SENATE RESOLUTION: J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution (Passed)

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

A RESOLUTION
To reduce gridlock and streamline Congressional rule changes

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives and Senate assembled:

Section 1. Title

1. This legislation may be cited as the J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution.

Section 2. Recognizing the Need for Reform

WHEREAS, legislative debate under the bicameral system has slowed to a crawl;

WHEREAS, many bills go without comment by all but a handful of members in each House;

WHEREAS, the glacial pace of passing and debating legislation, as well as the difficulty of monitoring legislation that moves between two chambers, unnecessarily complicates the work of the Congress;

WHEREAS, the voices of both regional and federal interests in the policymaking process must be heard in the course of Congressional debate;

WHEREAS, procedural reforms should incorporate the unique interests both chambers have in the lawmaking process,

IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that Congress must move towards a model of debate in which both the Senate and the House of Representatives debate legislation in permanent joint session;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that such a model of debate must originate from a package of rules jointly debated and approved by both chambers;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the best way to reach broad consensus on a new rules package is through a special joint session of Congress.

Section 3. Working Towards Real Procedural Change

1. The President of the Congress shall preside over a special joint session of Congress for the purpose of modifying the rules and procedures of both legislative houses, and unifying their procedural governance under a single set of revised rules.
a. The revised rules shall take effect upon their approval in the special joint session by both houses of Congress.

2. The special joint session shall deliberate for thirty (30) days, or until Congress approves the new set of rules.
a. Congress may further extend the special joint session for as long as it sees fit to do so.

2. The special joint session shall commence immediately upon passage of this resolution by both Houses.

Sponsor: Blair
Senate Designation: SR27:03

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Initial debate is commencing with 24 hours for sponsor advocacy and 48 hours for member responses.

[Continential]

No.

[Mike Thick]

Folks. It's time for a change.

I think the preamble to this resolution says it all: the current legislative process is simply not working. Bills languish on the floor for weeks or months at a time. Gridlock is gumming up the works. Some people think the status quo is fine, and some people think we should overhaul the Constitution, and move to a unicameral system, but most of us agree that something has to give.

I'm proposing a compromise: perpetual joint session. Under the new system, both chambers would debate and vote on legislation in the same thread without giving up the say the Constitution gives both of them in the process. Legislation could pass in half the time, without either the Regions or the People's House losing an ounce of power.

Since we all deserve a thoughtful debate on this issue, I've proposed convening a special joint session of Congress to write the new rules. This way, we can get the rules done quickly while giving everyone the say they deserve.

Thanks. Happy to take any questions the Senate may have.

[OBD]

As this will likely make its way to the House floor at some point, I have a question. Will the chambers conduct their votes separately as currently, or as a unified body? I believe you're implying that it's the former but I'd like a clarification.

That said, if it is indeed the former, I strongly support this bill and will vote for passage in the House. There will be no fundamental change to the balance of power between the regions and the House, as the honorable Vice President said, and debate would be greatly expedited.

[Mike Thick]

As this will likely make its way to the House floor at some point, I have a question. Will the chambers conduct their votes separately as currently, or as a unified body? I believe you're implying that it's the former but I'd like a clarification.

That said, if it is indeed the former, I strongly support this bill and will vote for passage in the House. There will be no fundamental change to the balance of power between the regions and the House, as the honorable Vice President said, and debate would be greatly expedited.

We'll work out the exact details as we move along with this, but of course everything would require the separate support of both chambers to pass, even if they voted on the same thing at the same time.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

How would this affect amendments? The benefit of separate threads for each chamber is that amendments are considered and then passed/rejected by them separately, and then the amended version goes back to the house of its origination for an up-or-down vote. A perpetual joint session just seems like it would confuse people.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

Honestly, I don't see how this kind of reform would fix any inherent problems. A permanent joint session wouldn't increase debate since that just depends on who gets elected and the subject matter of different pieces of legislation. I frankly don't think it's much of an issue to keep track of bills that pass the Senate and House, and this initiative just looks like sour grapes from a VP who doesn't want to do his job he got elected to. This also seems like a trojan horse to get Labor more on board with eventually abolishing the Senate if only because of anger and rage at the situation in real life politics which the game is really nothing like. As for gridlock, Labor has literally commanded a senate majority for every congress except 1 since the party reformed in Fall 2018 and the House for all but 1 (even if 1 more majority had to technically had to be stolen). So Labor clearly had a lot of time to pass an ambitious agenda which means that it won't make more policy pass.

