MA: Re-Establishment of a Lieutenant Governor Amendment (Debating)

[Talleyrand]

AYE

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

AYE

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Voting is now closed.  The AYEs are 4, and the NAYs re 0, with 1 not voting.  The AYEs have it, and the amendment is adopted.

[Talleyrand]

Are you going to introduce a similar amendment regarding Superior Court vacancies? If we use this procedure for the Senate, I think we should do it for the Court as well, unless there's some reasoning to explain that.

[tmthforu94]

Are you going to introduce a similar amendment regarding Superior Court vacancies? If we use this procedure for the Senate, I think we should do it for the Court as well, unless there's some reasoning to explain that.

Eh, I'd be fine with there being joint appointments for the Superior Court - whatever you guys decide in terms of appointments, I'm fine with. In the grand scheme of things, it really shouldn't cause too many problems one way or another, so I hope no one bases their final vote on it.

[tmthforu94]

Okay y'all, this here is the current version of the amendment, just so we all have an idea of what it looks like and what else needs fixed. Inks, if you could edit this in to the first post of the thread that'd be mightily appreciated.

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Article I, Section 3 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article I, Section 4 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article II, Section 2 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 2 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 6 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article IV, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article VI, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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All subsections of the Mideast Constitution (i.e. Part 1 of Article III, Section 5) not modified by this Act shall remain intact. [/quote]

[Talleyrand]

Article I, Section 4 will have to be amended somehow to make sure the Lieutenant Governor takes action to work on the Wiki. Otherwise, the part about being responsible for updating it would remain meaningless. I'm not sure what an appropriate solution could be yet, but I'm sure we'll think of one.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Here is an updated version of the bill.

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Article I, Section 3 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article I, Section 4 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article II, Section 2 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 2 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article III, Section 6 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article IV, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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Article VI, Section 1 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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All clauses of the Mideast Constitution (i.e. Part 1 of Article III, Section 5) not modified by this Act shall remain intact.[/quote]

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I have another amendment:

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[tmthforu94]

Oh! We both worked so hard on that! Essentially, yours gives the reader a better idea of what this all changes while mine gives a simpler version of what it'll all look like in the end. I'll try to keep my version updated on this page as well as more amendments come in, though I think we are nearing an end.


TexasDem, you make a great point! Why not just have the Speaker assume responsibilities of both the Governor and Lt. Governor? Or we could have the Dean of the Assembly assume their responsibilities? I doubt it would be too much of an overburden to the Speaker, considering should this ever occur, it likely wouldn't be for too many days.

[Talleyrand]

@Inks- What's the issue with 14 days? It would be nice to have representation in the Senate, even for only a few weeks.

@Tmth- I think Inks fixed it to read "administration", but maybe the Speaker could take over for the Governor and the Dean could take over for the LG (in this case they would be the same person, but it wouldn't really be an overburden, as you said)?

[tmthforu94]

I have another amendment:

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This doesn't make sense, as we don't have special elections for Senate races.

This could be my fault - I may have messed up when amending the Constitution last time after the public votes. Give me a few minutes.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Err... yeah... that shouldn't be there at all, now that you mention it.

[tmthforu94]

Err... yeah... that shouldn't be there at all, now that you mention it.

My head hurts.

I looked back on the history of the Constitution page - apparently I added that in on my June 26th update. Why I did, I have no clue, as I don't see any votes on it in the Voting Booth. Actually, now that I think of it, I wasn't even too involved in Mideast politics at that point as I was still serving as Vice President, which makes me wonder if someone else may have access to my Wiki account. I don't remember giving it to someone else, but perhaps I did.

That, or the entire history page is messed up on there, as it's saying there wasn't an update from 2010-2012 on the Constitution, and I'm sure there was.

I'll have to try and tackle this in the morning - perhaps a Constitutional Convention may be needed. Confusing stuff.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Err... yeah... that shouldn't be there at all, now that you mention it.

My head hurts.

I looked back on the history of the Constitution page - apparently I added that in on my June 26th update. Why I did, I have no clue, as I don't see any votes on it in the Voting Booth. Actually, now that I think of it, I wasn't even too involved in Mideast politics at that point as I was still serving as Vice President, which makes me wonder if someone else may have access to my Wiki account. I don't remember giving it to someone else, but perhaps I did.

