A few thoughts from your PO; AMENDMENTS AT VOTE

[Purple State]

Most of you will be reading this because I dragged you in, kicking and screaming, with my PM blitz. For those who just stopped by, I thank you.

The Convention is all but dead. We haven't reached a quorum in weeks, even when on the verge of adding the last piece to one of the proposals. In addition, public sentiment has changed and few wish to see any drift towards a parliamentarian style of government, a mistake on our part. So what do we do?

We cannot let this Convention go to waste, especially when real reform is needed. What we need to do is work to create a set of amendments for the current Constitution, small tweaks rather than overarching change. And when I think about it, this is for the best. The issue with this game has never been that the framework, the house, is unstable or poorly built; rather, it is that the interior is aging, the paint peeling. The solution is not to knock the whole house down. All we need to do is apply a fresh coat of paint, replace some of the broken furniture.

That's what this thread is for. I do not ask for small amendments that tweak a line or two. Bring proposals here that include a series of amendments, changes that interact with one another, have a common flow and have a goal that you wish to bring about through those reforms. I will post my ideas and a short explanation later in the day, similar to my Constitutional Revampification Amendment proposed to the Senate. Use that as an example of what sort of things should be proposed: wide ranging change with a goal in mind.

I would like to see a decent number of proposals and please revisit this thread often to throw in your input on whatever is presented. We need input, from everyone, to find the right mix.

[Purple State]

I like the feedback, but what would you propose? Especially you Marokai. You publicly condemn and scorn my ideas, yet you propose nothing but petty tweaks. Show me something real we can work on. Even just outline a vision and I would be happy to write up a series of amendments we could work on.

The last thing I propose is a unilateral motion to push my personal agenda. I want to work with you and as many others as I can on this, but I have no idea what your vision of reform is.

[Purple State]

* Abolish regional Senate seats.
* Mandate that all powers not specifically devolved to the Regions (by appropriate legislation and/or constitutional fiat) are the responsibility of the national government.
* Have two month terms for the now all at-large seats.
* Allow for dual officeholding.
* Make the process of amendment easier.
* Allow more flexibility in the responsibilities and composition of the Cabinet.
* (Optional) Expand the size of the Senate and make it so Cabinet members most come from the Senate.

So this would shift power away from the regions, centralize and clean up the process to remove the inertia we generally see in Atlasia.

My biggest question is how would you plan on passing this on the regional level? Are there concessions you would be willing to make in order to give the regions a reason to vote for this?

[Purple State]

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Thankfully, the abstract concepts {region} are not voting on this; it is a decision to be made by individual Atlasians, and I hope individual Atlasians are sensible enough to, at the very least, see the complete inactivity of the regional elections.  Now, as to whether the individual voters of, say, the, quote, "Dirty South" Region would support this, I don't know.  But my views are so constantly censured that I have to presume my ideas are wildly out of the mainstream, so I'd support voting on each one one-by-one.

You know as well as I that the abstract region matters quite a bite in these circumstances. I would like to find something progressive that we can actually pass. No use in spending another two months on something that popular sentiment will thoroughly reject.

[Purple State]

I would recommend eliminating the position of Lt. Gov. Has worked out fine in the Mideast thus far.

[Purple State]

I would recommend eliminating the position of Lt. Gov. Has worked out fine in the Mideast thus far.

And then set up a legisature. Hmmm... good idea (though I would give up my first elected office , oh well, I could run for the assembly if it were to ever happen).

The problem is, maintaining regional activity, even with a legislature, is difficult. Only so much legislation can be thought of and passed. This is the major difficulty I foresee.

[Purple State]

What other ideas are out there? How can we make ilv.'s ideas viable when it comes to a national referendum?

[Purple State]

What about a 10-member nationally elected Senate and a 5-member Council of Governors?

Or possibly a 5-member nationally elected Senate and a 5-member CoG. That way we maintain the same balance, but reduce the total number of seats in total. Governors do seem as redundant, less powerful/significant regional Senators.

[Purple State]

That is way too many positions and you underestimated the number of federal officials (Cabinet, SC). I would prefer the following layout:

Governor, three legislators and, perhaps, a sitting JO. That is 5 positions, times 5 is 25 regional positions, with about 15 federal officials (including Cabinet, SC, etc.) is 40 total positions to fill.

