While HS is lovely and I’m sure could do the job perfectly well, I don’t believe he is eligible because of Site Staff rules.
With all due respect, I don’t think you have anywhere near the experience or temperament for Chair. Once the Chair is selected, I urge you to reach out to them and learn, perhaps take on a Clerkship. The Chair needs to be a fairly steady hand.
I’d like to offer my thoughts about the role of the Chair.
The Chair should be an administrado of the Assembly and advocate for legislators. That means diligently managing votes and o providing the resources for legislators to adequately exercise their rights and privileges under the Charter. To the extent that this is what I genuinely believe, I concede that I have fallen short but I would argue that my record over the years shows that I am indeed a capable administrator and have the best skills to bring this upon in a faithful and nonpartisan manner. This has already happened to an extent with the revamp of the Information Portal and the Legislator Service Desk, and could well happen with the introduction of Clerks with a focus on ensuring that we appoint legislators who can gain from the experience.
To ask the Chair to have a legislative agenda of their own would be a mistake because then the Chair would be an advocate for their own legislative goals as a matter of policy, rather than advocating for the interests of legislators. These are not mutually exclusive goals, and indeed the Chair may have certain legislative ideas that they might pursue from time to time, but having a comprehensive legislative agenda does introduce the potential for conflict, if a Chair needs to dedicate time to both serving the Assembly and pursuing their own goals.
We need an advocate for the Assembly, not for their own agenda, with the proven record of knowing how to implement projects.
Motion to elect ProfessorHenn:
I want to first and foremost say that, excepting a couple of bumps here and there, I agree with this. My earlier comment should not be construed as a personal condemnation, or as a slight on your ability to perform the duties of the Chair as you see them. I am grateful for what you’ve done for the region, and I’m only making a broader point about the scope of the office.
I think there may be a bit of a missmatch in here in what such an agenda would and could look like, and that may be a failing on my part in communication. I agree that the purpose of the chair should not be primarily to push their own proposals above others. I would be somewhat put off by a chair coming in to the office with highly-specific and unmalleable proposals in mind.
But I do think we would greatly benefit from a Chair that acts as a force of initiative in the Assembly. That recongnizes “hey we’ve been talking about XYZ for like a year now, it is my goal to make sure we formalize those discussions and do the thing”. Not to say they couldn’t write legislation, but really I believe a Chair should be one that breaks the legislative bystander effect. A mandate to initiate and shepherd is a powerful thing.
In the way I’ve stated, I think a Chair becomes an experienced advocate for the health and activity of the body.
I will also point out that this is not a new and radical idea. Chairs as recent as Welly openly had legislative agendas that led to significant reforms.
As a small note here, I think a two-month term is likely too short. I would advocate for the term to roughly align with the PM term of three months. But three exactly is not a hill I’d die on.
I disagree. The Chair shouldn’t have an official interest in driving legislation forward if the Assembly did not deem it prudent to move forward with it. The Chair can make a general drive to promote participating and a culture of lawmaking, and if reelected I’d very much intend on that, but focusing on specific discussions and bills feels a bit too much like providing oficial support for given discussions, even if this is not made explicit, and I’m uncomfortable with doing that.
I agree with Kris on this, the Chair should be a neutral legislator
Why does a legislator need to be the Chair to draft proposals or pursue their ideas? They are just as capable of proposing their ideas when they are not the Chair. The only difference is that they can’t use their procedural powers to push for their proposals. I think those procedural powers should be applied fairly and equally to proposals from all legislators, whether they fit the Chair’s agenda or not. And as a legislator, I think we should consider each proposal on its own merits and not based on whether it aligns with some agenda we voted on months ago.
Someone can create a “most active legislator” award or something if they want, but I don’t think someone needs to be the Chair to actually advance debate. To that point…
What did Welly propose that they couldn’t have proposed as a regular legislator?
There’s a difference between the Chair also being a legislator, and the Chair using their office to advance their proposals.
I mean, first of all, Kringle has done this. For example, I hate fun and think dessert caucuses are silly, but at least Kris has elevated it from purely a gimmick to an actual call to action — anyone noticed those messages in the Discord pings that “the caucus with the highest turnout will be recognised”?
That said, we already elect someone whose job this is. You said it yourself — the last two executive administrations have put activity and engagement front and center. Why can’t they put activity and engagement in the Assembly front and center?
