Special Commission on the Constitution

[Peter]

Special Commission on the Constitution

The Special Commission webpage is HERE

I will simply re-iterate our mandate for those too idle to click the link:
"The Special Commission shall review the Constitution in order to identify any weakness or failing within its present structure. It shall propose remedies to these in the form of recommendations to be submitted to the Senate."

Only Commissioners should post here, if anybody has any suggestions as to topics they think we should cover, they should email me at [email removed] or PM me. If Commissioners think I've missed something in the Constitution that doesn't make sense, feel free to bring it up.

In considering the Constitution I'm simply gonna go in the rather obvious order of beginning to end.

First thing that I have come across that simply confuses me is Article I Section 3 - this deals with impeachment, it is reproduced in full below:
Clause 1. Upon impeachment, the Chief Justice of the Atlas Forum shall administer a poll to the public to impeach the person whom charges have been filed against. If it is the Chief Justice who is being impeached, then the President pro tempore of the Senate shall administer the poll. The poll must be open vote, and all people must make their vote known publicly in the form of a post. The public must vote a majority in order for the person to be impeached.  In order for the Senate to remove the person from office, the Senate must vote two-thirds. Impeachment charges may be brought upon the President and Vice President, and Supreme Court Justices.

Clause 2. The Chief Justice of the Atlas Forum shall preside over impeachment hearings, unless it be for his or her own impeachment, in which case the President pro tempore of the Senate shall preside.

Clause 3. Any person impeached and removed from any position can never hold any position at the Atlas Forum again, be it elected or appointed.
The opening line is actually a brilliant line of cyclical argument and could actually nullify the process of impeachment on the grounds of not making sense. Allow me to paraphrase: In order to impeach an officer he must first be impeached.

My second area of concern in this section is the process of "filing charges": There is no clear method for achieving this - the first stage of impeachment as it is meant is for public poll of the forum - does this mean that any random citizen can call an impeachment hearing? If so then we could have a rather regular turnover of impeachment hearings. If it is the Senators, then why do they once again crop up to try the impeachment at the end of the process? It could be the job of the Executive, but then it would require a selfless President to file charges against himself, or allow one of his own cabinet members to do it.

Feel free to discuss (a) whether I'm right that this needs a rewrite, and (b) what a solution could be.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

   Let me begin with stating that I don't think that we should be looking at this section of the Constitution in isolation.  Provisions dealing with the removal of Atlasian officials are found in diverse portions of our Constitution.  The Federal Activity Act was an attempt to remedy perceived defects of the removal processes that even had it not been ruled unconstitutional created a hodgepodge of methods for removing officials.

   A listing of Constitutional provisions relating to the removal of officers seems like a good place to start.

• Article I Section 3 - Impeachment

Provides for the permanent removal of any official from the Forum Government.

• Article I Section 4 - Expulsion

Provides for the Senate to expel its own members

• Article I Section 5 Clause 1

Majority quorom needed for any Senate action.

• Article I Section 5 Clause 2

Repeats provision found in Section 3 that it takes two-thirds of the Senate to impeach.

• Article II Section 1 Clause 3

Powers of the President to appoint and remove appointed officals

• Article II Section 3 Clause 3

Presidential inability

• Article III Section 1

Repeats the portion of Article II Section 1 Clause 3 that relates to the Supreme Court

• Amendment III and Amendment X Clauses 6-9

Specify trial rules that apply to the extent that they can in impeachment trials.

  Next, I would like to consider when we want to remove officials.  Basically, it boils down to three reasons:
1) The official has committed some illegality.
2) The official is performing his office is a legal but disruptive manner.
3) The official is not performing his office.
Reason 1 calls for an impeachment process.
Reason 2 calls for a process to censure or remove the official.
Reason 3 calls for a process to remove the official.
Since impeachment can be seperated from censure or removal, the rest of this post will deal exclusively with impeachment and leave the other matters for future posts.