In all, this just seems like a power grab just so our self-entitled leaders can be even lazier and just pass more dumb ideas without it being properly debated through our constitutional system of checks and balances. Just because there is a debate within the Labor party over this doesn't mean most of the rest of us have to agree with any of this resolution. There's nothing to sweeten the deal for this for me to agree to this either, which I am in theory open to. Any deal would have to abide by fair constitutional principles though.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

There is no gridlock on the Senate side of things. The longest bill languishing on the floor recently was a flawed House passed bill that members insisted be fixed or failed and after no one sought to fix it, it was removed. That is not gridlock unless it was during that time precluding another bill's access to the floor, which as far as I am aware and as I was told by MB before the term began, "there is no backlog from the House side for Senate consideration". Therefore the 'delaying the inevitable" death in the hopes that someone might take it up came at absolutely no cost to the functioning of this chamber.

The reason bills take so long is the inability to get members to actually, speak and amend them. A problem you cannot legislate out of existence, though technically you could elect your way out of these problems if there was the political demand for such.

Here is the real problem. There is no way to administer this that would actually fix the problem at hand. How on earth does administering two separate chambers through separate votes in the same thread, not become a convoluted mess?

Joint session was only done once, in December 2016 when Ted was Federalist House Leader. It worked for a short period of time, to achieve a specific objective, because it was done in real time and on Mibbit, but several people were not available at the set time including myself as VP. Assembly lining up or down votes might work to clear a backlog of noncontroversial bills, but it is not a long term healthy option for a deliberative chamber.

The reason why the Senate dating back to the mid 2000s and the House back to the reset is organized the way it is, is precisely to maximize the opportunity for debate and engagement by the most members possible. Joint session just are not efficient for this purpose and with present levels of engagement and activity would inevitably collapse, that is why we haven't done them much.

[Former President tack50]

I will agree with Scott and Yankee and say that the implementation would be rather hard. I am not opposed at all to a joint session for a particular objective if it is needed (like say, some sort of constitutional revision that needs to be heavily debated but not important enough for a constitutional convention?).

But the "permanent joint session" looks to me like a big mess waiting to happen.

I will however agree with the executive and say that bicameralism in Atlasia has probably failed at this point. I actually did a thread on this a while back and I defined several options moving forward, though none of them are super ideal.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=394667.msg7581236#msg7581236

My personal pick would be option E; which would lead to a Legislature of 18 members:

-9 elected like we currently elect the House
-6 elected like we currently elect the Senate
-3 appointed by the Regions

To compensate for the slight expansion I'd get rid of the VP and we might have to cut regional legislatures a bit (possibly having all 3 regions at 3 people?).

An assymetric unicameral legislature (9 at large + 6 regional) could also work but that will likely be vetoed by the Federalist members of Congress.

Alternatively we could shrink Congress instead and go with a 6+6 setup, with the remaining people going to the regional legislatures.

I frankly don't think it's much of an issue to keep track of bills that pass the Senate and House, and this initiative just looks like sour grapes from a VP who doesn't want to do his job he got elected to. This also seems like a trojan horse to get Labor more on board with eventually abolishing the Senate if only because of anger and rage at the situation in real life politics which the game is really nothing like.

Considering that unlike in real life, the Atlasia Senate map has long been to Labor's advantage, we'd have to be quite stupid to abolish the Senate based on partisan grounds don't you think?

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

I frankly don't think it's much of an issue to keep track of bills that pass the Senate and House, and this initiative just looks like sour grapes from a VP who doesn't want to do his job he got elected to. This also seems like a trojan horse to get Labor more on board with eventually abolishing the Senate if only because of anger and rage at the situation in real life politics which the game is really nothing like.

Considering that unlike in real life, the Atlasia Senate map has long been to Labor's advantage, we'd have to be quite stupid to abolish the Senate based on partisan grounds don't you think?

I mean your international perspective is more rational regarding this topic.
Guess what got removed by name in this proposal that didn't see the light of day even if the election methods remained the same. https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=208051.msg7574663#msg7574663

[Continential]

I read this from a post about Bicameralism by Yankee from a couple years ago, and you can't reform to activity

You cannot reform your way to activity, you have to play the game and get people to play the game. Constantly tinkering with the number of offices to try and consolidate your way to glory is folly that leads to a downward spiral.

Changing the organization of Congress or the number of seats, isn't going to make JGibson post more then a 2 sentences to advocate for bills, or make Peebs care enough to check a thread to make sure we don't have to vote on every single amendment for lack of sponsor feedback.

Or do anything to stop Barnes from getting elected and disappearing. He did that first and second  times under unicameralism.

[Mike Thick]

How would this affect amendments? The benefit of separate threads for each chamber is that amendments are considered and then passed/rejected by them separately, and then the amended version goes back to the house of its origination for an up-or-down vote. A perpetual joint session just seems like it would confuse people.

Ideally, all members would vote on an Amendment at the same time but the votes would be tabulated separately by whoever was presiding over the thread.

