Splitting the Legislature

General Archives Great Council
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Assembly Editing and Bi-cameral Legislature Creation

Hello! This is a continuation/more official thread regarding my original idea in the “rethinking Citizenship and the Legislature” thread. Essentially, it would split the legislature into two and have an upper house of elected legislatures who handle small amendments and everyday law work (things like the “changing the times act” that literally is barely even a debate). These legislators would be required to maintain activity in discussion and voting on all assembly threads. The lower house would consist of accepted voting citizens (similar to how legislator committee works now), who would vote on big and important proposals, and would be able to petition to have amendments or law changes taken to the lower house in the event they feel it’s particularly important or contentious.

This idea would also require some small rewrites in the Election Act which I have not written up yet, but will at some point when I have a touch more time.

The Amendment!

IV. THE ASSEMBLY

Establishing legislative authority in the Assembly.

(1) The Assembly holds supreme legislative authority in the Coalition, and is comprised of all eligible legislators.

(2) The Assembly will elect a legislator as Chair for a term lasting four months. The Chair is responsible for maintaining order and decorum, and helping guide Assembly debate into the creation of bills. If a Chair is recalled, loses legislator status, or is otherwise not in office, a new Chair will be elected for a new term lasting four months. The date, time, and manner of electing the Chair will be set by the Assembly in a law.

(1) The Assembly shall be composed of two houses, one, hence called the legislature, comprised of elected officials and the other, hence called the citizen’s assembly, comprised of all citizens registered to vote in the Coalition.

(2) The legislature will have no mandated size, and elections for new legislators will occur every 4 months. The date, time, and manner of electing legislators will be set by the Assembly in a law. Any legislator who does not participate in debate or voting on a bill will be considered inactive and removed from the legislature.

(3) The legislature is responsible for discussing, debating, and voting on bills that pass through the assembly. The citizen’s assembly is responsible for debating and voting on bills of high importance or sweeping change. A voting citizen may submit a request to the Chair for a vote to be moved to the citizen’s assembly, where, if adequate reasoning and the written support of three other citizens is provided, that bill must be disseminated to all voting citizens to be debated and voted on.

(4) The legislature shall elect a Chair upon formation, who will hold the position for life, except in the event of resignation, recall, or loss of legislator status. In the event of an open seat of the Chair, the legislature shall elect a new Chair.

(5) The duties of the Chair include maintaining order and decorum, and helping guide Assembly debate into the creation of bills. The date, time, and manner of electing the Chair will be set by the Assembly in a law.

(6) (3) The Chair may appoint a deputy or deputies, to whom the Chair may publicly delegate any powers, responsibilities, or special projects of the Chair, subject to all regulations and restrictions imposed upon the Chair by law. The Chair may dismiss such deputies.

LegislatorCitizen’s Voting Eligibility

(7) (4) A standing commission of legislators will be tasked with granting and revoking legislatorvoting status to citizens. All legitimate residents of the Coalition are eligible to attain legislatorvoting status through an application. Continued voting status requires active membership and good behaviour. Voting status may be revoked due to loss of legislator status or for instances of harmful behaviour.

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Can you elaborate on what advantages you see in this system over, say, a committee-based structure? In other words — what particular benefit does an elected upper house add?

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Yes! Most prominently, an elected legislature would promise activity and engagement on proposals. It would ensure that every amendment has proper consideration from a group of individuals experienced both with TSP as a region and with law as a concept. It would mean every legislator would have to prove up front that they can be active and that they care about the region and its legal proceedings. Beyond that, the idea would be to elect those the majority of citizens trust in their experience, skills, and activity. It would even make it easier for newer members to propose legislation because they know that they would get substantial feedback from the legislature.

Additionally, it would allow the lower house to be much more lax. It would eliminate the need for nearly as much legislator activity from the mass of citizens, and it would make it easier and more engaging for new members to participate in the legislative process since they would only have to participate on the most interesting and important proposals.

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I’m still not sure how those benefits are unique to an elected system. If you believe that what we lack in the Assembly is trust, then I suppose it makes sense to elect an upper house that the majority of citizens trust. But it sounds like you believe the Assembly primarily lacks activity — and I agree! So why not allow anyone who is interested to join a committee/upper house/whatever you want to call it? Our experienced members can still participate in those debates just the same, and new members who want to gain more experience can also participate more directly. Elections might produce more activity come election time, but I don’t see how limiting the number of active legislators produces greater activity.

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Actually you bring up a solid point. However, I’m gonna raise a couple points because I suck. For one, I still like the idea of having two houses, one for more inactive members and one for more active ones. For two, it would have to be made clear in explaining the legislator position that it required consistent activity and possibly it would require a more stingy legislator committee who required some proof of activity before accepting a full legislator, possibly some amount of time and proof of activity as a voting citizen beforehand. For three, it would need to be untied from all of the different elections and government stuff. Aka, you would not need to be a legislator to run for cabinet or to participate in some forms of government as is required atm. That would have to instead be delegated to voting citizens which would essentially take the role of the modern legislator.

The only issue I do see with this method is that it would be a lot of work for the legislator committee by comparison to how much they do now. All things considered, I’ve never been a part of the legcomm and have absolutely no idea how busy they are, but it’s possible the group would need to be expanded or more commonly turned over to allow more active members to step in. I guess the assumption would be they’d need to be active legislators anyway so it could be worse, but still. It would be a good question to ask to the legcomm.

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I get all of your points and agree with a lot of them, but I think a committee system paired with Glen’s proposal would work better. It still allows more active members to get more involved but doesn’t limit how many legislators can take on that more active role.

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That’s fair enough, and I don’t expect my idea is in any way the end all be all of possibilities, it was more to introduce folks to another possibility of direction the legislature could go in.

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Eh

I could support, but I don’t think so. I see the general concept, but I don’t like the “two-house” thing. Well, I do, but I feel like it could be elected but be like the US with a House and Senate. The upper house and lower house.

And I think committees would work too.