  Impeachment is a trial process, hence we need a body that can serve as the grand jury and a second that can act as the trial jury.   We have at present two bodies that could in theory serve either function, the Senate and the people.  The House has too few members to make it a body useful for impeachment uses.   Since forum votes tend to be unweildy affairs, I think that it would be better to use the Senate as our grand jury so that a forum vote is called for only after the Senate has acted.  This is currently implied, but not made explicit by the Constitution.

   Another question to be resolved is the margin required at each stage.  The US Constitution requires a simple majority to impeach and a two-thirds vote to convict, but the Atlasian reverses these proportions.  I feel that if they differ, it should be the trial jury that has the larger margin, as they do in the US Constitution.  Changing the portion required for the Senate to impeach would require revising not only Article I Section 3, but also Article I Section 5 Clause 2.  Hence, for simplicity's sake, unless we determine that two-thirds is absolutely the wrong proportion to require for impeachment, impeachment by the Senate should be left at two-thirds and conviction by the Forum should be set at two-thirds or higher.

    The last issue to determine is one of procedure.  Our current process calls itself an impeachment, but it doesn't use any judicial procedure as would be expected of a proper impeachment process.  I feel that the procedure could use some reform, but I am not prepared at this time to propose a specific reform.

[Siege40]

While I at the moment can't make brilliant analysis of the Constitution, I do have a concern I'd like to voice. The Senate has no structure in terms of growth, or in general expansion of the forum.

While it would be my suggestion to expand the number of districts based on population and keep the minimum 5/10, I'd like it open for discussion. Say for example that the Fantasy section reaches 200, or 300, is 10 Senators enough? I'll go into more detail later, but that was my opening concern.

Siege

[KEmperor]

I seriously doubt we will ever have 200 or 300 members participating at any one time.  The Senate has no need to grow, we can barely get 10 Senators to show up and vote on something right now.  If we ever get to the point where the population reaches a point where there is a demand to increase the size, we should approach it then.  Right now I find it totally unnecessary.

[KEmperor]

I think the Atlas population will stay relatively flat until 2006 when elections are happening again.

King, if you read Peter's original post, only members of the commission are to post here.

[Peter]

While I at the moment can't make brilliant analysis of the Constitution, I do have a concern I'd like to voice. The Senate has no structure in terms of growth, or in general expansion of the forum.

Whilst the issue of an expanding population and the corresponding size of the Senate is one that needs to be discussed at some point, it does not represent a major structural difficulty within the Constitution - i.e. federal law won't be torn asunder, nor will other parts cease to operate or contradict themselves without reform. The Commission has a narrow remit only to investigate these sort of structural failings because otherwise this risks turning itself into a Constitutional Convention with seemingly endless scope to rewrite bits of the Constitution. If we honestly want that to happen, the Senate in consultation with the President should call it, its not for us to do.

As to Ernest's points:

We certainly shouldn't view the individual sections in isolation because it was that sort of thinking that actually lead to the crisis in the first place, so thanks for mentioning that.

When I read the Constitution I see it as suggesting that the grand jury phase is the public poll phase, since Clause 1 states: "In order for the Senate to remove the person from office, the Senate must vote two-thirds" - this would seem to indicate that the Senate tries the impeachment, though it is far from clear since there are numerous references to both the public poll and the Senate impeaching the officer concerned.

The lack of the usual legal language, and therefore the usual distinction, is concerning in the Section as it causes me to believe the whole thing is left open mostly to the readers interpretation and could in fact be found by the Supreme Court to be inherently contradictory and therefore inapplicable to any officer. Also note that the Section presently only applies to the President, VP and Supreme Court Justices.

Beyond the suggestion of using the correct legal terminology to describe the process and to clarify the actual process itself, I don't see that much needs to be done here. Though it would be nice if we could settle on what was meant to be the original intent of the Constitution on this matter.

[Peter]

I don't want this Commission to take a month to deliberate, so I'm  going to offer up some possible new language for this Section (I'm going to assume Ernest's version of the original intent, because though I still believe mine is correct, his is much less unwieldy and makes far more sense for our purposes):
1. Article I Section 3 Clause 1 is hereby repealed. The language in Article I Section 5 Clause 2 relating to impeachment is hereby repealed.

