Vote to Override Veto on Env. Protection and Intermodal Transportation Act

[Nym90]

Eh... I hate to do this, as I'm generally very environmental, but I generally am against changes unless I'm fairly sure that they'll be good ones, and John Ford's argument against section 1 have convinced me that the current version of that section has too many risks associated with it for it to pass that level of certainty that I like to have.

Therefore, I reluctantly change my vote to nay.

To be fair, I'll give the "nay" voters 24 hours to change their votes to "yea" in light of this if anyone may be having second thoughts.

We really need a senatorial procedural resolution about vote-changing...

I respect your decision, though obviously I strongly disagree with it.

As you are the PPT, I assume that you have the right to decide when voting is closed, though all 9 current members of the Senate had finished voting when Siege voted.

I feel this is a sad day for our country. This bill would have saved consumers and businesses many millions of dollars, and moved our country, in tandem with the Energy Bill passed in the last session, towards energy independency, increasing our national security, as well as improving the Atlasian economy. This is putting the special interests of the automobile industry ahead of the general welfare of the nation, in my opinion.

[7,052,770]

I try not to put much input on these since it's not "my branch," but I have to say I'm very saddened by this.
I in fact looked through the Constitution for a way that I could say that Gabu couldn't legally change his vote after everyone had voted, but it's not there.  Perhaps I could've made a case if a week had expired, but alas, I can't.  O well.

[Nym90]

I support Senators being allowed to change their votes if they wish, though obviously there needs to be some set time limit (after everyone has voted, voting automatically closes after a certain amount of time).

[WiseGuy]

I have been watching the Senate sessions on C-SPAN, and the usual procedure is to wait until a substantial number of votes have been cast, then the President asks if there are any Senators who just came in and want to vote, or any Senators that want to change their vote.  After a reasonable period of time, he says, "if not, the the Yeas are _#_ the Nays are _#_" and proceeds to announce the final result.

[minionofmidas]

The problem here is...established precedent on the Forum is for the PPT to close a vote as soon as it's clear it's either failed or passed and he gets around to do so. Until he does, people can change their vote. People who haven't voted before he declares the vote closed can still vote "for the record".
Now, of course the PPT is a Senator himself, and in this case basically the moment he got around to do it and might have closed the vote, he changed his vote first.
I think that was legal, if slightly dodgy (for a while there, the bill had enough votes to pass).

[Nym90]

I would encourage all Senators to not cast their votes on a bill until they are 100% sure of how they'll vote; obviously that would help to eliminate any potential issues like this in the future. For example, if Gabu had closed voting because all votes had been cast, and then a different Senator other than him had decided he wanted to change, then what? It should be clearly defined as to when voting closes; I'm not sure if I support giving the PPT sole authority to decide when voting closes, which seems to be the case now.

But as Wiseguy pointed out, established precedent in the real U.S. Senate is that Senators can change their votes, even once all votes have been cast.

[Gabu]

Erm, seems I have created more controversy yet again... as far as I can tell, there's absolutely nothing on the books that deals with vote-changing whatsoever; I think I'll introduce a Senate procedural resolution about that.  I do agree that it's not a good idea to leave it solely up to one person.  I try to be as fair as possible, which is why I didn't change my vote and then immediately close voting, but checks and balances are never a bad thing.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with vote-changing.  I was 100% sure that I wanted this to pass, until I read John Ford's argument against it.  Things happen.  The more freedom, the better, in my opinion.  Maybe I'm wrong; I dunno.

At any rate...

With four votes against to six in favor, I hereby declare this override to have failed.

I feel kind of sheepish having done this, but I couldn't come up with an argument against John Ford's, and because of that, I couldn't feel comfortable voting in favor of this.  As I said before; I didn't vote against this because of the entire bill; I simply agreed with John Ford that the current mpg standards that it asked of the automotive industry were too high.  If this was reintroduced with lower standards, I would probably vote for it.

Sorry if I've made anyone mad.

[Nym90]

I'm not mad. You went with your conscience, and that's the right thing to do. It doesn't lower my opinion of you at all; you did what you felt was right. It was just disappointing for the votes to all be there, and then to find out a few hours later that it had failed.

Of course, when you run for reelection, if an environmental group grills you on this vote, you can always say "Well actually I did vote for the $1 billion, before I voted against it."

I don't oppose the concept of vote switching. I do plan on making another attempt at passing this in the next session of the Senate.

[12th Doctor]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with vote-changing.  I was 100% sure that I wanted this to pass, until I read John Ford's argument against it.  Things happen.  The more freedom, the better, in my opinion.  Maybe I'm wrong; I dunno.

At any rate...

With four votes against to six in favor, I hereby declare this override to have failed.

I feel kind of sheepish having done this, but I couldn't come up with an argument against John Ford's, and because of that, I couldn't feel comfortable voting in favor of this.  As I said before; I didn't vote against this because of the entire bill; I simply agreed with John Ford that the current mpg standards that it asked of the automotive industry were too high.  If this was reintroduced with lower standards, I would probably vote for it.

True, but we are talking about 20 years from now.  Ture that that time period might be a little short, but it is better than no time frame at all.  We are going to have to advance as a nation sooner or later.  If we cannot match-up to these standards in the given time, we can always vote to extend it later.  Better to get something done than nothing.

[Nym90]

Personally, I see nothing wrong with vote-changing.  I was 100% sure that I wanted this to pass, until I read John Ford's argument against it.  Things happen.  The more freedom, the better, in my opinion.  Maybe I'm wrong; I dunno.

At any rate...

With four votes against to six in favor, I hereby declare this override to have failed.

I feel kind of sheepish having done this, but I couldn't come up with an argument against John Ford's, and because of that, I couldn't feel comfortable voting in favor of this.  As I said before; I didn't vote against this because of the entire bill; I simply agreed with John Ford that the current mpg standards that it asked of the automotive industry were too high.  If this was reintroduced with lower standards, I would probably vote for it.

True, but we are talking about 20 years from now. Ture that that time period might be a little short, but it is better than no time frame at all. We are going to have to advance as a nation sooner or later. If we cannot match-up to these standards in the given time, we can always vote to extend it later. Better to get something done than nothing.

Yeah, that was my point, that since the bill takes so long to fully take effect, it can always be repealed at some point if it turns out to have unexpectedly negative consequences. I'll try to push through a more modest version in the next Senate, however.

Perhaps that is what some Senators were counting on.