Basically, by removing regional Senators and raising Governors to a higher standing, it makes the seats more competitive. This would likely result in more active and caring Governors, which could result in regional reform. This would include some sort of legislature perhaps, and hopefully the removal of such unnecessary positions as Lt. Gov. and a standing regional judiciary. I would actually propose placing all regional cases under the federal court, but regional cases would be adjudicated according to regional law and federal cases according to federal law. The fewer seats available the better the elections will be.

[Purple State]

We don't need to get too complicated or harm ourselves more through reform than we help. We need to inspect the goals we want to achieve and find the right chords to strike that will reverberate through the game exactly as we want. Keep it simple. Expanding the number of offices would be harmful, as elections aren't competitive enough as it is. We need to make them more, not less.

[Purple State]

We don't need to get too complicated or harm ourselves more through reform than we help. We need to inspect the goals we want to achieve and find the right chords to strike that will reverberate through the game exactly as we want. Keep it simple. Expanding the number of offices would be harmful, as elections aren't competitive enough as it is. We need to make them more, not less.

A simple list of ideas that I support that have come up here as well as a few of my own:

1. Create a Council of Governors. It would function similarly to the Senate (details will be worked out later).

2. Eliminate Lt. Gov. and other relatively powerless offices. The speaker (or whatever you call him) of the regional assembly will function like a Lt. Gov. if the Governor is temporarily unable to hold office. Which leads me to...

3. Require a regional legislature to stimulate activity and to give newbies the ability to be involved.

4. For worst case scenarios, eg the Pacific region, have the ability to slightly change the regions. Requirements to do this will be worked out later.

5. Hold elections more regularly.

2 and 3 are both up to the regions to restructure themselves, but more active governors would help lead to those.

4 is less meant to break up single-party regions and more to equalize the number of citizens within each region, regardless of party, etc.

1 and 5 I fully support. Elections for the CoG can be decided by the regions (with a federal requirement that they happen at least every so often), but national Senate seats can be elected every 2 months.

A Midwest Assembly is great on paper, but would probably be a failure in practice. It simply isn't viable with the amount of citizens in the region.

More later, I'm tired.

Which is why we need redistricting, to make sure regions are adequately populated.

[Purple State]

It's kind of odd that members of the RPP want to force rather strict government setups on the regions. I'd oppose this, as I believe that (if we need to keep regions) they should be able to decide how they run themselves.

At the same time, I would oppose any reform that retains regional senate seats. They are abysmal failures and even in "active" regions aren't particularly fun or interesting or competitive.

I don't plan on forcing the regions to do anything. I simply hope creating a CoG and removing regional Senate seats would lead to certain reforms (e.g. legislatures, removing Lt.Gov.). What the regions do is ultimately up to them.

[Purple State]

I'm opposed to a bicameral, non-universalist system; weren't a lot of objections raised to universalism because it would create too much bureaucratic nonsense?

If we persist in forcing regional Senate seats on Atlasia (even if they're called "Governors"), let's put them on equal footing with normal seats, not cripple them even more.  If regional Senate seats aren't competitive (and they aren't) then I don't think taking power away will help that any

A Midwest Assembly is great on paper, but would probably be a failure in practice. It simply isn't viable with the amount of citizens in the region.

More later, I'm tired.

Which is why we need redistricting, to make sure regions are adequately populated.

So regions would be like the old districts but with a different name and more power?

The whole point of regions was originally to have distinct regional flavors, akin to states IRL, to contrast with districts, which would help ensure equal representation for all.  Regions with district-like shifting boundaries would essentially render regions even more carbon-copy-like than they are now.

We won't be crippling regional Senate seats or forcing them on Atlasia. We will be removing them altogether, thus making governor elections more competitive. And the CoG will be on equal footing with the national Senate seats.

And distinct regions is fine, but you can't have some massive regions and some almost empty. There needs to be a mechanism to make sure elections in all five regions are competitive, so that no one region falls into inactivity and uncompetitiveness because it has too few members to sustain activity.

[Purple State]

For the love of God, what is it about regions that intrinsically requires them to be represented? I've been asking this question for a year; no answer.

