Legislation Introduction Thread

[Colin]

Air Force Transport Appropriations Act

1. Atlasia shall purchase 42 C-17 aircraft from the Boeing Corp. with production ending in FY2010. The total cost of the program shall be $5.9 billion, $1.9 billion in FY2007, and an additional $1.0 billion in FY2008 through FY2011.

I considered this a part of the Military Readiness Bill that needs to be passed by this Senate. It is imperative that we give proper funding and appropriations to the Air Force to augment it's retired C-141 fleet with new C-17 aircraft.

[Colin]

National Public Smoking Ban

Section 1: Bans
1. Smoking of tabacco, marijuna, and all other legal smokeable drugs can no longer be smoked on government property
2. The owner of non-government property may still decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premisis

Section 2: Fines
1. The fine for smoking in public shall be $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second, and $500 for the third and $1,000 for all other fines after.
2. The revenue will be used to fund the interstate highway system
3. The drug that was being smoked will have no effect on the penalties

Section 3: Private Smoking
1. All drugs shall be legal for private use
2. It is still illegal to grow your own drugs
3. All drugs made legal by the bill that were not legal already will be taxed at 20%

Unconstitutional

[Colin]

National Public Smoking Ban

Section 1: Bans
1. Smoking of tabacco, marijuna, and all other legal smokeable drugs can no longer be smoked on government property
2. The owner of non-government property may still decide whether or not to allow smoking on their premisis

Section 2: Fines
1. The fine for smoking in public shall be $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second, and $500 for the third and $1,000 for all other fines after.
2. The revenue will be used to fund the interstate highway system
3. The drug that was being smoked will have no effect on the penalties

Section 3: Private Smoking
1. All drugs shall be legal for private use
2. It is still illegal to grow your own drugs
3. All drugs made legal by the bill that were not legal already will be taxed at 20%

Unconstitutional

I'm confused as to why, is there something I can do to constitutionalize it?

Easy, the Senate only has the power to regulate within the enumerated powers given to it otherwise all other powers are devolved to the regions. Unless you can frame this within one of the two Public Health powers of the Senate but those are specifically concerned with providing research grants and making rules and regulations regarding vaccination and quarentine.

So yes this is almost certainly unconstitutional. Now each different region can pass something like this but for this to be constitutional it has to be one of those "this only applies in the District of Columbia and other federal territories" half-measures or else it will run foul of Article I Section 5 of the Constitution.

[Colin]

Friendly Amendments Senate Procedural Resolution
1. Insert new clause 2 into Article 4, Section 3 of the OSPR with following text:

During this debate time the main sponsor of the legislation may motion to accept the proposed Amendment as a Friendly Amendment. The PPT shall then allow 24 hours for any other Senator to object to accepting the Amendment as a Friendly Amendment. If no other Senator objects then the Amendment shall be ajudged to have been unanimously passed by the Senate and will be automatically incorporated into the Bill. If a Senator objects to accepting the Amendment in this fashion then it shall be voted upon as specified in the rest of this Section.

2. Subsequent clauses in Section are re-numbered to retain consistency.

[Colin]

Al, since they are all just one or two clause things, maybe you should just submit a Miscellany Act.  We haven't had one of those on a while.

Can't do that. I believe there's a Senate resolution stating that all bills have to pertain to a certain topic and cannot include multiple topics.

[Colin]

In response to Al's ridiculous bill,a slightly more serious yet not too serious one:

Abolishment of Unions Bill

1. The formation of a workers union for the purpose of collective bargaining or any other workplace improvement is prohibited

This is in conflict with a certain provision of the Constitution (I forget which and don't feel like looking) and would need to be made into an Amendment in order to not be frivolous.

Article VI, Section 10:

Persons in employment shall have the right to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining, with such exceptions as the Senate may provide for by Law on the grounds of vital national interest.

[Colin]

It would seem that in the time that I was away I missed the chance to hurl one of my favourite insults at a certain dolt here.

Oh well...

DWDL's a former Polish communist dictator? You learn new things everyday.

[Colin]

On behalf of Xahar, for once he actually brings up an issue that I can agree with:

Amendment to End the Budget Requirement

1. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is hereby repealed.

[Colin]

Introduced on behalf of Attorney General Bell:

Amendment to 24 hour waiting period in the OSPR

Article 5, Section 2 of the OSPR is amended with the addition of a Clause 4:

4. Clauses 2 and 3 shall not apply in cases where no votes have been cast against a piece of legislation. In these cases, the PPT shall publicly declare the vote total to be final and shall apply said vote total to the legislation. All Senators shall be prohibited from changing their votes on the legislation after this time.

