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

[Associate Justice PiT]

might be an interesting idea to replace the senate with an amalgam of every regional legislature, meeting together. would certainly rekindle interest in regional governments, although obviously there'd have to be some kind of regulation on the sizes of regional legislatures.

     This is a really cool idea, and one that I would support. It would efficiently cut down on the number of offices while also maintaining a real place for the regions.

[Associate Justice PiT]

We can definitely accommodate bicameralism in the new game - as I have explained like fifty-eight times at this point - but it will require firm regulation as to how many (legislative) offices each region can have at a given time, preferably through a formula that reduces the number of legislators for a region if it becomes either too small or too large as a percentage of the game's population.

Something like:

Idea #1 (My Favorite Idea)

• <25% of the game's population = 3 Legislators
• 25-40% of the game's population = 5 Legislators
• >40% of the game's population = 3 Legislators

     Formula approach is nice, but it would probably benefit from also depending on the size of the country. Say, make the number of Legislators relate to the number of voters in the last Presidential election.

[Associate Justice PiT]

As much as I think bicameralism would be fun, I worry that it would slow the legislative process while only minimally reducing the number of offices.

     It's not like we're in a hurry to push through bills dealing with real crises. Slowing the legislative process is alright if it makes the game more fun.

[Associate Justice PiT]

proposal:

lower house composed of regional legislatures (19 offices under current system → 19 offices in new system)

upper house composed of regional governors (5 offices under current system → 5 offices in new system)

keep president, cabinet, supreme court (9 offices under current system → 9 offices in new system)

abolish vp, current senate, other regional offices (16 offices under current system → 0 offices in new system)

cuts total offices by 1/3, no reduction in regions necessary.

     I like this proposal a lot.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Windjammer's plan is quite interesting. I would posit though that we should consider a holistic approach that also takes into account regional offices, so we have a complete picture of the number of offices in Atlasia.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I like the idea of bicameralism, but I won't support that because cutting the number of offices should be the top priority.

     I agree; bicameralism would be really cool, though I fear it may be impractical under the current circumstances. I remain open to other suggestions, but I like this one a lot.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I think we should go ahead with a principle vote.

[Associate Justice PiT]

[  ] Bicameralism
[X] Unicameralism

What legislative system do you support?

[X] Bicameralism
[ ] Unicameralism
[ ] Abstain

I think we could have two five member houses.

1x1 - President
5x1 - Senate
5x1 - House of Representatives
1x3 - Governors
5x3 - Regional Representatives.

29 elected officials.

     I will say, axing the Cabinet is a truly bold proposal. I fear it would create too many problems to be worth it, however.

[Associate Justice PiT]

6 member senate all elected at large and either a 9 or 11 person house elected by the regions. It's very simple. It gives regions a direct way to elect their representatives and let's the senate represent the entire nation sort of like it's done now.

It's that simple. Let's not overthink this.

     What if we use the Regional Legislatures to staff the lower house, similar to SWE's proposal? It would be a quick way to cut down on offices and it would make regional elections way more important.

[Associate Justice PiT]

There is functionally no difference between at large senators and regional senators in terms of who they represent and this is pretty obvious, honestly. At large senators represent the 20% of people who voted for them and share their views and no one else. There is pretty much no correlation between how a senator is elected and what they see their role as, apart from regional senators being more active and having a less dull election method.

These abstract ideas of how things are in principle, like with the crazy "governors should open constitutional amendment" movement are a large part of the problem with the game. People become so wrapped up in the idea of federalism and the separation of powers that they are blind to what works and what doesn't. And all the evidence shows that senators elected by the people at large are no more or less likely to represent people against regional interests.

But that 20% of the people is spread across the entire nation and therefore it is unavoidable for them to have a national outlook on things as opposed to a regional one obviously.

It was not a crazy idea. If people are to give a damn about regional elections, they have to have some important tasks or otherwise they are indeed a useless layer of gov't as ILV stated. Perhaps, this won't the right area to give them responsibility, but at the time, with the exception of you, no one even consider the idea of reassessing the relationship between the two levels of gov't and I damn sure wasn't going to sign off on yet another shifting of responsibility from regional to federal without some counter shift in another area.

     One of the major concerns I have seen with Labor (and the JCP too to a lesser extent) is that Labor has tended to not see a role for the regions. TNF saw no issue with bossing regions around and many amendments came out of the left sought to diminish the role of the regions.

     We may have been overzealous in our response, but considering that our opponents blithely dismissed an entire dimension of the game that was critical to integrating new blood, it's not hard to see why there was so much pushback. Yankee is right that it may not have been the correct position to hold on that issue, but I would maintain that the greater good of Atlasia was served by the right-wing reaction to the erosion of the regions.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I support the existence of regions. When I was "tracking" the senate with Cris, there was a big difference in term of level of activity between at-large senators and regional senators. Regional senators were averagely much more active.

     I can see why that would happen. Regional Senators tend to be more vulnerable to changes in demographics. Some at-large Senators are on the bubble and some aren't. A Laborite or Federalist designated as the prime target for election at-large is pretty safe no matter what happens.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Aye. I look forward to further amendments being proposed.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Maybe the Senate should just always be elected by the Legislatures. I think it is a good idea to make them more relevant, and the split system seems a bit overcomplicated.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Maybe the Senate should just always be elected by the Legislatures. I think it is a good idea to make them more relevant, and the split system seems a bit overcomplicated.

Personally, I think we should just make it so that they are given to the regions and then let the regions decide on how they want to handle it. Are you advocating for a big, heavy-handed federal approach to all of this? I'm so proud!

     Well I was responding to a post advocating a federal approach.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I don't know about the legislatures selecting their senator. I want more elections, all the time, because this is an elections game, and the more we have the better.

     The problem is too many elections causing voter fatigue. The run-up to the election is oftentimes just as interesting as the result. Besides, the House would be elected by the citizenry.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Right; I wouldn't be in favor of telling the regions they must have a legislature in order to elect Senators if we decide to do things that way.

     That is also a good point; I have long been a fan of how legislatures were organically adopted by the regions, rather than required of them. We should be giving the regions more say and not less, or what's the point?

[Associate Justice PiT]

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

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Thank you, Senator Truman. One of the tendencies that I have noticed for a long time is that people are often control freaks, not to demean anyone for it. I experience that too.

     This tendency is why we have tended to end up with an overly descriptive Constitution, and it is also why people often resist devolving important choices to the regions. Everyone is afraid to leave the issues they care about up in the air because they might not have control over how it is handled, even if the current means of dealing with it are not the most appropriate.

     The effect of embracing this in the long run is that people are less empowered to make important decisions and less able to affect change. Then we wonder why there is discontent concerning the game's state of affairs.

[Associate Justice PiT]

1. 9
2. 11
3. 7

[Associate Justice PiT]

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?

     We tried something like that briefly in the South, but it ended up being irrelevant. I'd be interested to see it tried on a broader scale.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I like at-large elections for the House, but we should think about the possibility of not electing it all at once. There are lots of possibilities here, so let's not hem it in.

[Associate Justice PiT]

Nay

[1] At-Large
[2] Regionally
[3] From Districts

[Associate Justice PiT]

Do we need to establish that as a Constitutional matter?  Or can we leave it up to the Senate/the House/the People?

     Isn't it statutory already? We should probably just keep it that way.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     What I mean is, we should continue to codify it in the statute. How best to do that is an issue to be addressed in transitional committees.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Interesting point about the name of the PPT. It reflects the difference in the role in the United States versus Atlasia, so I agree that we should have a more fitting name for it.