Caulder Consultancies Recommendations

[Niles Caulder]

These were little ditties I had originally intended to morsel out a piece at a time...privately to firm clients to whom I served and especially those I owed favors!

Being tapped as GM was a high honor, but given the new dimension of conflict of interest and conduct of neutrality, stalled business terribly!  lol

So rather than continuing to have a file drawer full of stuff tempting me to leak it out into the system in such a way that un-blindly contributes to the political fortunes of some but not all, I'll publish most of the Caulder Consultancies Recommendations regarding Constitutional revisions.

Publishing them publically gives a fair chance to any Forum politico to take advantage of the individual issues listed here.  And this will prevent my fingerprints being revealed on any more 'agendas' while I'm GMing.

[Niles Caulder]

The Constitutional mandate that interim Senators run in the nearest election cycle even if they've already filled the seat by special election is just a little extreme.  We've encountered this phenonemon with Senator Akno21's race this last time around, which brought the whole "Old District 2" and "New District 2" business into play contributing to even more confusion.

So this is one recommended amendment:

The Interim Senator Validation Amendment

Clause 1:  A Senator [appointed or] elected to fill a vacancy may serve the full term remainder, under the same provisions and constraints as any Senator elected in regular cycle.

And if it's really deeply felt by most that an interim Senator should have to have won at least one race to fill a term remainder:

Clause 2:  An appointed Senator shall enjoy no longer than two weeks before a special election takes place to determine the final Interim Senator for the vacated seat, unless four weeks or less remain until the regularly scheduled race to determine the Senator for the full term of the following session of the Senate.

If Clause 2 is included, the bracketed portion of Clause 1 needs to go.

[Niles Caulder]

The Lame Duck Amendment

Clause 1:  All Senators and the President shall assume their office during the first weekend following their respective deciding elections, between noon Eastern on Friday and noon Eastern Time the Sunday ensuing.

Clause 2:  Office holders whose inaugurations are delayed due to circumstances prolonging the determination of the winner of the office must necessarilly enjoy a shorter a term of office than otherwise prescribed in the Constitution to comply with the provisions of the electoral process and inaugural mandates herein.  In the case of Senate seats, terms shall expire on time and the seat remain vacant until the new winner of the office is legally determined.  In the case of the Presidency, the sitting president whose regular term has expired shall be authorized to remain as acting President, under the same provisions and constraits otherwise prescribed for the office, until the winner of the office's next term is legally determined and inaugurated.

Just to keep the thing humming a little faster in rensponse to the voice of the people.  This Amendment is worded intending that any inauguration will follow only the election that finally produces a winner--so there isn't undue pressure on the Sec. Forum Affairs.

Clause Two closes loopholes of term durations creating extended lame duck durations--in what we've projected to be the least manipulatable fashion possible.  After giving it some thought, I figured some necessary contigency language might as well help prevent against some nasty 'what-if' scenarios.

The Senate seat term expiring and remaining vacant until a winner arises seems the wiser route because it motivates the District's electoral machinery to resolve the matter quickly--in order to restore its district's voice and interests back into the Senate.  This way it is far less likely for any of the candidates to be motivated to play for a stalemate--the longer one ensues, the fewer it benefits.

A similar situation with the Presidency is harder to shape, given the office can't really be vacant.  The incumbant (or sitting office holder's preferred horse) has an inherent institutional advantage when it comes to abuse-of-power temptations.  An outgoing president who doesn't care about the election replacing him and engineers a stalemate just to hang onto office as long as possible is a consideration as well.  Still...goes with the territory, so the cleanest solution is to just sanction the status quo until a resolution ensues, even if it means impeaching that hypothetical sitting president is the first step to doing it.  (ergo, "same provisions and constraints.")

[Niles Caulder]

Existing Article II Clause 1.
The executive power shall be vested in the President of the Atlas Forum. He shall hold his office during a term of four months. The President shall be the chief legislature and chief representative of the Atlas Forum. All bills or amendments passed through congress must be signed by the President. The President has the power of veto over congress.

The Chief Legislature thing throws me.  Even if it means "Chief Legislator," I don't really know what that means either, and suggests something other than divided government anyway.

'All bills and amendments...must be signed' is a flat contradiction to Article I parameters that deny the President the power to pocket-veto. An explicit assurance that the power of veto wasn't absolute isn't a bad idea, either.

So:

The Presidential Clarification Amendment

Article II, Section One, Clause 1 shall now read/b]
The executive powers shall be vested in the President of the Atlas Forum.  He or she shall hold office for a term of four months' duration. The President shall be the chief representative of the Atlas Forum. All bills passed through Congress must be signed by the President in order to be legally enacted, unless otherwise prescribed in Article I. The President has the power of veto over Senate legislation, under the terms described in Article I.

[Niles Caulder]

Well, the computer on which my judicial suggestions has long bitten the dust, so regretably I don't have any quick drafts handy to contribute to the current discussions.

I do however have a couple of more items to make up for my sloppy work at the onset:

• Clause 8 of the CLA needs to be removed of the last sentence mandating one month trials.  I preserved that notion from the original constitution that dealt with actual forum expulsions--but as the High Court has taken a rather activist technocratic attitude, we need to comply with the fact everything is being taken to apply to the fantasy world of Atlasian citizens.  Senator Texasgurl was correct to object to it; we need to take this opportunity to fix it before it becomes relevent.  No criminal justice system could function with this mandate with a population larger than our actual forum.
• I asked for this to be corrected before being voted on, but it wasn't and I missed it:  Clause 14 needs to say "regions" instead of "states."

Let's make these minor little line items in the impending ammendments for the sake of efficiency.  I see no reason these need to be controversial inclusions.

[Peter]

It is probably easier if this sort of thing comes in with the Special Commission on the Constitution. I was already planning a pretty thorough review of the criminal trial proceedings because I am personally not so sure that it is well constructed as a system to deliver justice.