HB 27-06: Congressional Reform Resolution (Passed)

[Mike Thick]

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.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 4-2 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

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.

People's House of Representatives

Sponsor: SevenEleven
Status: Passed

[Mike Thick]

Seeking a sponsor.

I'll start things off: I think it might be better to ditch the single-thread idea, and move to a model where each holdover vote is held in a thread that can be repurposed for debate if necessary. Hate to suggest changes so late in the game, but I think it's better than diving into a model that has the potential to get really screwy

[Mike Thick]

So first of all, hasn't OBD agreed to sponsor this?

Right. I'll allow 24 hours for objections just to be safe.

Thirdly, if I understand the original idea correctly, there would be a single thread for votes on whether to proceed to further debate on a specific bill, and a separate thread for the same further debate. If my reading of that is correct, and feel free to correct me if it isn't, wouldn't there be at most a single holdover vote per chamber per bill? Does this screwiness, as you put it, originate from the boardwide clutter that would result from the extra threads for procedural votes?

That was not the original intent of the resolution. The idea was one thread in which all the pass-or-debate votes, on all the bills, in both chambers, took place. My concern is that it may be difficult to search for recorded votes on bills in this single thread, and it may be hard for individual Congressmembers to keep tabs on what's going on. I don't think there's any real benefit to doing it this way as opposed to opening a new thread for the bill like we currently do, holding the pass-or-debate vote, and then proceeding accordingly in that thread.

I suppose the fact that the wording is sufficiently ambiguous to be interpreted that way (which I agree is a reasonable interpretation) is another reason this needs a little tweaking.

[Mike Thick]

Looking for another Representative to assume sponsorship.

[Mike Thick]

Thirdly, if I understand the original idea correctly, there would be a single thread for votes on whether to proceed to further debate on a specific bill, and a separate thread for the same further debate. If my reading of that is correct, and feel free to correct me if it isn't, wouldn't there be at most a single holdover vote per chamber per bill? Does this screwiness, as you put it, originate from the boardwide clutter that would result from the extra threads for procedural votes?

That was not the original intent of the resolution. The idea was one thread in which all the pass-or-debate votes, on all the bills, in both chambers, took place. My concern is that it may be difficult to search for recorded votes on bills in this single thread, and it may be hard for individual Congressmembers to keep tabs on what's going on. I don't think there's any real benefit to doing it this way as opposed to opening a new thread for the bill like we currently do, holding the pass-or-debate vote, and then proceeding accordingly in that thread.

I suppose the fact that the wording is sufficiently ambiguous to be interpreted that way (which I agree is a reasonable interpretation) is another reason this needs a little tweaking.

Right, yes, that makes more sense from a logistical point of view. In that case the resolution effectively becomes what we have now with "hold vote on whether to proceed with debate on bill that just passed other chamber" added on as an extra step, then?

Yes, that's how it would go.

[Mike Thick]

I will sponsor.

24 hours to object to Sev's sponsorship.

[Mike Thick]

As I understand this, a bill is passed in Senate. The House votes to pass it or debate it. I imagine the vote is majority and not unanimity. So House votes 6-3 to pass it. No debate.

I don't like it removes the right of some elected officials to give their opinions or point out problems or mistakes in the bill. It also could lead to less examinition of the bill because if it's not at the debate stage maybe people will just read rapidly or the general idea of the bill.

So I have reservations.

What you describe is legislative friction, which is a normal process that enables the kind of examination and amendment to occur, and gives the broadest sense of concern for objections of a singular representative. I am not here to guess at the motivations behind the desire for reform, but there is a lot of criticism that this process also drags things out and makes it difficult for legislation to come to fruition within a reasonable time frame. I think that underlies some of the bubbling resentment towards the current system in general.

My opinion is if the VP has a conceptualization especially limited to bills from the other chamber, I am inclined to give him the benefit of a doubt in terms of trying something different both because we have these concerns, and we have had issues with VP activity recently. I would rather see the system adapt somewhat then have it break or collapse.

That being said, it is an important dividing line between efficiency on the one hand and necessary review and consideration on the other and at some point brutally efficient legislating from a procedural standpoint means you are basically assembly lining garbage. So it is not unreasonable to be concerned thus as to the end result of this change, it is my hope that what can be achieved here will at minimum make the VP's job easier even if it isn't necessarily the proposal as currently composed.

Caveat: Everything being posted here is done so under the effects of fatigue, headache and exhaustion.

I think this is perfectly cogent Basically encapsulates my thoughts as well. The intent here is to grease the wheels a bit. However, the change this would make to "legislative friction" is a lot less dramatic than, say, a move to unicameralism. If this rule change is made, both chambers will have the same review powers they have now. They'll just have the option of expediting things if they don't think there are any problems with the legislation. Maybe I have a little too much faith in the process, but I think that generally the first chamber to consider a bill will spot most glaring errors, and if they miss some things, members of the second chamber will hit the brakes and fix what's left.

As for the issues with VP workload, I frankly didn't have that in mind when I made the proposal. No complaints on my end so far, but evidently the job has been a problem for some other people. That is certainly something to consider.

Will write up the final amendment that we've talked about tomorrow. With finals and the holidays, I've let this get away from me a bit, but I think it's still possible to wrap the rule change up in both chambers pretty soon.