That, or the entire history page is messed up on there, as it's saying there wasn't an update from 2010-2012 on the Constitution, and I'm sure there was.

I'll have to try and tackle this in the morning - perhaps a Constitutional Convention may be needed. Confusing stuff.

No... no Constitutional Convention.  Last time we had one of those, we ended up with a mess of a Constitution.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

I do remember that something was done at the federal level to change vacancies.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

This was ratified:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=154158.0

I don't see anything from the Assembly that session, so ZuWo must have proposed it.

[Gass3268]

So, when this is all said and done what will the Lieutenant Governor have the power to do? The position seems to be getting to the point of irrelevancy. I don't see the point of adding the position if it going to be continually watered down. Also I apologize for my lack of participation over the past few days, my family has been in town over the past few days.   

[tmthforu94]

Here is a proposal to fix Section 6:

Article III, Section 6 of the Mideast Constitution is hereby amended to read:

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I changed it back to joint appointment. I know appointments have been the big topic around here recently (I still don't understand why, as it's highly unlikely they'd disagree since they're a ticket) so would everyone be OK with giving joint appointment to the Senate and Governor-only for Assembly and Judge?

[Talleyrand]

I'll sponsor the amendment to put it to a vote then...

EDIT- I still support this amendment.

[tmthforu94]

So, when this is all said and done what will the Lieutenant Governor have the power to do? The position seems to be getting to the point of irrelevancy. I don't see the point of adding the position if it going to be continually watered down. Also I apologize for my lack of participation over the past few days, my family has been in town over the past few days.   

Well, assuming folks agree with my compromise proposal...
- Joint appointment power on Senate Seats
- Joint responsibility in updating the Wiki (I will greatly appreciate this)
- Step in to serve as Governor when needed (obviously)

I would agree, another responsibility may be handy. Perhaps serve as "President of the Assembly" in the absence of the Speaker, and also being in charge of convening the new session and opening nominations for Speaker?

[Talleyrand]

So, when this is all said and done what will the Lieutenant Governor have the power to do? The position seems to be getting to the point of irrelevancy. I don't see the point of adding the position if it going to be continually watered down. Also I apologize for my lack of participation over the past few days, my family has been in town over the past few days.  

Well, assuming folks agree with my compromise proposal...
- Joint appointment power on Senate Seats
- Joint responsibility in updating the Wiki (I will greatly appreciate this)
- Step in to serve as Governor when needed (obviously)

I would agree, another responsibility may be handy. Perhaps serve as "President of the Assembly" in the absence of the Speaker, and also being in charge of convening the new session and opening nominations for Speaker?

I support the top three proposals, but I would prefer the last few responsibilities to be given to the Dean of the Assembly (longest-serving member not serving as Speaker- basically under that scenario, Inks would convene the session and and open nominations, but in his absence, Gass would serve in that role).

I know in the Northeast, they do something similar to what you proposed, so it would be fine with me. Either way, not a deal-breaker.

[tmthforu94]

It's not a dealbreaker to me either, I'm just trying to think of potential responsibilities we could give the Lt. Governor as well. I don't know about other states, but I do know that in Indiana, that's the role the Lt. Governor serves in the State Senate.

[Talleyrand]

In Texas, the LG is President of the Senate, controls Senate Committees and Membership, plus is basically a Speaker. He's also on a bunch on boards, including the budget board.

However, he's too powerful, and we're not trying to usurp the Speaker or Governor here.

[tmthforu94]

In Texas, the LG is President of the Senate, controls Senate Committees and Membership, plus is basically a Speaker. He's also on a bunch on boards, including the budget board.

However, he's too powerful, and we're not trying to usurp the Speaker or Governor here.

Well, we're not giving him that much power. All he (or she) would potentially do is start the session every two months and fill in if the Speaker is on LOA, which should be rare.

Here's another idea - pending the passage of the budget amendment, a budget will be required each July 1st. Why not have the Lt. Governor in charge of debate and such for the budget? That might help keep the budget from completely dominating our time for the month of June.