Wiping all current laws. (ADOPTED)

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

A legislative reboot is an absolute must: without it, any changes we might make to the structure of the federal government or the Regions will only slow the decline of Atlasia. We need to give a new generation of players the opportunity to shape the future of our Republic without the hinderance of 11 years worth of legislation.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I like Evergreen's idea in theory, but I agree with Classic Conservative that it would be overly confusing. Perhaps we could allow 2/3 of the Regional legislatures to veto federal legislation instead?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

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I recently remembered this quote by Jefferson, and it reminded me of an idea of his that, while unworkable in the real world, might just be a good mechanism to have in Atlasia: the automatic reboot. In other words, we state in the Constitution that after a given period of time (say, three or four years), all federal and Regional laws currently on the books become null and void, allowing the new generation of players to start afresh. Thoughts?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

For the sake of continuity, I would advise against using post-2004 U.S. laws as the basis for the new statute.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'd also add that for simplicity's sake it would make sense to simply adopt the current US legislative situation, like we did back in 2004. It might be fun to have people argue about Obamacare.

I fully support this. On a regional level, however, I'd like to have a vote of the people on wiping laws.

The new Constitution will have to be approved by the voters, so this is already in place.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I move for a principle vote one wiping all current regional and federal laws and replacing them with the US laws up until the moment the constitution goes live.

I second this motion.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Anyway, given it's been like 4 days can we have the principle vote now?

Yes, lets move ahead with this. It's pretty clear that a consensus on the issue has been reached.

In addition, I suggest that this be the format of said vote:

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

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I'm not sure the ConCon can act about wiping current laws.

It can. We would simply include a clause in the Constitution saying, in effect:

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Thank God.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I propose the following amendment:

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Delegates have 24 hours to object.

EDIT: 1.1 has been amended to reflect the threshold set in place by the current Constitution.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

A vote is now open on Truman's amendment. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

     It may only be necessary to nullify statute passed by the Senate or by the Regions. The Constitution is customarily replaced when a new one is passed and anything else can stand or fall depending on how much its operation hinges upon nulled law.

I included "Constitutions" in the list of things to be nullified primarily to clarify that the old Regional Constitutions go out of effect with the current federal Constitution.

This is asking for trouble from a legal standpoint and would put the new constitution on shaky ground. Some would deny its legality, and that is not something Atlasia can afford during such a critical transition period.

This convention lacks the authority to change anything except for the process defined in the current Constitution. There is no way we can create an alternative process, without risking, the whole project being tossed out.

The two-thirds portion was a typo - I mistakenly thought that the current threshold was 2/3, rather than 3/4. The amendment has been edited accordingly.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

AYE

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

By a vote of 2 Ayes, 5 Nays, 1 Abstention, and with 17 members not voting¹, this amendment has failed to be adopted.

¹ Y'all should be ashamed of yourselves


I think Yankee brings up a very good point: while my inclination is to be a succinct as possible, this is one point where we should spell out the process in detail.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Possibly the best way to make sure that people vote is the PM delegates when there is a vote. Many of the delegates may have been unaware that there was a vote.

Thanks Truman for implementing this.

Happy to be of service. Unfortunately, the forum limits me to 20 PMs per hour, so five of us will just have to remember to vote on our own.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Yeah, I had no idea there was a vote happening until just now since this convention is terribly organized.

As Presiding Officer, I have taken steps to ensure that everyone is on the same page from here on out; nevertheless, the delegates who missed the vote have no-one to blame but themselves for their absence. There are only three threads on this board in which issues are being actively debated: it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to scan through each of them and vote on proposals as necessary. For reference, the Senate regularly debates up to ten different proposals at a time and most active Regional legislatures have 2-3 bills on the floor. I'm willing to bet that almost everyone here has served in a Regional legislature at some point, so this arrangement should not come as a surprise. Provided you're willing to log in at least once a day, it should not be unreasonable for you to keep up with all that is going on without someone hovering over your shoulder.

My job is to enforce the Rules of Order and to keep debate from getting off track, not to babysit the delegates and make sure they do their jobs. If sending out a PM blast announcing each vote is what is needed to keep everyone from dozing off, I'm happy to do it, but let's not pretend that 17 delegates didn't show up for work because they couldn't figure out which thread they were supposed to click on.

EDIT: Can I move that votes be invalidated without a certain level of turnout from the delegates?

I am uncomfortable with this for a number of reasons. First, there is nothing in the Rules of Order that allows the Convention to establish a quorum, and we would be opening ourselves up for a lawsuit should we choose to do so anyway. Second, this would hypothetically allow a minority of the Convention to block the passage of unfriendly legislation by refusing to vote, which is something I will not allow to happen.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'm in the process of drafting a new amendment, and this is what I have so far re: implementation (keep in mind that this is a rough draft, not an official amendment):

1. Once the Constitution has been ratified, the Pres. appoints a SoFE to administer the election of a new Pres., VP, and HoR.
2. The SoFE also administers the election of Regional "Transitional Committees"
3. Committees organize election of new Senate, write Regional Constitutions

I'm unsure where the legislative reboot should go in all of this. Part of me thinks it should happen immediately after ratification, but that creates a troublesome period where there is no official power that can administer the election of the new government. The other part of me thinks that the reboot should happen after the above transition, but that creates a whole new set of problems, namely: how do existing election laws figure into the election of the new gov't?

Thoughts?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Based on the recommendations of the Convention, I hereby offer the following amendment. Delegates have 24 hours to object.

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Object I think 2/3's is right 3/4 is a little too steep

The thing is, we don't have a choice in the matter: the current Constitution requires that any replacement be approved by 3/4 of the Regions.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

    Because we have five regions, either option would require the assent of four of those regions. The fraction here doesn't actually make a difference.

Aren't we reducing to three though? This would mean that 3/4 would require all three regions to approve - whereas 2/3 would require only two.

Consolidation is being enacted as part of the new Constitution; as such, the Three Region Map won't go into effect until after ratification.
A vote is now open on Truman's Amendment. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

AYE!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

About a day left of this.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

By a vote of 14 Ayes, 0 Nays, 3 Abstentions, and with eight members not voting, this Amendment has been ADOPTED.

Are there any proposed changes/additions to the text of this Article, or shall we leave it as-is?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Tomorrow, if there are no objections, I will call a final vote on this Article.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Seeing no objection, we will now proceed with a final vote on this Article. Please vote AYE, NAY, or Abstain. Voting will last 48 hours or until all delegates have voted.

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[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

AYE!