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REGION OF RIGHT TO LIFE
Established June 1, 2011




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Reforming the Constitution; Three Ideas from the Founder
Topic Started: Wednesday May 24 2017, 01:30 AM (838 Views)
Culture of Life
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William F. Buckley

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The June 2017 election is almost here. As I mentioned on the regional message board, I think the 19th Senate should consider reforming the regional constitution. Here are my three ideas:
  • An Independent Delegate: Since 2012, the President and the WA Delegate of Right to Life have been the same person. In 2012, this made a lot of sense because, in the game, the Delegate was the only nation with whom the Founder could share executive powers. As you might recall, NationStates added regional officers in October 2015, forever changing the dynamics of regional management. Our constitution has not been adjusted to account for this major change, and I've been wondering lately whether it might be a good idea to separate the presidency and the delegacy. The President would be elected forum-side and would continue to serve as the head of government. The Delegate would continue to be elected game-side and would focus exclusively on matters related to the World Assembly -- resolutions, endorsements, etc.

  • An Independent Executive: Related to the proposal above, it also might be reasonable to take the President out of the Senate, thereby separating the executive and legislative branches. Of course, this has been proposed several times in the past. Removed from the legislative process, the President could focus his attention on making Right to Life a better, more active region through various programs, initiated and carried out by himself and his ministers. The role of the Founder would continue to be primarily administrative -- keeping the region peaceful and orderly and enforcing its laws (with the needed assistance of moderators and other officials).

  • A Flexible Senate: A perennial issue in regional politics has been the size of the Senate. Right now, the Senate has three members: the President and two senators. In the past, the Senate had five members: the President, a Vice President, and three senators. The five-member Senate was abandoned, and we returned to the three-member Senate because there were simply not enough players willing to run for the extra two seats. If the second proposal above were adopted, there would be three senators, elected once every four months. I think three is a good number for a region our size, but we should provide for the Senate's expansion for the times when activity and interest are unusually high. My recommendation: the Senate will have three members, unless more than six candidates run. If more than six candidates run, the number of senators elected will be equal to one-half of the number of candidates, fractions rounded down. To prevent tied votes, if the number of senators is even (e.g., a four-member Senate), we could give the President a casting vote.



Of course, the main concern would be staffing -- getting enough players to fill all of the offices:
  • Executive Council
    Founder
    President
    Delegate
    Foreign Minister
    Interior Minister

  • Regional Senate
    Senator
    Senator
    Senator

  • Independent Officers
    Bank Director
    Cartographer
    Justice of the Peace
    News Director
The only possible solution that I see would be to minimize the number of restrictions on citizens serving in multiple offices. In my opinion, the only necessary restrictions would be the following:
  • The Founder may not serve as the President, a senator, or the Justice of the Peace.
  • The President may not serve as a senator or the Justice of the Peace.
  • A senator may not serve as the Justice of the Peace.
Consequently, all 12 regional offices could conceivably be staffed by as few as six players. For example:
  • Executive Council
    Founder -- A
    President -- B
    Delegate -- B
    Foreign Minister -- C
    Interior Minister -- D

  • Regional Senate
    Senator -- C
    Senator -- D
    Senator -- E

  • Independent Officers
    Bank Director -- E
    Cartographer -- F
    Justice of the Peace -- F
    News Director -- A
Edited by Culture of Life, Wednesday May 24 2017, 01:43 AM.
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I would suggest to cut down the lenght of the terms, 4 months is way too long in NS and takes away a lot of dynamism from the region.
I think the senate being expanded to 5 seats on a permanent basis could be possible if you longer have restriction on holding multiple offices. But we could stay with 3 if at least the terms are shorter allowing for rotating the senators.
As for the delegate position, I think an independent head of state makes sense, maybe even have the possibility that it could gain some of the founder's powers to make the position more worthwhile.
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The RCS
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Billy Graham

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Wednesday May 24 2017, 03:35 PM
I would suggest to cut down the lenght of the terms, 4 months is way too long in NS and takes away a lot of dynamism from the region.
I think the senate being expanded to 5 seats on a permanent basis could be possible if you longer have restriction on holding multiple offices. But we could stay with 3 if at least the terms are shorter allowing for rotating the senators.
As for the delegate position, I think an independent head of state makes sense, maybe even have the possibility that it could gain some of the founder's powers to make the position more worthwhile.
I agree on everything you said except for the 5 senator idea, we've tried that and it didn't work well. So I think the idea CoL has come up with to expand given the demand is a better idea.
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Culture of Life
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William F. Buckley

Free States
Wednesday May 24 2017, 03:35 PM
I would suggest to cut down the lenght of the terms, 4 months is way too long in NS and takes away a lot of dynamism from the region.
What length would you suggest -- three months?

