HR 1229: War Powers Amendment (Failed)

[Associate Justice PiT]

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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[/quote]

People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

[/quote]

Sponsor: dfwlibertylover

     I hereby open the floor for debate.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This has to be brought into compliance with the Amendment Explanation requirements.

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Not sure if I support it yet but for moving along purposes I will sponsor.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Representatives have 24 hours to object to Representative dfwlibertylover assuming sponsorship.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     With no objections, Representative dfwlibertylover has assumed sponsorship.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This has to be brought into compliance with the Amendment Explanation requirements.

Also we should indicate better changes relative to the current text of the constitution.

[NeverAgain]

CHANGES!:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

[/quote]

Sponsor: dfwlibertylover [/quote]

I will wait to hear from the sponsor, but I see myself supporting this.

[Associate Justice PiT]

CHANGES!:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

Sponsor: dfwlibertylover [/quote]

I will wait to hear from the sponsor, but I see myself supporting this.

[/quote]

     Should I understand this to mean that you will officially propose this as an amendment if the sponsor responds positively?

[NeverAgain]

CHANGES!:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

Sponsor: dfwlibertylover

I will wait to hear from the sponsor, but I see myself supporting this.

[/quote]

     Should I understand this to mean that you will officially propose this as an amendment if the sponsor responds positively?
[/quote]

I was bolding the changes from status-quo constitution to clarify. This is the text of the proposed amendment.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

This is a really small thing, but can we change "via" to "by?" Otherwise, I'm generally supportive of what will hopefully force Congress to play a larger role in responding to foreign affairs.

[Lumine]

I think I'll defer to my original post on the subject before the Senate, it provides better context than writing it again:

Right, one of my pledges over the past few months (and indeed, something that goes back to 2014) is a committment to end the constant ambiguity that exists in Constitutional and legal terms regarding war powers, something which I find to be one of the outdated relics coming from the US Constitutional framework which we might as well reform to avoid further trouble. Events like the botched strike on North Korea have shown us that we need a clearer process less prone to abuse, and this Amendment (which will require extra legislation if enacted by the regions) is a step in that direction.

I started from the base that the President is the Commander-in-Chief and Congress has the power to declare war, and decided to complement both with two important changes to our constitution.

The first change is adding a whole new area that handles "War Authorization" when it comes to the powers of Congress. Basically, it acknowledges two different types of warfare and two different mechanisms to legislate: There's warfare against a sovereign nation which we recognize, which would necessarily require a formal Declaration of War, and there's warfare against a terrorist or rebel group, for example, ISIS or Boko Haram (which for obvious reasons we would never recognize as a sovereign state), which would require an Authorization of Force. That is to say, Congress retains the overall constitutional superiority in the long term and over anything that is far-reaching.

These Declarations or Authorization may also include a time limit that Congress may choose to extend or not as a war goes forward, increasing the actual oversight of Congress when it comes to ending operations or allowing them to continue. Should they be ended (this is assumed to be a scenario where Congress chooses to end participation in a conflict) or expired, a period of 30 days would follow for withdrawal. I considered a period of 90 days first (and I would prefer that), but 90 days are certainly a lot of time for Atlasia, and it's important to bear that in mind as well.

The second change pertains the Presidential powers, which perhaps need to be reigned in a bit. Mind you, I support a strong Executive, but not an executive which can blatantly abuse its powersto terrible effect. Under this amendment, a President would retain the power to react to emergencies (which can and will ocurr, gentlemen, let's be realistic about it). However, he will have to act within a framework set by Congress via legislation (that is to say, after this is ratified Congress will have to pass a bit outlining what is a foreign policy emergency and what isn't), he will be constrained with a 90 day limit (which is too narrow to wage full-scale long term war, but sufficient to handle a short-term threat), and he will require the signatures of two members of his Cabinet.

Therefore, defense and military policy can be conducted in a more orderly fashion and with a clearer Constitutional framework, and while a President would retain the initiative to react to an emergency, he be would be reigned in not only by legislation, but by the need to recieve some support from his Cabinet, meaning decisions are more likely to have a collective basis and not just the impulse of a single man.

Of course the amendment itself was amended in the Senate to allow for a different withdrawal process that accounts both for emergencies and necessary congressional oversight, but other than that there were no further objections or suggestions.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

CHANGES!:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

Sponsor: dfwlibertylover

I will wait to hear from the sponsor, but I see myself supporting this.

[/quote]

     Should I understand this to mean that you will officially propose this as an amendment if the sponsor responds positively?
[/quote]

I think you can change that aspect without amendment, under the grounds of grammar and formatting.

The Explanation part on the other hand will require an amendment.

[Associate Justice PiT]

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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[/quote]

People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

[/quote]

Status: Awaiting sponsor feedback
Sponsor feedback: Pending

[Terry the Fat Shark]

Amendment is friendly.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Representatives have 24 hours to object to the amendment.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     With no objections, the amendment is adopted.

[Associate Justice PiT]

This has to be brought into compliance with the Amendment Explanation requirements.

     This still needs to be taken care of before the bill can leave the House.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

lol This is going to be fun.

[Lumine]

A suggestion, since it has been several days:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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[/quote]

People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

[/quote]

[Associate Justice PiT]

     When you say a suggestion, does that mean you are proposing it as an amendment?

[Terry the Fat Shark]

If this is doable, I would like to sponsor the amendment on behalf of Senator Lumine (the amendment to the amendment ) and the amendment is friendly if it does need to be sponsored in such way.

[Associate Justice PiT]

If this is doable, I would like to sponsor the amendment on behalf of Senator Lumine (the amendment to the amendment ) and the amendment is friendly if it does need to be sponsored in such way.

     You can sponsor an amendment for anyone. To be official, are you doing so?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would note that utilizing the top line mission statement for the purposes of amendment explanation differs from the standards applied in the other amendments, including Dual Officeholding by this chamber. I would also note that the statute and rules establishing this process differentiated between the two elements of the format.

Something like this is more in line with those formats:

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Article IV, Section 2.1 of the Constitution shall be amended to read the following:

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You must be logged in to read this quote.

[/quote]

People's Regional Senate:
Passed 4-0-1 in the Atlasian Senate assembled

[/quote]

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I also would advise the review of the texts for potential spelling problems. I correct one in the original text already. "Appropriate" towards the end of the text is incorrectly spelled in the underlying text.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For the sake of time I officially offer my above text as an amendment.