[Mike Thick]

Okay, 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.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 4-2 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

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.)a.)Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.
b.) These votes shall be known as "initial cloture" votes.

[Mike Thick]

Any sponsor feedback?

[Mike Thick]

Not the sponsor, but "in that house" strikes me as a useful clarification that should be retained to avoid confusion.

Took it out because I thought that was implicit, but more clarification is better. Will tweak to retain that language

[Mike Thick]

Sev? Just need your go-ahead here.

[Mike Thick]

Sev? Just need your go-ahead here.

Giving you guys 24 hours to object, since it doesn't seem like any feedback is forthcoming.

[Mike Thick]

While I can't formally object, I don't support this. We've seen unanimous consent used in real life to slow down progress on important bills. I don't want the same thing to happen here.

One more thing. People who, say, aren't Senators, discuss Senate bills in Senate threads all the time. If members of Congress are concerned about something in a bill, and they're concerned that it'll go through their chamber on initial cloture, they can still debate ad nauseam in the other chamber's thread.

How much this rule change affects the amount of debate is entirely dependent on members of Congress -- whether they debate in one thread or another thread, whether they hold things over or not. All this does is give them the option of passing things on a faster timetable. So, I don't think this is necessary.

[Mike Thick]

(To clarify, the amendment before Poirot’s saw no objections, and is adopted.)

[Mike Thick]

Poirot, would it ease some of your doubts if we included a brief period for people to raise objections before the cloture vote? Like 24 hours or something like that?

[Mike Thick]

Amendment has the votes to fail. 24 hours to vote or change votes.

[Mike Thick]

Poirot, would it ease some of your doubts if we included a brief period for people to raise objections before the cloture vote? Like 24 hours or something like that?

I'd still like to hear your feedback on this, although I'm frankly inclined to add a brief debate period anyway.

Yes, you have stumbled into the correct position here. There is no reason to have two seperate legislative chambers.

So to avoid changing the constitution directly it was decided to implement a new political system: oneandafractioncameral system.

I think Ted's desire here is to satisfy the concerns voiced over the recent months, including those brought to me last session by Senators, pertaining to delays in consideration once their bills reach the other chamber.

The House doesn't have the flexibility of the Senate in this regards. For instance when we have backlogs, we aren't restrained by the slot assignments and thus Senators were more willing to introduce House bills directly as Senate bills to bypass any backlogs. Serial ports only displaced parallel ports because they achieved the ability to push through in a single lane more then could be broken up and pushed through several.

There also a bit of a holiday slow down overall and when you have multiple procedural steps to go through on each bill it adds up. We have had delays on our side too, but most everyone of our votes are commenced via unanimous consent and don't required the added layer of cloture votes, we had fewer amendments this time (about half the normal amount) and a lot of the bills were fairly lacking in controversial nature and the one bill that came back to us that was controversial was on its final stage and thus went to a vote directly, the vote was party line and that was that.

In no way does Ted's proposal undermine the rights of the other chamber. At the end of the day, the majority in the House or the Senate for that matter (thanks to the math) can cut off debate and amendment anytime they want under the current rules, last I checked cloture only requires 5 votes in the house unless that changed at some point (edit: well it is a bit more complicated than I originally thought, but after the first 72 hours if debate ceases it drops to five. I actually recall suggesting that cloture not be required if debate ceased for longer than a set period of time, that would really speed things up but alas that was considered "too harsh". ). Teds proposal basically just does an automatic "pre-debate cloture vote".

For the record: I do not want to move to unicameralism. Full stop. I want to try and make the current system run better, so we don't go unicameral.

[Mike Thick]

What if we made a final vote automatic in the second chamber after a certain amount of time (maybe 96 hours? Shorter? Longer), and let the chamber waive that via five people signing onto a petition if they wanted to keep debating? There would still be a pretty substantial amount of time to debate, but you wouldn't have bills languishing on the floor forever like the Fossil Fuels one has, as long as the VP's/Deputy President of Congress are on the ball. I don't think the details surrounding things like amendment votes would be too tough to iron out.

[Mike Thick]

I’ve been a little distracted tonight and last night, owing to a couple of IRL political events I’m sure nobody has heard about. Just checking in here because I would love some thoughts on my last idea before I potentially introduce another amendment.

[Mike Thick]

One last amendment to formally change the name and add a discussion period. Last one, unless I'm missing something obvious. I know people are ready to get this off the floor, but I think this is important.

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 of 2021.

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.

People's Regional Senate
Passed 4-2 in the Atlasian Senate Assembled,

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, following a 48-hour period in which Congress may discuss, but not formally move to modify, the legislation, 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.) Should the house vote to debate the legislation further, debate shall proceed in a separate thread as established elsewhere in these rules.
b.) These votes shall be known as "initial cloture" votes.

[Mike Thick]

To be clear, absent sponsor feedback (which would be nice) members have 24 hours to object.

[Mike Thick]

Seeing no objections, the amendment is adopted. Would smile upon a motion to bring this to a final vote.

[Mike Thick]

24 hours for objections to Poirot’s amendment.

[Mike Thick]

Objection.

As soon as this clears objection vote I motion for final vote.

As the amendment has been objected to, we will now vote on its adoption. Representatives, please vote aye, nay, or abstain.

[Mike Thick]

For the record, I don't support this. I've tried to address people's concerns with the proposal, and I think it's a better bill for our efforts, but I don't think we need to change anything else.