Somebody explain to me why the regions are so great and a source of pride for Atlasia (and by consequence, why we need to save them), since I really can't think of any reasons.

I have no inherent attachment to keeping the regions (although while they exist I believe there should be some boundaries). That said, it simply is not viable to remove the regions under the current power structure. Were we to pass a proposal that removes the regions (which is doubtful as it is), there is no strategy I can conceive of that would pass it in the regions.

I refuse to let anyone destroy the regions, or make really any changes at all, especially Lief and those that want a parliment.

All this can be done in the Senate rather easily. This constitutional convention has always been un-needed.

The Convention is, I believe, better for this simply because it is not bound my time constraints. In the Senate we have 14 or so days to debate something and anything that goes 24 hours without discussion is just brought to a vote. This let's us talk it out, figure out what we want, provides a basis for broader discussion and allows more people to join in working it all out.

[Purple State]

NC Yank, I believe we disagree on a fundamental piece here, which is you think most of this can be solved if we just let well enough alone, while I think the most effective way to increase activity is by using small, but targeted reforms to cause ripple affects that lead to game reform.

The truth is, if we could just leave the game to fix itself we wouldn't be in this situation right now. We can't just trust people to commit to activity and interest. We need to incentivize activity by making elections more exciting. Honestly, losing an election doesn't often end activity. Just look at Duke. When he was running for Senate he said that if he lost he would likely leave the game for good. Yet, he is still more active now than I ever remember him being during my time here. Meanwhile, non-competitive elections certainly promotes complacency and uncaring.

[Purple State]

NC Yank, I believe we disagree on a fundamental piece here, which is you think most of this can be solved if we just let well enough alone, while I think the most effective way to increase activity is by using small, but targeted reforms to cause ripple affects that lead to game reform.

The truth is, if we could just leave the game to fix itself we wouldn't be in this situation right now. We can't just trust people to commit to activity and interest. We need to incentivize activity by making elections more exciting. Honestly, losing an election doesn't often end activity. Just look at Duke. When he was running for Senate he said that if he lost he would likely leave the game for good. Yet, he is still more active now than I ever remember him being during my time here. Meanwhile, non-competitive elections certainly promotes complacency and uncaring.

Did you not understand my previous post. I never advocated doing nothing. I advocate for some tough hard truths. Your tiny tweaks, or Lief massive reforms are barely good enough to wipe you A$$ with unless there is the activity and the wilingness to be active on the part of the posters here. I too have my set of reforms I want to see done at the nation level but I am also looking at the bigger picture and non of this will gurrantee and age of perpetual activity. We need more organised parties for one(I will bet you didn't even know that Dan was planning to abandon your party in August). We need to create a political culture in this game or all reforms are meaningless. Gutting regional offices isn't going to create this. All I see you wanting to create is perpetual elections for fewer offices. I see a snowball effect occuring that will put this game right back where we were, if we go with yours or any of these other ludicrous proposals. I never said we should trust people to be active, instead I hope that reforms I support will encourage that activity.

Your the one thinking small. You only went after the GM issue when it became a problem for the Senate, I was thinking about the effect on Atlasia as whole back in February.

But how do you propose we promote stronger parties or regional activity or primary opponents? Simply going into the parties and regions and saying, "Do this and that for the good of the game" will hardly have an impact. This game has massive inertia and trying to get people to follow you in a movement will likely fail, especially when it will likely weaken their own hold on power.

The only way to affect the change we really need is by implementing small changes that have large impacts. Cutting out the regional Senate seats and simply giving the Governors equal power in a CoG doesn't change that much on the surface (Governors are elected in the same way regional Senators are), but has major impacts as it relates to promoting regional activity. In addition, it actually strengthens the sway of the regions on the national level.

Insisting that we maintain or expand the number of offices is near sighted. We may have a growing game at the moment, but expanding the number of offices when we barely have competitive elections as it is just won't work. If the game does get much larger and elections are becoming too crowded down the road, we can always expand the Senate. But right now we need to make it more competitive, not less. I wouldn't mind keeping the current term lengths so as we don't simply run through Senators like candy, but we can't sustain 5 regional Senate seats that see zero or slight competition.

