From a bird’s eye view (or so I hope), I’ve just provided that a separation of “citizens” and “legislators” would, de facto at least, end up being a bicameral solution.
Furthermore, to give an incentive for citizens to indulge into actual legislator status, I’ve proposed that citizens votes get weighed differently from that of legislators.
That’s all there is from me.
Having only two examples to go off of, I’m mostly familiar with how the US two houses work. One is supposed to represent the “people”, while the other represents “state” rights, and the tension between the two is supposed to create laws. The original form of the Senate was members being elected by their state legislature, until an amendment changed it to direct elections. I can’t see how you’d create a tension with competing ideas when there’s no pull from forces on the outside. Do you suggest we have elections to the “lower” house, then they’d elect upper house members from their ranks?
The current system of legislature is actually the best one we’ve got without creating unnecessary complications where the members (voters) are vetted by a committee that is given the authority to do so. They in turn appoint the members of the government (Delegate, Prime Minister and the Cabinet).
Having multiple houses in legislature does not serve any purpose.
Representative Democracy by having all the members residing in The South Pacific does not work as there are no distinctly identifiable groups based on which elections can be held like area (Districts, Cities, States, etc.) is used in real life.
It doesn’t, though. The Legislature would legislate. The citizenry would serve as the public body which the executive serves. Those are different since the citizenry would not have law-writing or law-making functions
This is an interesting counterargument but I will need some time to process it fully.
My concern here is - how many legislators would be left if this was institutes - given that “backbench voters” right now would prefer citizenry. Out of those legislators, how many of them wish to retain the status of just legislating and how many view it as just a jump point into getting into the executive, perhaps more?
This is really the wrong address to be asking about the intricacies of how this “citizenry” status would function. However, expanding, transforming and renovating what “LC” currently is might we a good starting point. Wherein the LC-elected would represent the “The Senate”. However, I think this proposal in particular seeks to put that off for now.
Fair enough, I’m just trying to figure out how things would work. I’ve not a huge for or against on the idea.
Why’s that a concern? “Legislators who are not interested in legislating are no longer incentivized to sit around and do nothing” doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.
Is it the legislative session idea that creates a complication, in your opinion? If it is, I don’t think it’s integral to my proposal. It’s intended to get ahead of complaints about there not being important enough or interesting enough topics during a 30-day period when participation checks are done by the Chair. With the upside being that if there hasn’t been activity for a month (which sometimes happens, like now when we’re all focused on the GC), the Chair doesn’t need to do a participation check at all.
I would think initially a smaller number than people probably assume. We’ve had, on average, ~40 legislators voting on any given bill. But only ~5-10 participating in the debate and drafting of them. There are currently no downsides or disincentives to this.
One of my goals with legislative sessions is that it could lead to legislating being more of an “event”/creating FOMO/etc. The idea is that paring that with participation requirements will lead to more people actively participating. Otherwise they miss out and have to wait until the next session opens.
Let me apologize here because I found this thread rather hard to decipher, but I really like Glen’s legislative sessions idea.
I also think it might be able to address some of the issues that some of our elected officials don’t have much to do.
What if we had scheduled legislative sessions to coincide with elections?
So essentially, if we have elections every four months, the a legislative sessions would start in the fourth month when the Assembly could propose/rework any changes to the law and it would need to be wrapped up by the start of the election? For the three months in between the Cabinet and other bodies would be running things with the oversight of the court. We’d need to build special sessions, but ultimately it would be like three mini GCs a year?
Personally, I think the ability to call a session, initiate a debate, etc. is important. If we want people to be active participants, we should make them feel like active participants. Our current system is far from perfect on that front, but at least it gives people the sense that if they want to spur a discussion on a particular issue, they can go ahead and do so.
I worry (though I’m willing to be convinced 
) that scheduled sessions would take that sense away. Instead of getting to actively debate a particular issue, it’s a passive process. If we have things to talk about, great. I do think a ‘deadline’ of some sort can be helpful for inspiring more activity.
But what if we don’t have a ton of ideas? A scheduled session would then begin to feel much more like a passive process. It starts through no active input of our own, and a few changes might get proposed for the sake of doing something, but it’s not truly anything to ‘miss out on.’
And between sessions, I think it would be similarly passive, just waiting for the next opportunity to propose a change. We could have a special session, sure, but it seems to me like a fine balance, otherwise we’d just take care of everything before our scheduled session.
Here’s my two cents.
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Please, no bicameral legislature. It’s like adding more bureaucracy doesn’t get rid of bureaucracy, which I know is a crazy proposition but it’s true.
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Scheduled sessions sound like a good idea but I worry that someone might have a really good idea, but lose interest while waiting for the next session. Of course, if sessions are very often, this would eliminate that worry, but at that point why not just not have any scheduled sessions in the first place?
TLDR: Because you essentially end up with 5-10 legislators who are interested in just the legislative.
That amount is fine in itself though I can’t see how it can be an overseer of the larger executive (ping back to when I said the same number fills 1-1/2 of our full Ministry).
Since we again presumably have a soft branch split this might not be an issue as the executive position holders (who also hold the title of legislator) can also be utilized in the Charter always pinging back the Assembly’s motion of recalling other institutions.
So essentially, it would just be codifying what we have now:
But does this function in the way which the current Charter wants it to function? I understand that there are different institutions for regional security ---- bottom line is, are 5-10 participants enough to fulfill the amount of Assembly oversight in political matters?
You’re missing the context before that, where we’d probably see a decline to the existing state at first. Remember, the overall goal here is to increase active participation in the legislature, not to “right-size” it to only what exists today.
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You know, now that I get what you’re saying about the debate requirement legislature I’m kind of warming up to it. As long as leave of absences stay I’m good with some kind of possible change.
Thank you for elaborating on the spontaneously evolutionary, grass-root nature of the idea (as I understand it).
In this case, I’d support a proposal in the spirit of this idea.
I think its worth remembering that just because someone isn’t actively taking part in the debate it doesn’t mean they aren’t following it, have an opinion on the issue, and will cast a meaningful vote.
I’ve just returned home from party conference - it’s why I’ve been completely absent from all TSP/NS related stuff - and for every delegate who wanted to speak there were three or four who were simply listening to the debate and deciding how to vote.
You all know that I’m an argumentative SOB but over three full days of policy debate in the main hall there was only one item I wanted to speak on as I knew other people present were better able to make the arguments I supported on those topics.
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Following an issue doesn’t mean actively participating in the legislative process. Our goal isn’t just informed voting, it’s meaningful and active participation. In your RL conference, I’m sure those who didn’t speak are active in other parts of the decision-making process. In TSP, legislative debate is the process. People can and should find something to say. If you’re not interested, then why be a part?
We’re not translating real-world democracy 1:1 here. At the end of the day, the Assembly is a sub-game within TSP. We want that game to be active. It’s not right now and hasn’t been for a long time, despite having ~40 people regularly casting votes.
And I’m not sure how what you are proposing would make it more active. All it would do is reduce the number of people with voting rights, making control by cliques and political factions easier.