Open forum on the Lincoln government structure (Everyone do comment)

[Peanut]

As we know, Lincoln changed its systen of government a little while ago to a parliamentary one in an effort to circumvent inactivity and make a more unique region. Some voices, however, raise claims that the system has not worked as expected due to perceived dysfunction in the Council and executive disparity.

Now, I will as Governor ask the people of Lincoln: what do you think should be done? If you have any question, please do ask me, and please do comment as you want in this thread. It is vital for our region.

[RC]

Like I said about the original plan, it needs reform to ensure activity, however I believe it’s too early to revert back to the old system.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The region should return to the Lincoln Assembly.

- The current system makes the governor into a powerless figurehead, and in so doing makes gubernatorial elections uncompetitive and boring.
- The current system also makes the Chancellor into a powerless figurehead, once the government is formed, aside from his vote in the Council.
- The current system gives the Speaker full and complete carte blanche control over the Chamber. What the SOAP says does not matter, aside from the clause within giving the Speaker full power of enforcement, with no suspension motion or judicial recourse. As a result, the Speaker is free to twist the words of the SOAP however they please, which Ifromnj has routinely done to cut off debates and votes.
- The current system enables a Paul Ryan like Speakership by giving the Government 5 slots to the opposition's 2, and through the Speaker being unable to be overruled, debate could be extended infinitely just to stymie the opposition agenda.
- The system does not solve the supposed inactivity crisis that it was supposed to solve. Instead activity is stagnant, if not a bit worse.


This problem cannot be solved by just ousting Ifromnj, instead the system's core problem is that it places all the power in the hands of whoever holds the Speakership. Furthermore, the System cannot be solved by just overhauling the SOAP, even if Ifromnj were to support it, as this would not change the uncompetitive and boring gubernatorial office and the chancellor's figurehead state. The only recourse is to return to the Lincoln Assembly.

[Former President tack50]

The region should return to the Lincoln Assembly.

- The current system makes the governor into a powerless figurehead, and in so doing makes gubernatorial elections uncompetitive and boring.
- The current system also makes the Chancellor into a powerless figurehead, once the government is formed, aside from his vote in the Council.
- The current system gives the Speaker full and complete carte blanche control over the Chamber. What the SOAP says does not matter, aside from the clause within giving the Speaker full power of enforcement, with no suspension motion or judicial recourse. As a result, the Speaker is free to twist the words of the SOAP however they please, which Ifromnj has routinely done to cut off debates and votes.
- The current system enables a Paul Ryan like Speakership by giving the Government 5 slots to the opposition's 2, and through the Speaker being unable to be overruled, debate could be extended infinitely just to stymie the opposition agenda.
- The system does not solve the supposed inactivity crisis that it was supposed to solve. Instead activity is stagnant, if not a bit worse.


This problem cannot be solved by just ousting Ifromnj, instead the system's core problem is that it places all the power in the hands of whoever holds the Speakership. Furthermore, the System cannot be solved by just overhauling the SOAP, even if Ifromnj were to support it, as this would not change the uncompetitive and boring gubernatorial office and the chancellor's figurehead state. The only recourse is to return to the Lincoln Assembly.

None of those require a return to the old presidential system though

-The fact that the governor is a powerless figurehead is a problem, I agree, but we could simply get rid of him. This is a regional government so there is no need for a "head of state" (and even federally you could do something like South Africa)

The few powers he has can be either abolished or moved to the Chancellor or the Speaker

-Actually, I'd argue that the Chancellor of Lincoln is more powerful in running the government than the only remaining presidential governor (the Southern Governor). He has all the executive powers of a presidential governor while also being a member of the Council (and thus, being able to propose and vote on bills)

-This third point is a problem with the SOAP, not the Philadelphia plan at large. I agree the current SOAP is extremely flawed but that doens't mean moving back to the old Lincoln Assembly (which would have the same problems if it used the same SOAP). I recommend the Council to heavily ammend the current SOAP. If need be, we could always just copy the federal house/senate rules or the rules from another region (probably Fremont's becuase they are the parliamentary region and seems to be working fine)

-This is common in parliamentary systems and gives a bonus to being in government; plus it's also how parliamentary systems usually work. While the old 4-1 system was very limiting for the opposition, a 5-2 split is fine. Maybe we could do it so it changes depending on how many members are in opposition? (so say, if there are 3 opposition members, there are 3 opposition slots)

-This final one is a long term problem that needs a long term fix, but in the mean time, we can only hope it works.