2. In the same manner as the proposition of a Bill, a Senator may propose Articles of Impeachment against any executive or judicial officer of the federal government.

3. The Senate will be impanelled as a grand jury to consider these Articles of Impeachment. A majority vote of the Senate under quorum rules will be necessary to impeach the Officer.

4. The People shall have sole power to try such impeachments. The Chief Justice shall administer a public poll to try the impeachment, unless it is the Chief Justice who shall have been impeached, in which case the Senate President pro tempore shall administer the public poll. The public poll shall be held for one week and shall require the consent of two-thirds voting to convict.
If we go with my original intent the two bodies involved are simply swapped, though it will require some original thinking to determine how to file Articles of Impeachment.

[Peter]

This Commission has been inactive for nearly six days.

Unless there is activity by Thursday, I will disband the Commission and write a list of recommendations myself for submission to the Senate.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Your Impeachment Amendment can be slimmed down if you use two-thirds as the requirement at each stage of the impeachment process as there would be no need to revise Article I Section 5 Clause 2.
There are a few minor technical glitches involving Regions and Federal elections.  Here is a proposed amendment to clear then up:

§1.The first sentence of Article II Section 1 Clause 6 is hereby repealed.

§2. Article II Section 2 Clause 4 is hereby amended by adding:  “Any ballot which casts a vote for a President and a Vice President from the same Region shall not be counted.”

§3. The fourth sentence of Article IV is hereby repealed.

   Sections 1 and 2 of my propsal are related to each other.  In the context of Atlasia, the restriction of Article II Section 1 Clause 6 that the President and Vice-President aren't from the same State should be changed to the same Region instead.  Also, what happens if a President or Vice-President were to move into the same State (or Region if that change is made)?  Switching to a restriction that applies only at the time of election removes that worry.

   Section 3 removes an ambiguity.  It might be interpreted on the basis of the sentence that I propose repealing that in the case of a vacancy in a District that is entirely within a single Region, such as District 2 in the old map and District 1 in the new map that the Governor gets to appoint a replacement instead of having a special election.  I doubt that is the intent, but why risk it being misinterpreted?

[Peter]

Section 3 removes an ambiguity.  It might be interpreted on the basis of the sentence that I propose repealing that in the case of a vacancy in a District that is entirely within a single Region, such as District 2 in the old map and District 1 in the new map that the Governor gets to appoint a replacement instead of having a special election.  I doubt that is the intent, but why risk it being misinterpreted?

The original intent in this case was with regard to the time when we had 5 Regional Senators and 5 District Senators. If there was a vacancy in the Regional Senate seat, the governor could fill it.

[Peter]

I'm going to put a finishing date for deliberations of this commission as the noon EST 15th December. I will then put together a report over Xmas.

I would like to submit this:

Article II Section 3 Clause 1:

The President-Elect assumes his or her duties as President the first weekend of the month following the general election. The President must be sworn in between noon Eastern on Friday and noon Eastern Time the Sunday ensuing. The Vice President and the other civil officers must also be sworn in on the same day. The Vice President shall be sworn in first, followed by the President who shall then be followed by the other civil officers.
This seems entirely unnecessary as well as having the potential to render an entire inauguration unconstitutional as it doesn't really define who the "civil officers" are - if its the Senators, then we've never really been able to swear the President, VP and Senators all in on the same day, I doubt we will be able to in the future. If it includes the cabinet, I don't know how we are meant to get them confirmed by the Senate in time.

Amendment:
1. Article I Section 3 Clause 1 is hereby repealed.

2. All federal, elected officials shall begin their new terms at noon EST on the first Friday of the month following their elections.

[Peter]

I have noticed that the Candidacy Declaration Amendment only modified Article V Clause 5, and it was very specific in only modifying that clause.

There are two other instances that I can find where the old twenty day rule is mentioned - I suggest their repeal:

1. The third sentence of Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 is hereby repealed.

2. The language in Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 relating to the candidacy registration deadline is hereby repealed.