The Prime Minister is responsible for “promoting regional culture” — not executive culture, regional culture. (And yes, I think politics is part of our culture.) They are responsible for “integrating new members into the community” — not into the executive, into the community. They can appoint as many people as they’d like to tackle that. They could appoint whoever happens to be the Chair if they want to. But I don’t see why the office of the Chair needs to be involved in creating its own initiatives. Why have another cook in the kitchen? Has the Chair actually been unreceptive to initiatives from the executive?
Sorry, Kris, this has been proven to be a recallable offense. 
(For legal reasons, this was a joke, and yes, I am fully aware that electing a chair is not the same as handling citizenship apps.)
As for the Assembly debate itself, I think Kris has indeed proven themselves a capable and neutral administrator and should continue in their role, as well as be given the chance to implement the promises they have made in this thread.
I am eligible under Site Staff rules—I am only prohibited from holding roles of military leadership, intelligence/security, the in-game WA Delegacy, and from performing specific in-game actions from my badged Moderator nation.
That said, I’m not particularly interested in the role. I enjoy the Assembly but it has never been (and will likely never be) my passion in NS. Extensive legal rewrites are interesting to me, but I lack the initiative to lead and execute them. The absolute failure of the Great Council and my primary role in that failure demonstrates this lack of interest clearly.
Furthermore, I find myself generally more in agreement with Kris’s interpretation of the role of the Chair than your own. The Chair certainly can suggest legislation, but they should not be expected to present a legislative agenda. If they started advocating for a legislative agenda, the Assembly would (rightfully) start complaining about bias in the decision-making process.
The Chair really only needs to be an active, competent administrator. Additional items in terms of integration and onboarding aren’t a bad thing, and are certainly a reason I might prefer one Chair over another when voting, but they aren’t required. In terms of @ProfessorHenn’s stated candidacy, I would be in favor of their first and third bullet point, but generally opposed to the second one (even after they clarified what they actually mean by it). I want to hear more about all of these bullet points before making any voting decisions.
Regarding Kris’s candidacy, I was unaware there was such discontent around Kris’s activity this term and I’d like to see specific examples/evidence of tasks that were unreasonably delayed or completed unsatisfactorily. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, only that I wasn’t aware of it and would like more information. I’m not opposed to electing someone else if there’s a better platform, but I also would certainly not RON on Kris for Chair (of course, that’s the not the election system we use for Chair, but I think it is an appropriate way of explaining).
This is not why you were recalled and you are smart enough to know that. Stop being childish.
I really don’t think a prospective Chair should run on a platform of “I will push for xyz legislation”, much less that it should be a prerequisite.
In the end, the duties and powers of the Chair are of administrative nature, and I’d say it’s good that we have a decidedly apolitical officer to do all this apolitical work. Introducing an element of self-interest into that would hurt trust in the impartial discharge of the office’s duties, while not really enabling the holder to do anything more than they could already do just by being a legislator.
Pursuing initiatives for onboarding/education on the other hand is something I think that’s reasonable to seek in a Chair, since that’s much more dependant on holding the office to be able to give it the “official” stamp. But this also doesn’t require the Chair to abandon their position of neutrality and thus integrates much better into the role.
I think the Chair needs to be focused on the administrative aspects of how the Assembly functions. If we make it heavily reliant on a legislative agenda, why have a Prime Minister or an executive? I see the Prime Minister’s role to be the main policy driver, and the Chair handles the administrative duties. It’s not to say that Legislators can’t propose legislation too. Let’s not start making motions for people to be the chair right away. What I’d recommend is see who’s interested, give each candidate the opportunity to express their plan for the Chair, and then hold a vote.
We may move the motion to a vote (KrisKringle and ProfessorHenn)
I second
I would not feel comfortable voting at this point. There are several open questions from my perspective that need to be addressed first.
This.
I’ll third this motion if we are moving forward on this.
At the beginning of the term it took several days to bring certain cabinet minister nominations to vote. Slightly later into the term it took a whole week for Vrigny’s cabinet minister nomination to be brought to vote.
With the Starlight treaty, it took about two days from the end of the minimum debate period as it received enough motions to vote before it hit that. Counting from motions to vote after the minimum debate period, it was a bit under a day and a half. While not as bad as some of the minister nominations, there was still discontent in the cabinet over the speed given how it reflected on us with our interactions with Starlight.
I realise the two competing resolutions have been motioned and seconded, but do legislators wish to continue the debate or proceed to a vote?
Mr Chair, I believe we should proceed to a vote.