I will encourage again the council to ammend the SOAP; particularly to be able to raise objections to the rules (and not leaving everything up to the speaker) and to clarify the many areas that need clarification like debate time rules

It might also be worth considering replacing lfromnj as Speaker, though that's up to the Council to decide.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Parliament is a joke. Lincoln's government is an even bigger joke now. There was no good reason to switch. Switching has created new problems without fixing the only problem identified before the switch (inactivity) even though switching to a Parliament has no bearing on activity. Why some people claimed it would increase activity I cant say. You basically left Lincoln with a useless job called Governor, and rather than restore it there are now calls to just eliminate the job, decreasing the number of offices Lincoln gets to vote for. IIRC Lincoln's primary lack of active officeholders was in the legislature not at governor. So you effectively concentrated power where it was much more likely to fail, especially with the weird rules about chancellor vs. Speaker (like what the hell?).

It would have been nice if such a substantial change had been adequately discussed beforehand. I had no idea Lincoln was voting on it until the actual election. Yall passed it through the chamber with little debate and then voted on it as region in what, like 3 weeks? Is it any wonder the exact same election where this was ratified that the same voters overwhelmingly also passed completely contradictory stuff as well? I see comments here about IfromNJ doing something that should get him removed. What are those things? If its failing to keep activity up that was already a problem before parliament and shouldnt be a surprise. Unless Im missing something show me where Parliament was seriously debated at length, other than just 3 legislators and a couple of commentors posting that they personally liked Parliament and therefore thought it was good.

As has been pointed out, you dont even have defaults in case there are lapses in these legislative posts. If the Legislature cant agree on a chancellor who is the executive? The Speaker? What if they cant even agree on a speaker. One of the main idiocies of having an executive appointed by a Legislature is that that process is not self-executing. Whereas in the south our governnor is elected and stays governor once elected and sworn in, there is no guarantee that a scheduled election will result in an executive in Lincoln now, and such an executive can involuntarily cease to be the executive what if 2 people vote one way and the chancellor votes the opposite?

How again was this supposed to make anything better? How was this supposed to increase activity? How was this supposed to help with confusion? I've never seen a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. Its no surprise Lincoln should be having buyers remorse now considering a lot of Lincoln probably wasn't aware of what they were buying. And again the "they overwhelmingly voted for it" line does not hold water since they simultaneously overwhelmingly voted for a completely contradictory idea in the exact same ballot.

So if we are NOW going to discuss it, I guess itd be nice to read some justification for this other than just the post hoc reasoning of "well they voted for it so we shouldn't have to justify it".

[Peanut]

58.8% voted, in general, to keep the system parliamentary. I will be exploring ways with our great Councillors to tweak it a little to make it more efficient, but we definitely can better our current system. I again say we can make it work.

[JGibson]

There should be some tweaks to the parliamentary government in Lincoln.

[Former President tack50]

I definitely think it's too early to go back to the old system. We might need a few small tweaks here and there, but for the most part the system is working fine.

Remember that we should try to make regions appealing and culturally distinct from one another. And I think this plan does that for Lincoln.

It tries to draw heavily from European systems of government, particularly France (with the semi-presidential style) and the UK. That makes it a big departure from the other 2 regions. It also has other things like being the most partisan region (though that was a thing before the switch).

Before the change, what made Lincoln unique? A large and mostly useless cabinet?

[lfromnj]

Although I have been partisan as a member of the council I have been nonpartisan as my role as the speaker.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Before the change, what made Lincoln unique? A large and mostly useless cabinet?

What makes it unique now? A mostly useless Governor?

[Former President tack50]

Although I have been partisan as a member of the council I have been nonpartisan as my role as the speaker.

To be fair, complaints about your speakership are not about partisanship, but just about the handling. No one doubts that you have been a non partisan speaker, the question is whether you've been a good one.

Before the change, what made Lincoln unique? A large and mostly useless cabinet?

What makes it unique now? A mostly useless Governor?

I'd argue the full/mostly parliamentary system is what makes it unique. Remember Fremont elects their First Minister directly.

I will say that if the Governor position ends up being too boring, I would support abolishing it. Others have said that it makes for a good retirement spot.

[YE]

The region should return to the Lincoln Assembly.

