SENATE BILL: Atlasian Debate Council Act of 2013 (Failed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

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Sponsor: Napoleon

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Does anyone want this orphaned bill?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

My plan was just to can it for lack of a sponsor. It is an illegal bill on the floor. It only becomes legal if someone takes ownership of it. My ace in the hole to get rid of it quickly.

[Napoleon]

I will take up sponsorship.

[Napoleon]

The current informal process seems to work fine. No need to bureaucratize something and create more work that we'll forget about or ignore.

When the candidates for office are so detached that they can't coordinate a debate on their own, they're usually not great candidates.

If it's necessary I would like to motion to table this bill.

It does not work. Last June the voters were robbed of a proper debate, that debate was a complete joke. A more formal process could absolutely benefit us as a nation. Can we use unanimous consent to hurry this up?

[Napoleon]

Unanimous consent is not for when you think that debate is unnecessary; it's for when we all agree that debate is unnecessary,

If you're assuming sponsorship, I won't motion to table, but I'm skeptical of this proposal.

What is there to debate? Its pretty simple, you either like it or you don't. There is no reason to spend a lot of time on this.

[Napoleon]

Another thought: Allowing the chairs of each major party to arrange the debates would work just as well if not better.

Ok.

[Oakvale]

I don't really see the point in adding another layer of bureaucracy to the system, but I suppose getting the party chairs to do this would make sense if you really think it's necessary.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The bill seems unnecessary; as earlier suggested, an informal compact of the major parties to handle debates seems like a better idea.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Nobody was robbed of a debate.  They were robbed of candidates competent enough to organize a debate.

More committees for pointless actions such as these won't help and will quickly be forgotten about and will have to be repealed in the future.

While I support posts for Atlasians to get involved (since being a citizen with nothing to do is kinda boring), this is too much.

[Napoleon]

No comment?

I was indicating that I can accept that idea.

[bore]

I'll just butt in to say that the northeast recently passed its own debate bill (here https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167380.0) so there is precedence for the state getting involved in debates.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

I find this bill thoroughly unnecessary.

[Napoleon]

No comment?

I was indicating that I can accept that idea.

Fantastic. Now the question we're faced with becomes this: What's the advantage of mandating that the party chairs do so then? Someone has to take the initiative here, but it seems like they could sort all of this out on their own.

It does seem like that, but it hasn't materialized. A standardized debate procedure would be much betterfrom a game perspective and if the party chairs agree on the moderator the candidates can't complain.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Senators, a vote is now open on this bill, please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Nay

[Napoleon]

Abstain

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Nay

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Abstain

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

NAY

I would fear that many of these debates would end up being without much content, whereas the current system means that has to be a desire to have one for it to be organized. If such is lacking, provoking cooperation would then become the most difficult aspect of it, should the organization of debates be taken over by the gov't.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Nay

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Vote on Final Passage of the Atlasian Debate Council Act of 2013:

Aye (0):
Nay (5): Averroës Nix, Ben, HagridoftheDeep, NC Yankee, and Snowstalker
Abstain (2): jdb and Napoleon

Didn't Vote (2): Franzl and Oakvale - Europe's day off here?
Vacant Seats (1): Spamage

With no votes in the affirmative and five votes in the negative, the bill has thus been rejected by the Senate, with no vote change period required.