Seems obvious that this doesn’t have a prayer of passing as it stands now. Happy to entertain some sort of Amendment to make the proposal more palatable, but I’m not sure what that would be and am more inclined for that reason to pull it altogether.

[Mike Thick]

[snip]

Believe it or not, Labor can propose things that aren't intended to screw Federalists over! Some people just, you know, want the game to run better!

Really don't appreciate your ascribing lazy/nefarious motivations to what I'm doing, particularly when the rest of your colleagues seem perfectly capable of voicing their disagreement with the proposal for other reasons

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I would recommend is that a good place for this would be in a situation where there is a big backlog of bills to the other chamber, having a joint session to eliminate that backlog. Organizationally would be a problem because the most effective way is to have everyone on at the same time, realistically it is very hard to do that, but I think that would be a place where you could experiment with it.

Eventually we might be able to get to a point where most the "bills from the other chamber" would be handled in joint session, and of course administered by the PoC or his appointed deputy. You hold a snap vote on whether to hold something over for debate, then it leaves the Joint Session and gets a slot, and if not it gets an up or down vote just like bills returning as amended by the other chamber. I think that would resolve most all complaints of the delay between chambers. Either case, it is going to be the PoC or deputy  taking charge of the situation to make it happen and there really isn't going to be any systemic way around that necessity, hence why we moved forward on the senate side with the Deputy PoC proposal.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Thinking aloud here, maybe the way to make this work is a semi-permanent joint session. As in, four members of the House or Three members of the Senate could ay any time demand an up to five day separation which would then be granted. This could allow the bodies to debate a given topic or amendment on their own threads. Amendment votes could take place while separated, but other votes could not. We could even have more fast track amendment rules for the separated period so you could do a series of votes with each lasting 12 or 18 hours to clear out bills with a large number of amendments without discouraging offering a large number of amendments.

The joint session would automatically reconvene at the end of the 5 days, or earlier if ordered by a majority of both the House and Senate. It would immediately proceed with any amendment that had only been voted on by one side during the separation before resuming other business/conducting other votes.

Basically, an Atlasian version of the committee of the whole in real life. Keep all the benefits of the joint session - increased debate, one joint vote period for procedural and final passage votes, one bill queue - while keeping the option - never an obligation - to temporarily separate to decide a series of amendments, decide how to rescue a flailing but important bill, or even just debate a topic in separate threads. Heck, the existence of this procedure would serve to encourage more debate, as members would not feel pressure to limit bills to 2 or 3 total omnibus amendments to avoid holding things up, but could instead vote on various versions of smaller changes in similar amounts of time. And with each body using separate threads during that time, there wouldn't be any confusion.

Want to keep the joint session from almost never being joint? Simply implement a per session limit on separation- say 5 times a session, perhaps overrideable by a 75% majority of both bodies. This would ensure that non controversial and/or straightforward bills would still have all proceedings done jointly.

[Mike Thick]

I would recommend is that a good place for this would be in a situation where there is a big backlog of bills to the other chamber, having a joint session to eliminate that backlog. Organizationally would be a problem because the most effective way is to have everyone on at the same time, realistically it is very hard to do that, but I think that would be a place where you could experiment with it.

Eventually we might be able to get to a point where most the "bills from the other chamber" would be handled in joint session, and of course administered by the PoC or his appointed deputy. You hold a snap vote on whether to hold something over for debate, then it leaves the Joint Session and gets a slot, and if not it gets an up or down vote just like bills returning as amended by the other chamber. I think that would resolve most all complaints of the delay between chambers. Either case, it is going to be the PoC or deputy  taking charge of the situation to make it happen and there really isn't going to be any systemic way around that necessity, hence why we moved forward on the senate side with the Deputy PoC proposal.

I could get behind this. Definitely makes the idea less complicated.

[Blair]

Apologies will have my full thoughts on this up within 12 hours

[Mike Thick]

[snip about compromise proposal]

I could get behind this. Definitely makes the idea less complicated.

For whoever is considering all this now: I'm very busy with school right now, but over the weekend I can write an amendment that would change this resolution to an enactment of the rules Yankee described over the weekend.

Spitballing here, but I wonder if it might be worth it to add a sunset clause -- give the revised rules a try for the next Congress, and let them make it permanent if the new setup is working, but include an off-ramp if it goes South. Might also allay the concerns of some people who think this is politically motivated

[Blair]

Half the Labour Senate caucus comes from Europe so I'm not sure the 'rage' in the US is relevant; besides I come from a political system with a historically enfeebled second house & I'm not advocating for that.

As someone who was party chair we had a whole list of ways we could have rigged the set up such as making the House a truly partisian body so only the majority get legislation & allowing for straight ticket voting in House races. We did not do this.

