Hello all! I come to you today to provide the following proposed amendment to the Legislator Act.
After some discussion on the topic of how to handle the removal of Legislators who have lost their citizenship status, both within legislators-lounge and some talk in lampshade-bar on Discord. I’ve come to realise that it may be a positive and a more sensible idea to revoke the Legislator statuses of Assembly members who lose their citizenship status immediately compared to waiting until the end of the month with the publication of the State of the Assembly. From the little discussion that there was, other legislators involved appeared to agree to this general proposal, as such, here we are today.
Are you sure this reads as allowing the Chair to immediately remove status? One could argue the point that, on the contrary, it forces the Chair to do things only at the start of each month.
Are there any limits to how this is read? For example, would a Chair be within their legal right to not remove legislator status from someone who lost citizenship?
I concur with Kris that, as worded, this would instead make the Chair responsible for revoking status within the first week of each month rather (paraphrasing, “Within the first week…the Chair will revoke status if they fail to meet eligibility requirements”).
I’d instead use something more akin to:
Further, I assume the automatically removed legislators would still be duly noted in the SoA, no?
I see my mistake now, thanks for pointing this out. The draft provided by Cryo is what I was attempting to achieve in the first place.
Yes, I will still be providing a list of Assembly members who have lost their legislator statuses within the previous month on the relevant month’s State of the Assembly address.
It’s possible to automatically remove someone from the legislator group when they’re removed from the citizen group. The forum has that automation functionality.
Then, we should probably get that turned on and tied to all positions that require citizenship. I imagine that would save the Chair, admins, and other group owners from considerable headaches every time there is a change in status.
I agree that a technical forum fix should be applied. We should proceed with this legislative language amendment — which I take to be Cryo’s as the most recent version, building on BB’s — for a possible future where this forum may no longer be in use.
I can indeed see this as being a very useful function compared to removing people one-by-one. Is it possible to view some sort of “activity log” if you will? For the Legislators group, just to see which members have been automatically removed. It’s so I can update the spreadsheet and remove maskings on Discord.
I fully agree with Cryo’s proposal. I also think we should address the potentially serious ambiguity in this section identified by Kringle, namely that the “reasonable extenuating circumstances” provision could be read as authorizing the Chair to permit someone who lost citizenship to remain a legislator. I am firmly of the view that all legislators must be citizens; the Chair’s discretion to accommodate extenuating circumstances should therefore be limited to excusing failures to meet the voting requirement. That aligns with the Citizenship Committee’s discretionary authority, which does not extend to, for example, permitting someone to retain citizenship who does not have a nation in TSP / is not a member of the Coalition. I’ve proposed language to this effect below, which partially mirrors the Citizenship Act provision. Look forward to folks’ thoughts.
I’m afraid I have to disagree with allowing the Chair’s discretion on that. Citizenship is a prerequisite for legislator status. If you lose citizenship, you lose legislatorship.
You can reapply for citizenship and then reapply for legislatorship. Not being a legislator does not mean you can’t still debate within the Assembly. You just can’t vote.
I think Welly’s draft refers to the Assembly voting requirement (as in votes on bills), not the citizen voting one. Perhaps the language should be clearer to avoid those confusions.
Yes, that’s right. Griffy we are on the same page here–no citizenship, no legislator status. The Chair should have discretion to excuse failures to vote in the requisite number of Assembly votes each month; they should not have discretion to excuse legislators from the requirement that they be citizens. Let me rework the section a bit to see if I can make it more clear.
Alright, this is perhaps a bit overwrought, but I think it clarifies things. I also edited the first section to bring the language in line with its counterpart in the Citizenship Act.
2. Legislator Checks
(1) Continued legislator status requires active membership and good behavior.
(1) Legislators retain their legislator status until resignation or removal by the appropriate authority.
(2) Within the first week of each calendar month, the Chair of the Assembly will remove legislator status from a legislator if they failed the Assembly voting requirement in the past month., if applicable, or otherwise no longer meet the eligibility requirements as described herein. If a legislator no longer meets the eligibility requirements (not including the voting requirement), and it would be impossible for them to meet the requirements before the first week of the following calendar month, the Chair of the Assembly may remove their legislator status at their discretion before the appointed week. The Chair of the Assembly may exercise discretion and not remove legislators under reasonable extenuating circumstances.
a. The Chair of the Assembly may exercise discretion and not remove an otherwise active legislator for failing the Assembly voting requirement under reasonable extenuating circumstances.
(3) A legislator fails the Assembly voting requirement if:
The Assembly finished at least three votes in the previous calendar month and the legislator was absent for more than one-third of those votes; or
The Assembly finished exactly two votes in the previous calendar month and the legislator was absent for both of those votes.
(4) Legislators may request a leave of absence for a non-indefinite period, specifying the end date of such leave, which will be subject to discretionary approval from the Chair of the Assembly or their deputies. During such time, legislators on a leave of absence are exempt from the Assembly voting requirement.
(5) The Chair of the Assembly will at once remove legislator status from a legislator if they no longer meet the eligibility requirements as described in this Act.
(56) The Chair of the Assembly may suspend legislator privileges for disruptive members. Frequent suspensions may be grounds for ineligibility, if found appropriate in a fair trial by the High Court.
What’s the reasoning behind keeping the mandatory removal within the first week? Could we not just copy and paste from the citizenship act and rename it?