What "massive" reform do I advocate now? Because if a CoG and all nationally-elected Senate seats is too "massive" for people, then we might as well shut down the ConCon right now.

Agreed. Seriously the stuff being proposed, if one takes even a slight glance, will clearly help the game. Regional Senate seats are crap. Governors are crap. But by creating a separate chamber, a CoG, and removing regional senators, we can make newly competitive, activity-inducing positions for the game.

[Purple State]

Look, activity is necessary no matter what for any plan to work, even the current form. However, no amount of current activity will help if elections aren't competitive. We need to fit the game to work for any number of scenarios, not just what we have now. We have uncompetitive elections and the only way to fix it is to reduce the number of seats, period. Otherwise, what happens when activity slows? Even now, with lots of activity, people grow complacent and comfortable in their positions. And for good reason, they rarely lose. If record activity can't make even a majority of seats competitive, we need a reduction.

What "massive" reform do I advocate now? Because if a CoG and all nationally-elected Senate seats is too "massive" for people, then we might as well shut down the ConCon right now.

Agreed. Seriously the stuff being proposed, if one takes even a slight glance, will clearly help the game. Regional Senate seats are crap. Governors are crap. But by creating a separate chamber, a CoG, and removing regional senators, we can make newly competitive, activity-inducing positions for the game.

I'm supportive of a Council of Governors, but if we eliminate regional senate seats while adding the Governors to the legislature, aren't we basically just eliminating overall offices and giving a new name to regional Senators? I mean, it's essentially just shuffling things around a bit.

Edit: All the while reducing overall participation.

No and here is why. Currently it would take all five regional senators to vote Nay on a bill to unite against the national senators and defeat legislation. With a separate CoG, it would only take three of the governors to unite and defeat a bill when it came from the nationally elected Senate.

@Vepres, we cannot force parties to conduct primaries, so regardless of how effective that would be, we can't initiate that by amending the Constitution.

@MJ, the national elections, even though there may only be a turnover of one or two seats, are exciting to watch, hard to predict and involve universal participation. The regional elections are usually predictable, even when there is a challenger. By removing five seats, you instantly guarantee increased competition. You force current governors to actually care and remove complacency. Every so often we need to knock some heads, shake it up to make sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to.

[Purple State]

And I'll try a third argument that I don't think has been used before: I agree with MasterJedi and NC Yankee in that it's possible that despite our best efforts these reforms will not fix anything involving activity in Atlasia.  So why not try to scale the size of the government to match the activity of Atlasia, rather than the other way around?  Having fewer positions will push the few members that we have who are always active into races against each other, and having those positions be national will ensure that all active members will be beneficial to all the nation rather than 1/5.

I hate to break it to you but that is the second arguement. I say scale the size of the game upward. We can still get just as complacent and uncompetative with the other systems you guys are proposing.

We may not even be able to fill all the seats you propose creating though. That's the bigger problem than uncompetitive elections. It is already hard enough filling the Mideast Assembly when people keep running for higher office/turning out to be socks of other people. Creating even more offices would result in that on a greater scale I fear.

Reducing the number of offices has the reverse affect. We would see real competition, voting for people because they are the best option, not the only option. We need to scale down the seats, regardless of activity level, in order to make sure we get some actually exciting elections around here.

[Purple State]

And I'll try a third argument that I don't think has been used before: I agree with MasterJedi and NC Yankee in that it's possible that despite our best efforts these reforms will not fix anything involving activity in Atlasia.  So why not try to scale the size of the government to match the activity of Atlasia, rather than the other way around?  Having fewer positions will push the few members that we have who are always active into races against each other, and having those positions be national will ensure that all active members will be beneficial to all the nation rather than 1/5.

I hate to break it to you but that is the second arguement. I say scale the size of the game upward. We can still get just as complacent and uncompetative with the other systems you guys are proposing.

We may not even be able to fill all the seats you propose creating though. That's the bigger problem than uncompetitive elections. It is already hard enough filling the Mideast Assembly when people keep running for higher office/turning out to be socks of other people. Creating even more offices would result in that on a greater scale I fear.

Reducing the number of offices has the reverse affect. We would see real competition, voting for people because they are the best option, not the only option. We need to scale down the seats, regardless of activity level, in order to make sure we get some actually exciting elections around here.

