LC 2.15 Better Lincoln Governance Ammendment (Sent to referendum)

[Adam Griffin]

NAY

This is all just awful, frankly. #ReduceSeatsNow

[Adam Griffin]

I had planned to make a big upcoming speech about the need for regions to rein in these massive legislatures (and still will), but now is as good of a time as any. Even the 9-member model is too expansive: holding office should be a privilege and a reward, not a participation trophy. Likewise, elections should be competitive: having all of these elections where only one person loses is inevitably denigrating to the process of campaigning.

When holding office becomes "cheap", so does the effort put into it. The party machines will always be there, but with increased competition comes increased accountability on their end (namely, to ensure that those who win the bulk of seats actually will be active). Frankly, it's disturbing to see so many repeat the mistakes of the past by expanding office numbers and giving them out like candy. We literally brought the game to the brink because of behavior like this. There are now more elected offices (regional+federal) in the game than there was before the reset - and frankly, parliamentarism has played a role.

At any rate, I'm aware of all the pros and cons that people sell when it comes to expanding/constricting the size of regional chambers, but in net terms, expanding legislatures to this size at the regional level is suicide. Even 9 will pose a plethora of long-term problems - let alone 11.

[Adam Griffin]

For the record, Griff, could you elaborate on how large legislatures and more elected offices (or since it was pre-reset; 5 regions instead of 3) brought the game to the edge of collapse, just as a reminder for all the new players who weren't there? (including myself)

Essentially, the game had too many regions to function at optimal capacity. Barring the occasional brief blip on the radar, there were never 5 working regions. More often than not, there'd be 3 active and functional regions, 1 on the verge of collapse and 1 that had completely collapsed (the specific regions in each category shifted over time, of course).

Throughout most of this time, the regional legislatures had 3 or 5 seats (I believe the Mideast and the South at various points experimented with 7). However, the game's size and active player base couldn't support a system with 10 federal legislative positions and 15-25 regional legislative positions (as of today, we have 15 federal legislative positions and 23 regional legislative positions). When the events of 2015 began to unfold as they did - culminating with a huge collapse in population - everybody finally realized that something had to be done, and the efforts I had been pushing for years finally achieved the necessary level of support to move forward. While it didn't get the lion's share of the focus, a huge part was that irrespective of the number of regions that existed, there were simply too many regional legislative positions to support a healthy and active game on all fronts.

It's my opinion that the game should be designed for a player base of approximately 150 people (as the post-reset system was designed, in effect). When the rolls fall below that number, sustainability becomes difficult (though even the post-reset system functioned properly at the onset with 120-140 players). However, increased population doesn't inherently produce boosts in activity in my experience: basically, there's no correlation between activity levels for a game with 160 people and a game with 220 people. I think the recent population boom (where we came close to 250 registered voters) gave many people the idea that we could/should expand the number of offices. However, this is a misguided belief to say the least (especially when you consider the game population has contracted by around ~20% over the past few months).

[Adam Griffin]

Mister Speaker, I would like to propose an amendment:

Better Lincoln Governance Amendment

A constitutional Amendment to Make the Governance of the Lincoln Region Easier

SECTION I: BETTER GOVERNANCE

1. Article I.3 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be amended as follows:

3. In all elections for the Council, the number of Councilors to be elected shall be five, except in cases where there are more than 9 candidates, in which case the number of Councilors to be elected shall be seven.

2. Article I.12 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be amended as follows:

12. The Council shall have the power to declare no confidence in the Chancellor’s government. A motion of no confidence shall require a sufficient second to be voted on by the Council, and if this is achieved, a simple majority of the membership of the Council voting Aye or Nay is sufficient to declare non-confidence in the government. If a loss of confidence occurs in the government, the governor must call a snap election or appoint a new candidate for Chancellor.

3. Article I.16 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be amended as follows:

16. The Council shall be dissolved 72 hours before general and snap elections to provide for the election campaign period.

4. Article VI.1 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be amended as follows:

1. The Council shall have the power to propose amendments to this Constitution. In cases where the Council consists of 5 members, two-thirds of all sitting Councilors are required to vote in favor of the Amendment for it to be approved by the Council. In cases where the Council consists of 7 members, Four-fifths three-fifths of all sitting Councilors are required to vote in favor of the Amendment for it to be approved by the Council. Once approved by the Council, amendments shall become operative following their ratification in a public referendum by a majority of the vote.

SECTION II: CODIFYING THE STATUS QUO

1. Article I.10 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be amended as follows:

10. The Council, on the first day after the Governor’s appointment of a Chancellor, the Speaker or any member of the Council shall introduce a motion, “that this Council has confidence in His (or Her) Excellency’s government”. A simple majority of Councilors voting Aye or Nay shall be sufficient to establish confidence. If the new government should fail to gain the confidence of the Council, the appointed Chancellor shall be dismissed and the Governor shall advance the appointment of a new Chancellor whom he shall submit to the judgement of the Council. This vote of confidence in the Chancellor may also take the form of a vote in a thread opened by the Governor about the State Opening of the Council of Lincoln.

2. Article I.14 of the Lincoln Constitution shall be repealed in its entirety. The rest of Article I shall be renumbered accordingly.

I hope I have not missed any formatting or contradictory issues; my apologies for the rush on this.

The primary changes (compared to Tack's original):

• The Council is fixed to 5 members, unless 10 or more candidates run (not including write-ins), which moves the Council to 7 members
• The Council is dissolved 3 days before the election (as opposed to 1 day or 1 week)
• The ability to amend the Constitution is shifted from three-fourths to three-fifths in a 7-person chamber, and two-thirds in a 5-person chamber: in the case of a 5-member chamber, two-thirds and three-fourths end up being the same in terms of needed votes (4 out of 5 Councilors) and in a 7-person chamber, three-fifths and two-thirds end up being the same (5 out of 7 Councilors); a lower - and variable - threshold is more practical given the mathematical realities of this particular amendment - and given the public's need to ratify in addition, an excessively high threshold seems, well, excessive
• Corrected a few typos

[Adam Griffin]

Excellent amendment Griff, and I'm very happy with it. Come to think about it, we should probably clarify that those 9 candidates are candidates in the ballot, but I'm fine with the proposed changes.

As specified before, my concern would be whether or not this is going to pass in the first place.

I agree about clarification on write-in candidates - and for that matter, some additional clarification in VI.1 (I tried to make sure it indicated specifically that a majority of voters must approve, but the language could be improved - I've seen court cases in the past over stuff like this and so we want to be sure it is iron-clad when enacted).

[Adam Griffin]

While I'm not fully satisfied with the differences between legislative size and candidate counts on the larger end of things (with 7-member chambers; a difference of as little as 2 as opposed to 3), it is a minor difference, a step in the right direction and feel comfortable supporting this if it comes to a final vote as-is. It also has done a better job at addressing these gaps on the smaller end of things and makes possible a 3-person chamber if the situation merits such (which is something I did not include due to a belief of there being resistance in the chamber to that).

[Adam Griffin]

This amendment is just terrible; why even have elections if all of the candidates are going to win half the time?

[Adam Griffin]

Nay

[Adam Griffin]

Aye

[Adam Griffin]

Aye