Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly, I propose a change to the Elections Act to introduce term limits to the office of the delegacy.
I look forward to your feedback and continued discussion regarding this proposed change to the Elections Act.
Election Act
Elections Act
An act establishing elections for office
[…]
3. Office of the Delegate
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(2) On the 15th of January and July, the citizens will convene for the first round of Delegate Elections.
Any eligible citizen wishing to run for Delegate may declare their candidacy, and the citizens will debate the merits of their platform. Any player who has held the office of Delegate within the preceding 12 months or who has been banned from World Assembly membership will be considered ineligible and any candidate who is later discovered to be banned from World Assembly membership will be immediately disqualified. Citizens wishing to run for Delegate must have their member nation of the World Assembly residing in the South Pacific before they declare their candidacy.
I like the idea but am not sure this amendment would do what you intend for it to do. I think this would prevent anyone from serving more than one consecutive term and would then have to sit out for two to three terms (depending on transition times)?
How about this? Please forgive any law formatting errors… its been a while since I did this
Happy to take questions, but the idea was to give a periodic refresh to all offices and not just PM or Delegate. Give our new people a chance to take office! Lastly, the changes allow for flexibility in that the Assembly can grant waivers to citizens for certain offices.
I floated the idea of Delegate term limits because of issues particular to the Delegacy. It’s a role where its de facto powers uniquely extend far beyond its de jure powers, and where its apolitical construction rewards politics of personality. That’s different from engaging in whataboutism with other positions just because we want to give them a ‘refresh.’
I find term limits for appointed positions to be particularly odd. The Charter defines offices of the coalition to maintain the separation of powers, not to list out the offices that are generically ‘powerful.’
I’m also opposed to ‘overall’ term limits. Some time out of office is a reasonable counterbalance to a growing concentration of power. We don’t need a mandatory retirement age, especially if it just encourages people to cycle through other positions. This is a text-based web game. Our careers aren’t that long.
The reality is that I don’t think Delegate term limits are that big a deal. We’ve had this system since 2016 and until 2024, nobody had ever served (or ran for, as far as I know) three consecutive terms. I wouldn’t overthink it
(3) Appointed Cabinet members are limited to four consecutive terms in office and an overall maximum of eight terms in office. Appointed Cabinet members appointed to their office mid-term are unaffected by this provision unless they serve more than half of the unexpired term. By a three-fifths vote, the Assembly may grant a waiver to citizens nominated to serve additional terms as an appointed Cabinet member.
Don’t worry, I’m not. I had a storm of energy that I desired to direct toward this—just cracking open the discussion to a greater degree of topics. The Assembly can choose to do whatever it wants.
Changed. Slightly reworded but still keeps the meaning.
Worth noting, not nearly as important but all the same, that under the proposal, Delegates that come in, even for a day, under the line of succession, would be ineligible for a year afterwards to run for Delegate.
I agree with Pronoun’s comments that we don’t need to expand this beyond the Delegate and perhaps the PM. I’ve proposed a slightly edited version of LWS’s original amendment, which hopefully avoids the issue that Henn pointed out with a single day of service disqualifying a candidate for a year.
Support for the above. I would support the same two continuous term max for PM, with the caveat that I am fine with waiting one term before a PM can run again, vice two.
I was trying to avoid the questions that special elections could raise. E.g., what if a Delegate served only half a term after being elected in a special election, should they be limited to nine months only before they are term limited out? But I’m not wedded to it; if folks think that special elections should count as well, I’m fine making that change.
I don’t know if I am okie with putting a limit on how many times they can hold the office overall.
In terms of continuity I am good with the limits in consecutive amounts though.
How about this scaled-back version, then Feel free to address the wording if it doesn’t quite sound/look right. I am punching this out before my mini-LoA.
I am making my way through the Assembly channel chat in Discord but for the time being, I query the necessity of this amendment. I refer to Griffindor’s proposed language (above) that includes the PM in this amendment (vis-à-vis the opening post).
A restriction on the Delegacy and the Prime Ministership seems to be looking for a problem that does not currently exist in a detrimental way. A Delegate who serves multiple terms, even say five terms, surely has earned the votes of our region to do so. We would have judged their performance in preceding terms to be excellent and have cast our votes accordingly. Vice versa for the Prime Minister.