Nominations last seven days, and voting lasts three days, so we could follow a schedule like this:

DatesType of Election
January 15-25Senate
March 1-10Executive
April 15-25Senate
June 1-10Executive
July 15-25Senate
September 1-10Executive
October 15-25Senate
December 1-10Executive

During executive elections, a forum vote would be held to select the President (maybe [wiki]instant-runoff voting[/wiki]) while an on-site vote would be held to select the Delegate ([wiki]first-past-the-post voting[/wiki]).

Free States
Wednesday May 24 2017, 03:35 PM
As for the delegate position, I think an independent head of state makes sense, maybe even have the possibility that it could gain some of the founder's powers to make the position more worthwhile.
Yeah, if the President and the Senate were independent, I would like to give the President all of my appointment powers. Ministers would continue to be appointed and dismissed by the President, and independent officers would now be appointed by the President with the [wiki]advice and consent[/wiki] of the Senate. (This would be a statutory change, not a constitutional change.)

Also, I imagine that I would consult the President on bills before signing or vetoing them, perhaps following his advice on all bills. At present, I basically sign everything. Since the region was founded in 2011, I've vetoed only one bill. If the President advised vetoes, I might use the power more liberally.
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Free States
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I think 2 months is generally seen as the ideal, not too short, not too long. You also can reduce the lenght of the election calendar, have like 5 days for campaign, nominations and then 2 days for vote. If you're doing it on the forums, no reason to take longer than that.
About the voting process, I really wish we would use forum polls instead of having to vote in public, could even result in a higher turnout. You would just have to work on the permissions and personally I would just use first past the post, but maybe have a 24 hour run-off for the president or for any ties.

And on the senate, I suppose we could stay with 3 initially, but I think 5 would be possible.
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Stellonia
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Culture of Life
 
A Flexible Senate: A perennial issue in regional politics has been the size of the Senate. Right now, the Senate has three members: the President and two senators. In the past, the Senate had five members: the President, a Vice President, and three senators. The five-member Senate was abandoned, and we returned to the three-member Senate because there were simply not enough players willing to run for the extra two seats. If the second proposal above were adopted, there would be three senators, elected once every four months. I think three is a good number for a region our size, but we should provide for the Senate's expansion for the times when activity and interest are unusually high. My recommendation: the Senate will have three members, unless more than six candidates run. If more than six candidates run, the number of senators elected will be equal to one-half of the number of candidates, fractions rounded down. To prevent tied votes, if the number of senators is even (e.g., a four-member Senate), we could give the President a casting vote.
I think we should keep the Senate down to three members, but hold elections every other month), with presidential elections being held simultaneously. Additionally, I think that if the President is being removed from the legislative branch, now would be a good time to elect the Senate by proportional representation, preferably using single-transferable vote.
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Free States
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What can be done is to have a general election with the presidential race and maybe one senate seat. And then have a mid-term, one month later with 2 seats. This way there is always two positions opening up for people to run.

Not sure how long the delegate term should be. I have seen some regions who let the delegate stay in office indefinitely with the possibility of being challenged.
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Culture of Life
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William F. Buckley

My opinions:
  • I'd like to keep the presidential and delegate elections together, and two months seems to be much too frequent for changing delegates. Thus, three months would be better. Also, I think the terms of the president, the delegate, and senators should all be equal in length.

  • I don't think presidential and senatorial elections should be held at the same time. If we were holding them at the same time and if the presidency and Senate were independent, then we'd have to force citizens to choose between running for president and running for the Senate. On one hand, this could lead to uncompetitive presidential elections. "Good" candidates are not confident that they can defeat the incumbent and, therefore, choose to run for the "easier" position (a Senate seat) instead. On the other hand, this could lead to "bad" Senates. All of the "good" candidates want to be the president and, therefore, choose to run in the presidential election, thus leaving the senatorial election full of "bad" candidates.

  • I like proportional representation (PR) and acknowledge that it would be the best system in theory. In practice, however, STV would be impossible to implement. Random ballot allocation would be arbitrary, and fractional ballot allocation would be very difficult and very confusing to citizens. There are, of course, other PR systems; but all of them discriminate against independent candidates. I think we should consider [wiki]cumulative voting[/wiki] (a semi-proportional system).

  • I'm skeptical of forum polls because they allow only for first-past-the-post voting and because they are more susceptible to fraud.

Free States
Wednesday May 24 2017, 09:24 PM
What can be done is to have a general election with the presidential race and maybe one senate seat. And then have a mid-term, one month later with 2 seats. This way there is always two positions opening up for people to run.
Under the schedule that I suggested above, at least two positions would be open at each election:
  • Executive elections = president and delegate
  • Senatorial elections = three or more Senate seats
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Free States
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I really find 2 months to be pretty much ideal in terms of lenght of the terms. But that seems like an issue for the senate to decide.
But it's important to notice your calendar would lead to entire months without any election which I don't think it's best to encourage activity.

About election system, I tend to think FPTP is better when you have few seats as elections are largely going to be about candidates, not parties. I also believe privacy is important when voting.
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Archbishop Óscar Romero

I'm in favor of the proposals, though it causes me to think that the Presidency will be essentially worthless. What would a President really do?
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