Or people are turned away by the intense competation and repetative losses. You guys think that you pass a big reform all at once and hope to reform this problem. This has be done one piece at a time. Thats how I intend for my reforms to be done at least.

I really don't want massive changes here either. Just a few small strands need to be plucked. Remove regional Senate seats (easy enough to do) and create a CoG. That is pretty much all I envision for us to do at a federal level. And those go hand-in-hand and have to be done all at once. I don't want this through the Senate because, first, this involves more people and, second, we have unlimited time for debate.

I don't think competition and losing would deter people from trying again though. Look at Gporter. Look at Bayh. Look at Fritz. I think, if anything, it would keep people accountable and result in more office-flipping back and forth between a few qualified candidates. Plus, we would hopefully have regional legislatures to hold those members who had recently lost, to keep them busy until the next election.

[Purple State]

New members will be running for lower offices, like regional legislatures, at first. Once they build up a reputation and knowledge of the game they will be able to challenge the other competent members. This game has always been open to fresh blood. I made it to the Senate pretty quickly, going through regional office first.

I am not set on this proposal, but I have yet to see anything better. The idea that expanding offices will help the game just can't work. If we can't sustain current levels, how are we supposed to support even higher levels? Your assumption also imagines that we will have continued large floods of new and committed members. This is not likely to be the case.

So if you could write an amendment right now, what would it be?

[Purple State]

Look, I really don't care whether we have a House of Reps, a CoG, or whatever. My goal is to see what has the best, most productive ripple affect and implement it. I wouldn't mind reducing the number of nationally elected seats to make those more competitive, but we need to find a way to induce regional reform. I don't believe legislatures are inherently better than initiatives, but I believe active governors are necessary. So how can we make races for governor more competitive? That's really the biggest question?

EDIT: I would even support a sort of rotating Speakership, where one Governor at a time heads the Senate. We could implement that by coinciding the changes with the elections to regional seats and leave that seat "vacant" while giving the Governor full voting rights for his term. Does that work for anyone?

[Purple State]

But we have been watching for months. The game is dead. We need reform. Now what?

I agree, let each region choose initiative or legislature. But we must promote gubernatorial activity. And I think governors should be more active in shaping federal policy. The game is small enough.

What about my rotating speakership idea? It's a rough sketch, but it's a possible start for something.

I think when I say compel it's the wrong word. I don't want to force anything on the regions. I simply want to use federal reform to spur regional reform. I think the federal Constitution has a lot to do with how the regions behave. I think we can have minimal changes to the federal government, something even that involves the regions more than they are now in influencing federal policy, that can lead people to consider the regions more important and want to run for governor more.

[Purple State]

Which again brings the question: What positions can we get rid of in order to stimulate more competitive and exciting elections?

Can we reduce the number of Cabinet positions? Maybe reduce the number of nationally elected seats? And maybe give the VP something like a vote, rather than a tie-breaking vote?

[Purple State]

Which again brings the question: What positions can we get rid of in order to stimulate more competitive and exciting elections?

Can we reduce the number of Cabinet positions? Maybe reduce the number of nationally elected seats? And maybe give the VP something like a vote, rather than a tie-breaking vote?

We have... counting... counting... 33 offices if you include judges and the GM.

Now, if you eliminate Lt. Governors, you have 29 offices
Eliminate regional judiciary and you have 26 offices
Let's assume a COG is implemented, and the Senate is reduced to 5. There are now 21 offices
But, if every region implements a legislature, you now have 33 offices again

So we have the same number of offices, but more of that activity is regional, which is one of the goals of this convention, no?

Just a thought.

Some regions will implement an initiative structure, rather than a legislature.

But yes, the idea is to shift focus to legislative positions in the regions, making them more important and influential. I would actually like to make the regions more important by shifting some powers from the federal government to them as well.

Can I ask why pro-region actors dislike this proposal? What is the issue with a CoG? I just need to understand where you guys are coming from.

[Purple State]

I would support something like that. My only worry is that we still don't build up competitive elections, especially if legislatures start popping up. While the game has enough registered people to fill these positions, we don't have enough active members. That is the problem we face and the last thing I was are inactive governors as part of a CoG.

How can we work within your outline to make elections more competitive?