[Colin]

Political Party Definition Amendment

Article V, Section 1, Clause 8 (Political Party definition) of the Constitution of Atlasia is hereby repealed.

[Colin]

Amendment to the Consolidated Criminal Justice Act

The following text is added to Section 3 of the Consolidated Criminal Justice Act:

5. Secession, defined as a territory or group of people declaring or threatening independence from the Atlasia.
6. Refutation of federal supremacy in law, defined as making any post or taking any actions denying the supremacy of, or serving in a regional government which denies that it is subject to, federal law in any or all regions of Atlasia, after having taken the oath of office and serving as a legal officeholder.


The relevant section and act can be found here.

I've introduced this because, while I believe that secession can be prosecuted as treason under the current laws, the overall statue on these actions is vague and circumstantial. Clearing up these grey areas would probably help if Atlasia is faced with a situation like this again.

[Colin]

The plan is not to declare independence. The plan is to reverse the supremacy clause, so regional law is supreme to federal law. The plan is to further continue to elect senators to Atlasia that will vote on such subordinate legislation. So the language would have to be a refusal to subject one to Atlasian law as the supreme law of the region.

I know what the plan is and the plan is already illegal under the ruling of StatesRights v. Atlasia meaning that, at a minimum, there actions would be null and void and, at most, they would be prosecuted by the Attorney General for contempt of court. This is mostly to create a certainty when dealing with secession issues that the participants will be charged with treason.

[Colin]

The plan is not to declare independence. The plan is to reverse the supremacy clause, so regional law is supreme to federal law. The plan is to further continue to elect senators to Atlasia that will vote on such subordinate legislation. So the language would have to be a refusal to subject one to Atlasian law as the supreme law of the region.

I know what the plan is and the plan is already illegal under the ruling of StatesRights v. Atlasia meaning that, at a minimum, there actions would be null and void and, at most, they would be prosecuted by the Attorney General for contempt of court. This is mostly to create a certainty when dealing with secession issues that the participants will be charged with treason.

Well I would be more comfortable with clear language that that is the consequence.

Well you can write up something and I'll attach it to secession changes in the Consolidated Criminal Justice Act. I just don't know what you're trying to get at that's all.

[Colin]

Here is the amendment I am thinking about. It's in bold. If there is a consensus on language, how do we queue jump it to get a prompt vote?

Section 3: Acts of Treason

The following acts are hereby declared Acts of Treason:

    * 1. Rebellion, defined as the use of military forces to overthrow the Federal or any Regional government of Atlasia.
    * 2. Aiding of a rebellion, defined as the fully knowing and intentional direction of funds, military aid, or strategic advice to a person or group seeking to engage in rebellion.
    * 3. Terrorism, defined as the unlawful or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating civilians and/or the federal and/or regional governments of Atlasia.
    * 4. Destruction of a Voting Booth, defined as deleting the thread in which a voting booth, or absentee voting booth, for an active election is contained.
   *  5. Taking the oath of office for any federal office in Altasia, and then making any post denying the supremacy of any federal Atlasian law in any or all regions of Atlasia.

I would rather have it say any office in Atlasia, since federal office would not include regional officeholders. I would also like to keep my current provision for secession since I consider that seperate from your ideas concerning federal law supremacy.

I have updated my original bill with your provisions. Tell me what you think.

[Colin]

I played with the language. I would appreciate other legal brains here chiming in, so we get this right. Sam, and Bullmoose, take off the robe, and chime in.

The original language was better, in my opinion. Most of the language in the new version is redundant, unnneeded, and spelled badly, sorry Torie but I couldn't make out most of it because of spelling, grammar, and logic errors.

Also your amendment doesn't fit in with the general word order/grammatical format of the rest of the section. I updated it when I added it to my bill to make it fit into the logical frame of the section in question.

[Colin]

Perhaps you could be more specific. This is a work in progress. I could dump the recognition thing, to reduce the length of a run-on sentence. The point is to have a clear and objective as possible bright line as to what specific acts constitute treason, at least as a starting point. I think it should be tied to taking an oath of office for starters. Given that, what do you propose again?

For more specific arguments of your current proposal:

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Way to damn specific. What's a rogue government, how is that defined? Also I get lost in the continuous use of any. What does "any office of any region of Atlasia of a rogue government" even mean? If you want this included I would restate it as part of your original proposal:

6. Refutation of federal supremacy in law, defined as making any post or taking any actions denying the supremacy of, or serving in a regional government which denies that it is subject to, federal law in any or all regions of Atlasia, after having taken the oath of office and serving as a legal officeholder.