Structure, size and elections of Senate/House (Debating)

[Leinad]

I like bicameralism, BUT...does it lower seats enough? Yes, I know it doesn't add any seats. I get it, we still decrease seats by a good bit due to the regional consolidation. But obviously we could have even fewer seats by only having one house. Of course 6 Senators and 9 Representatives is more than 7 Senators and no representatives (change numbers slightly and it's still true), as fun as bicameralism would certainly be.

We should answer a question: what's the target number of seats? Just a general number. And then we can determine something that would get us close to that. Current number of seats: executive branch (7) + legislative branch (10) + judicial branch (3) + regional governors (5) + regional legislatures (19) + other regional offices (5, I think) = 49 total officers. How many of those people are inactive? We need to have more active people than offices to keep things interesting.

Now, I kind of like Evergreen's idea, BUT...the multi-tiered system is there for a reason. Newer people can get introduced to the game via the regional legislature, now they go straight to federal government. Another reason, which is even better, is that it's good to separate the regional governments with the federal--we'd lose a lot of additional dynamics in the game if we do that.

[Leinad]

Abstain.

I have major doubts of it's feasibility, but, on the other hand, it would be totally freaking awesome!

The question is this: are the benifits of bicameralism worth adding extra offices? Two chambers, or not two chambers, that is the question!

Bicameralism doesn't add offices. It reduces them by nearly 15.

That's a bit misleading, to be slightly pedantic--yes, your plan does reduce offices, overall, but it would reduce more without the bicameralism part. Of course, you could easily say that the added dynamic of two chambers would make it worth it, but still, it's technically incorrect to say that "bicameralism doesn't add offices" when that's literally what it is: adding offices (not your plan overall, but bicameralism specifically).

Not trying to bash you or anything--I'm just a bit of a stickler for factual accuracy in debates such as these. Again, I'm not opposed to bicameralism, just skeptical. But I want to believe.

[Leinad]

I ask you, Leinad, what is your vision for the game? Do you think merely consolidating regions and tweaking some other aspects of the cabinet will fix our problems? Add any new dynamics to the game? I'm not trying to be a dick either. I'm genuinely curious.

No, it's okay. To clarify, I'm not really against bicameralism, per se--as I explained, I'm torn on it. If we had more activity I'd certainly be for it. Remember, I voted "abstain," not against. As far as my overall vision, I do think we need to add some sort of dynamic to the game. Not sure exactly what--whether that's diplomacy with another nation, another chamber, or something else. But what I am sure of is that we need to cut down on the number of offices, and I'm skeptical whether we can sustain two federal houses and three regions--but I'd love to be proven wrong!

No, it is not misleading - it is factually accurate and nominally sound. This would be like saying that a budget proposal with spending cuts and tax increases that ultimately cuts spending overall doesn't really cut spending because more cuts could be made/cuts could be made without tax increases. Doesn't make sense there; doesn't make sense here.

Maybe you misunderstood me. Again, I'm not talking about the plan overall, but bicameralism in a vacuum.

To go with your budget analogy, it's more like saying that spending money to buy everyone free pizza doesn't cost any money because the budget overall saves money.

[Leinad]

The democratic right of the people to choose who governs them at any level must never be discarded.

The clock of democracy can never be turned back to the old days when Senators were chosen by party cliques sitting in a legislature.

What is wrong with letting the people, all eligible voters in Atlasia, or all eligible voters in a region, decide who is to govern them?

The people's right to choose who is to govern  is the most fundamental right of free people everywhere, the right to vote.

Taking the vote away from the people is a horrible idea.  I cannot imagine anyone who genuinely loves democracy ever supporting such an archaic practice as having representatives of the people elected by a legislature clique.  

I suppose your point does hold some value, but it's no different than letting President's appoint a Cabinet instead of electing them, right? Not saying you're right or wrong, just wondering why there's no criticism from you of that.

And to one of your points, regarding party cliques, I would argue that, in real life especially, popular vote elections are generally won by whatever candidate the media-establishment complex forces down everyone's throats anyway, so I'm not sure where the difference is.

I certainly have reservations about this plan, too, but if it can A) reignite the regions and B) provide meaningful contrast between the two houses, I'm very much open to it. Overall, I like the idea of letting the regions decide. That way we can see which system is the best, by testing them both in action (or seeing all 3 regions independently decide one is better than the other, whichever one works).

[Leinad]

1. D
2. A
3. C
4. B

Ditto what Tmth said. While I do think a popular vote would be best, it's a good idea to let the regions decide. What could go wrong if the people of a region decide to make it based on the legislature? We already have another federal house elected via popular vote, and the legislature itself is elected via popular vote as well, so it's not like we're robbing the people of their rights or anything if we do this.

This could be a great opportunity to not only differentiate the two houses, but (much more importantly) reinvigorate the regional legislatures.

[Leinad]

1. 9
2. 11
3. 7


Crazy idea I'd like my fellow delegates to hear and consider/humor for at least 4.26 seconds:

There should be a built-in mechanism to decrease the number of seats due to a lack of activity. As in, if an election has less than X number of declared candidates (the exact number would be determined when we define precisely how elections will be ran--FPTP, STV by region, STV by district, party list PR, or whatever) it will go from 11 to 9 for that election and subsequent ones (and it could be expanded if the number goes back up).

Example: every region starts out with 3 seats elected in an STV system, for a total of 12. If, say, 6 or more people run, it goes to 4 seats, and if, say, less than 4 people run, it goes to 2. Or if it's at-large, or population-adjusted districts, it could start out at 9, and if less than, say, 10 people run it goes to 7, and if more than 13 people run it goes to 11. Obviously the numbers will be changed if we actually do this.

Does anyone else agree with that idea? Or am I just talking nonsense?

[Leinad]

I like PiT's idea to not elect them all at once. Maybe split it into 3 classes of 3 members, and if the number changes we can either have different-numbered classes (like how one of the US Senate's classes is 34 and the others are 33) or if, say, it's for 3-month terms and we have 10, we can have 4-winner elections each time, but 4th-place only gets a third of a term and is up next election.

Just throwing stuff at the convention wall to see what sticks.

And why is everyone now talking about variable-sized chambers? We just had a principle vote on the size of the chamber. It's over.

The point of the convention isn't to set a number to end all numbers, and leave it there for all eternity. The point of the convention is to bring more activity and interest to Atlasia, so when it comes to choosing the number of seats in a chamber it needs to be based on how many seats one forum-based elections game can sustain. Activity fluctuates, and even if it didn't it's hard to choose the Magic Number without seeing how things work, so why on earth would we want to set it to something we can't change without passing a constitutional amendment? It would make much more sense to have it naturally adjust to the activity.

And saying "we already had a vote" makes no sense when this option wasn't included, and wasn't even suggested until after the vote started. (Also, this is another example of the painfully annoying tendency of people to shoot down any debate simply because their prefered choice is the current status quo.)

[Leinad]

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I don't get why almost everyone's voting against the fluctuating seat proposal. The idea wasn't to pick a number and set it, completely ignoring actual activity results post-convention, but to have the right number to allow for competitive, exciting elections. This is the way to do that.

What if we miscalculate and 9 is too much, or too little? This is the way to keep that from happening. If we don't allow for variable seats, we're just stuck with the number whether it works or not. Hopefully we got it right, and this faith everyone's placing in the number 9 is justified, but I'm skeptical.

[Leinad]

Considering how big of a deal we made over regional self-determination, I like the compromise for senatorial self-determination here. This is the sort of direction we should be going in.

Agreed.

[Leinad]

Aye!