Glen’s proposal doesn’t give power to control Assembly membership to a politically manipulable institution. It would include clear guidelines on how you can gain or lose membership. Imo, that’s fine.
I was at first worried that the Assembly would be reduced to political factions who would push their agenda.
However, I don’t think that would be possible due to the low number of legislators who don’t hold other titles (we don’t actually communicate that often between each other, sometimes at all). Then one could wonder what would even be the point of doing this, which is valid when looking at it from such a perspective.
Though I do think that the underlying framework of the final draft would contain in it an ‘occult’ (not explicit or conscious) idea where the legislature grows in a “Luxembourgist” way - where the legislature is eventually composed of those interested in the work of the Assembly apart from just back-bench voting.
Another convincing factor was experimentation. If this ends up not being efficient, it can be changed. Though this is positive personal bias towards experimentation in general speaking.
Alright, I ain’t part of this GC and I know nothing about democracy or political science so my opinion means squat. That being said, I have a completely outside perspective of this whole affair and I have an idea I’d like to chime in with.
It seems as if the main issue here is trying to have a more active voting population, yes? That legislators should have to actually do something to be legislators?
In that case, why not do what literally everyone in this chat is gonna hate me for suggesting and just split the legislature? You have a group of idk like 5-20 active debaters, legislators, meaningful voters, and those folks vote on like the day-to-day hoopla of the legislature. I remember from ye olden days of like April this year that there were approximately so many goddamn proposals for the tiniest things and for me, that’s one of the biggest reasons I never got involved. Nobody joins the legislature to vote on tiny wording adjustments and amendments that don’t really change anything so leave those to an elected group. Bam, one problem solved.
Then, you have a group of citizens (aka everybody in the region) who have the ability to vote on major resolutions. What you could do is say that you need like say… 3 non-legislature people to raise their hands and say “Heyyy I wanna move this from being a daily hoopla to being a big deal™!” and then the whole citizenry has access to debate, and the whole thing is prepared as a big issue (this being pretty similar to the way OP was suggesting). However, you can only vote on the proposal if you actually chime in with your opinion in the debate thread. That way we know all the voters gave at least some time to actually look at the proposal and have a meaningful opinion.
Is it a little more exclusive? Eh kinda. I like to think it would just require some actual commitment to the voting.
As for the daily hoopla group, you’d have elections every once in a while, set a loose limit on members, require everyone to participate in debates, and there’s no way it could possibly end up corrupt here because literally everybody seems to have a dissenting opinion. You’d end up with some actual discussion and then bam, yes or no. Easy peasy and we don’t have to involve the whole citizenry for every tiny little thing.
As for playing the “too important for elected members” card, I imagine the people wanting to raise that card would have to write an actual reasoning why, support their argument for moving it up a level, etc. and I imagine after one person raised said card, there would be a set amount of time for people to raise their hands in support to make sure people know such a card i being raised.
Anyway, that’s mostly just details. I think it might be a somewhat radical but probably good idea and I’ve decided I care enough to put it out there (and also the boss man said I don’t have to be a member to post debates :p).
Toodle-oo~
Honestly, I’m not seeing what in there shoots down my idea. I read through this thread before I posted, and the structure I’ve suggested here is not the bicameral structure suggested elsewhere. Nor is it a fully elected legislature.
So if I understand it correctly, all intents of what people are supposed to use these mechanisms for aside, the idea is that there would be an elected committee that would handle legislation, but people could petition for a referendum on any proposed legislation?
If we open up voting on major resolutions to everybody in the region — are we running security checks on everyone who wants to participate?
I also think that having a registration step (whether to vote or to legislate) serves as a kind of onboarding. If you actually apply to become a voter or a legislator, then (hopefully) you know what you’re signing up for, more so than if you just got a telegram saying everyone in the region is invited to comment on a proposed change to a government you aren’t all that familiar with.
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Correct. That way people could be allowed to vote on important resolutions but wouldn’t be faced with a multitude of daily small changes.
That’s a very good point, that probably is a good idea tbh, just to ensure we don’t have any outside forces attempting to illicitly sway elections. I probably would keep legislator apps in that case, yes.
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I see. In this case, I think it would be prudent to rename it to citizenship instead of legislatorship to be (a) less confusing and (b) more relevant.
Actually, the original draft I wrote for this split it into the “legislature” to represent the upper house, and the “citizen’s assembly” to represent the lower, so that works for me
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I’d like to circle back to this idea — hopefully there’s been enough time for people’s thoughts to settle a bit. I think the last time we discussed this idea, it ended up overcomplicating something pretty simple:
- Residents acting in good faith can become citizens and gain the right to vote.
- Citizens can apply to join the Assembly.
- The Assembly only meets when there’s something (substantial) to discuss.
How are people feeling about these ideas now?
Bit confused here, you gain the right to vote, then you can join the assembly? Isn’t it currently you join the assembly and then get to vote?
The theme is that we are separating voting for elections from daily voting in the Assembly.
Any person can become a citizen that votes in elections, and those citizens can then choose to also be a part of the Assembly.
Ahh, okay that makes a bit more sense now.