as possible so we could amend/fix it and get it passed so we can start talking about more enjoyable topics.

Please read through and give your thoughts. It is important to have participation from all six members!

[tmthforu94]

Eh, from a technicality standpoint, I see where you're coming from, but PPT worked well in the past without issue. PPT is quicker to write and in my opinion, sounds better than Presiding Senator. I'd prefer keeping it as this, even though it might not be the most technical.

Besides, isn't everything in life "temporary"?

[tmthforu94]

An amendment:

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Senators have 24 hours to object.

[tmthforu94]

I object;

This bill would allow the sponsoring Senator to push through a bill that is amended heavily in the House, and not allow the Senate to have the debate that is needed.

I would disagree. I made sure to specify that it can only go through if it doesn't change the intent. This is just so that if the House makes small typo fixes or fixes an accidental contradiction (what we're seeing now with another bill), it doesn't have to come back over here before passage.

If you have a way you'd like to word it differently, I'm more than open to it. Nice to see another senator participating!

[tmthforu94]

That is fine - I'll consider it a friendly.

[tmthforu94]

Well, I don't agree with that provision of the constitution - that'll be addressed at a later time.

I withdraw that Article VI, Section 4 from the bill.

[tmthforu94]

We will now have a final vote on SB 2016-004. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.


Aye

[tmthforu94]

Thank you to the other three senators who voted quickly.

The rules have been adopted. I will begin discussion on queued legislation later today.

[tmthforu94]

Rather than create a new thread, I'm bumping this up.

Some of these rules are pointless and makes the process more confusing, and rather than ignore them, I'd rather just get rid of them so I can sleep peacefully at night, knowing I'm not breaking any rules of the Atlasian Senate Rules & Procedures.

I'll be working on this section by section. Once I finish it all, I'll propose it as a new bill and we can debate/vote. At this point, anyone who'd like to help (Scott mentioned he would be interested) is welcome, though I'm fully prepared to expect that a lot of this thread will be me talking to myself for a couple of weeks. My goal is to get this passed by the end of the session.

[tmthforu94]

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---to be continued---

[tmthforu94]

I'm going to stay as involved with this as I can.  Some general ideas we should consider:

- Do we want to revert to the old Senate procedure on amendments (i.e. no automatic option of amendments, sponsor deems them friendly or unfriendly, friendly amendments can be objected to, unfriendly ones go straight to a vote)?

I'll be honest and say I didn't read that part thoroughly, as that is how I've usually been handling things, so I'd support that.

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I think this can get unnecessary and confusing. I'd also like to remove the requirement that requires a sponsor in each House - if a bill is popular enough to pass in one, I'm sure at least one person in the other House is supportive of it. It has been unnecessary these past two sessions and something I'd like to remove.

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I've always considered that under the motion to suspend rules. If senators want to suspend rules, we could proceed straight to a final vote. I think the best would be requiring someone to make the motion and second, then we could proceed to a final vote lasting a minimum of (insert number here) hours, to which if someone did object, the vote would stop and debate would resume. Allows for quick passage but also a safeguard to prevent one side from pushing things through.

[tmthforu94]

- Should a bill be allowed to have multiple sponsors in the same house?  If we adopt the old Amendment rules, how should this affect the amendment process?

Theoretically speaking, you would need to have a primary or main sponsor would make decisions regarding the amendments, with all co-sponsors just being a formality. Otherwise it would get chaotic.

Tmth is right though, plus at points the number of bills might dip for a variety of reasons and thus refusing bills from another house on grounds of lack of sponsorship in the other one, would be counterproductive.

My main concern is that there seems to be little to facilitate direct coordination between members of both houses, besides select committees which have no legislative power.  Ideally, we would have conference committees to resolve differences between House and Senate versions of similar legislation, with the sponsors of each version of the bill overseeing the process.  Alas, I suppose that isn't quite tenable in a game of this nature.

That is what we have now. Though we need to improve the wording, if similar bills pass both houses at the same time, a conference committee convenes. I added it to the rules back in June. The issue right now is that constitutional wording limits how often that can occur, but I'm hoping to amend that section out.