The federalists also had similar options after the reset; we were terrified they were going to let the regions appoint senators (as they had majorities in them)- but neither option happened because game reforms generally in the post 2015 period have been done across party lines & with the interest of the game in mind... and also for the fact that it's generally impossible to unite your party around process reforms such as these as they create discussion. (something that I'm glad to see back in the Senate)

And for the record I'm proud of the historic work we managed to get done when I was in the House with a Labour super-majority; I believe in one term we got two constitional amendments passed, the global gag bill & Taft-Harltey repealed along with the Assault Weapons ban.

But I am happy for a comprimise as suggested by Yankee

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

[snip about compromise proposal]

I could get behind this. Definitely makes the idea less complicated.

For whoever is considering all this now: I'm very busy with school right now, but over the weekend I can write an amendment that would change this resolution to an enactment of the rules Yankee described over the weekend.

Spitballing here, but I wonder if it might be worth it to add a sunset clause -- give the revised rules a try for the next Congress, and let them make it permanent if the new setup is working, but include an off-ramp if it goes South. Might also allay the concerns of some people who think this is politically motivated

Understandable, I expected a loss of attention spans on Thursday and for me Friday was hectic at work even with "modified Black Friday" sales, it was still bad (and worse since there were technically three such in store situations over the past month and so the Covid numbers are going to be horrific).

As to sunset clause, perhaps. Since we are dealing with bills the VP would be handling anyway in this situation hence the "bills from the other chamber" mention, I guess it comes down to what you have in mind for administrative details and how conducive that is to a hard stop at the end of a session, which will be be on New Year's Day (1st is a Friday).

[Former President tack50]

I do not think a sunset clause will make things easier. If anything, it will make things harder since we'll be operating under "permanent joint session" for a couple of months, then suddenly go back to the old system.

[Mike Thick]

I do not think a sunset clause will make things easier. If anything, it will make things harder since we'll be operating under "permanent joint session" for a couple of months, then suddenly go back to the old system.

Well, we wouldn't be operating under permanent joint session -- we would be doing snap votes to debate or not debate bills. IMO it would be pretty easy to transition between the systems, although it depends a little on who ends up as VP after February.

[Mike Thick]

Anyways, here's the amendment.

A RESOLUTION
To reduce gridlock and streamline Congressional rule changes

Be it resolved by the House of Representatives and Senate assembled:

Section 1. Title

1. This legislation may be cited as the J.K. Sestak Congressional Reform Resolution.

Section 2. Amendment to Senate Rules

1. Article 11 of the New Senate Rules Resolution is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

Section 3. Amendment to House Rules

1. Article 10 of the House of the Representatives Rules and Procedures for Operation is amended to read as follows.

...
5.) Whenever either house shall consider a bill, order, or resolution that shall have originated in the other, the President of the Congress shall immediately call a vote in that house on whether to immediately pass the legislation, or further debate it.
a.) The President of Congress shall maintain a single thread in which to preside over these votes as held by both houses, and shall regularly update the title of the thread to inform the Congress of what legislation is being considered in which house.
b.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.

Section 2. Recognizing the Need for Reform

WHEREAS, legislative debate under the bicameral system has slowed to a crawl;

WHEREAS, many bills go without comment by all but a handful of members in each House;

WHEREAS, the glacial pace of passing and debating legislation, as well as the difficulty of monitoring legislation that moves between two chambers, unnecessarily complicates the work of the Congress;

WHEREAS, the voices of both regional and federal interests in the policymaking process must be heard in the course of Congressional debate;

WHEREAS, procedural reforms should incorporate the unique interests both chambers have in the lawmaking process,

IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, that Congress must move towards a model of debate in which both the Senate and the House of Representatives debate legislation in permanent joint session;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that such a model of debate must originate from a package of rules jointly debated and approved by both chambers;

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the best way to reach broad consensus on a new rules package is through a special joint session of Congress.

Section 3. Working Towards Real Procedural Change

1. The President of the Congress shall preside over a special joint session of Congress for the purpose of modifying the rules and procedures of both legislative houses, and unifying their procedural governance under a single set of revised rules.
a. The revised rules shall take effect upon their approval in the special joint session by both houses of Congress.

2. The special joint session shall deliberate for thirty (30) days, or until Congress approves the new set of rules.
a. Congress may further extend the special joint session for as long as it sees fit to do so.

2. The special joint session shall commence immediately upon passage of this resolution by both Houses.

Won't take it personally if I missed something obvious, as usual.

[Blair]

I support this & am happy to add it in my name if that's needed.

It generally stiffles debate on the important & controversial bills when we have to hold debates on bills which are either popular or which are obviously going to get voted down; this is a quick & easy process. (I'm of the view that a body should be able to carry out it's business as quickly as it wishes for non-controversial items & shouldn't be stuck to a one-sized fits all approach)