- The current system makes the governor into a powerless figurehead, and in so doing makes gubernatorial elections uncompetitive and boring.
- The current system also makes the Chancellor into a powerless figurehead, once the government is formed, aside from his vote in the Council.
- The current system gives the Speaker full and complete carte blanche control over the Chamber. What the SOAP says does not matter, aside from the clause within giving the Speaker full power of enforcement, with no suspension motion or judicial recourse. As a result, the Speaker is free to twist the words of the SOAP however they please, which Ifromnj has routinely done to cut off debates and votes.
- The current system enables a Paul Ryan like Speakership by giving the Government 5 slots to the opposition's 2, and through the Speaker being unable to be overruled, debate could be extended infinitely just to stymie the opposition agenda.
- The system does not solve the supposed inactivity crisis that it was supposed to solve. Instead activity is stagnant, if not a bit worse.


This problem cannot be solved by just ousting Ifromnj, instead the system's core problem is that it places all the power in the hands of whoever holds the Speakership. Furthermore, the System cannot be solved by just overhauling the SOAP, even if Ifromnj were to support it, as this would not change the uncompetitive and boring gubernatorial office and the chancellor's figurehead state. The only recourse is to return to the Lincoln Assembly.

-Honestly while a relatively worthless office power wise isn't usually ideal, at least there have defined elections and one could argue it's suited for someone who enjoys sending campaigns PM's more than actual policy and/or is too busy but likes sending a bunch of PM's.
-Having a vote is not worthless by any means.
-Fixable by fixing the SOAP
-Also fixable by fixing the SOAP.
-"Supposed inactivity crisis" Lincoln had a real activity problem before this so (there was literally no government for a month) and if anything activity has improved. I'd also point out that the Philadelphia plan has a provision for snap elections to be called via the governor.

Then again I should point out that you initially opposed this on grounds of merely adding more drama to the game and given your track record, I don't know why one would assume you aren't working backwards from your conclusions here.

[YE]

It would have been nice if such a substantial change had been adequately discussed beforehand. I had no idea Lincoln was voting on it until the actual election. Yall passed it through the chamber with little debate and then voted on it as region in what, like 3 weeks? Is it any wonder the exact same election where this was ratified that the same voters overwhelmingly also passed completely contradictory stuff as well? I see comments here about IfromNJ doing something that should get him removed. What are those things? If its failing to keep activity up that was already a problem before parliament and shouldnt be a surprise. Unless Im missing something show me where Parliament was seriously debated at length, other than just 3 legislators and a couple of commentors posting that they personally liked Parliament and therefore thought it was good.

As has been pointed out, you dont even have defaults in case there are lapses in these legislative posts. If the Legislature cant agree on a chancellor who is the executive? The Speaker? What if they cant even agree on a speaker. One of the main idiocies of having an executive appointed by a Legislature is that that process is not self-executing. Whereas in the south our governnor is elected and stays governor once elected and sworn in, there is no guarantee that a scheduled election will result in an executive in Lincoln now, and such an executive can involuntarily cease to be the executive what if 2 people vote one way and the chancellor votes the opposite?

How again was this supposed to make anything better? How was this supposed to increase activity? How was this supposed to help with confusion? I've never seen a satisfactory answer to any of these questions. Its no surprise Lincoln should be having buyers remorse now considering a lot of Lincoln probably wasn't aware of what they were buying. And again the "they overwhelmingly voted for it" line does not hold water since they simultaneously overwhelmingly voted for a completely contradictory idea in the exact same ballot.

So if we are NOW going to discuss it, I guess itd be nice to read some justification for this other than just the post hoc reasoning of "well they voted for it so we shouldn't have to justify it".

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=312816.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=314157.0
https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=312711.0

Is this debate not sufficient?

There was also literally no government in Lincoln for a month so there was some justification for why reform was needed.

[Kingpoleon]

We need serious reform. Our current system, mandate or no, is ineffective and has destroyed aspects of our government. I was in charge of Lincoln’s defense forces. As that was a Cabinet position, it is no longer functioning so we have a security force and no one leading it. I have not been consulted by any member of Lincoln’s government in over four months in any measure, despite the importance and uniqueness of such a position.

Our regulatory commission? Is it stripped now? Have you decided upon a replacement for it, or do regulations no longer exist in Lincoln?

These are just a few of my concerns. We must reform Lincoln, with our compilation of all the legislation currently in effect, and keep it consistently updated, amended, and enforced. Only then can we begin to discuss a form of government. It is good that the Lincoln Statute has been made, but we need a serious review before this process you wish to start.