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~~Cormac~~ · 03-25-2017, 04:35 AM

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Local Government Reform Amendments
Amendments to improve game-side local government in the South Pacific

1. Amendments to the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific

(1) Article IV, Section 1 of the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific will be amended as follows:

Amendment to Article IV, Section 1 Wrote:1. The Assembly holds supreme legislative authority in the Coalition, and is comprised of all eligible legislators and a representative of the Local Council. It is responsible for establishing and maintaining the legal code of the Coalition.

(2) Article IV, Sections 9-10 of the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific will be amended as follows:

Amendment to Article IV, Sections 9-10 Wrote:9. The Local Council representative will have the power to cast an additional weighted vote worth one-fifth of all non-abstaining votes cast on bills, not including the block vote, giving them a one-sixth share of the total vote, excluding abstentions. The Chair will calculate how many votes are allotted to the representative at the close of each vote, rounding them to the nearest whole number, and will then add the representative’s total votes to the final tally.

10. 9. The legislative history of all laws will be recorded by the Chair, including debate threads, vote results, and amendment histories.

(3) Article V, Section 4 of the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific will be amended as follows:

Amendment to Article V, Section 4 Wrote:4. To help promote inter-governmental relations, the Local Council will send a representative to the Assembly, whose term must not exceed the Local Council’s. The method of selection will be decided by the Local Council, along with how the representative casts their votes in the Assembly.

(4) Article XIII of the Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific will be amended as follows:

Amendment to Article XIII Wrote:XIII. AMENDMENT PROCESS

Setting a procedure for amendment of the Charter and constitutional laws

1. The Assembly may amend any provision of the Charter or constitutional laws by a three-fifths supermajority. Amendments to the Charter or constitutional laws must be constitutional in nature, addressing and amendments to the Charter must address the structure or framework of government. Bills that may exist as general laws, as determined by the Chair of the Assembly, should not be placed in the Charter or constitutional laws.

2. Any amendment to the Charter or constitutional laws that directly affects the game-side community or its home governance, as determined by the Chair of the Assembly, must also be debated and voted upon by the game-side community. Additionally, the Local Council may originate amendments to its constitutional structure, which must be debated and voted upon in the Assembly.

2. Amendment to the Regional Officers Act

(1) Article 2, Section 5 of the Regional Officers Act will be amended as follows:

Amendment to Article 2, Section 5 Wrote:(5) At least one member of the Local Council will be granted the Appearance, Communications, and Polls powers.

These amendments are fairly straightforward:

1. The Local Council block vote would be eliminated.

2. Language related to the Local Council representative casting a block vote would be eliminated.

3. The Local Council representative to the Assembly would be retained, but without any additional voting power beyond what is afforded to the representative as a legislator or, if the representative is not a legislator, without any voting power at all.

4. The Article XIII amendment process would be extended to constitutional laws. I also corrected a typo in the subtitle of Article XIII.

5. The Regional Officers Act would be amended to guarantee that at least one Local Councillor has not only Polls power, but also Appearance and Communications powers, to bring the Regional Officers Act into compliance with Article V, Section 3 of the Charter, which mandates that "[t]he Local Council may not be denied the authority to run regional polls, create and pin Dispatches, and to suppress messages on the Regional Message Board according to a standard moderation policy." The Local Council cannot do two of those things without guaranteed Appearance and Communications powers.

The purpose of these amendments is to provide greater balance between game-side local government and off-site regional government, thus improving the quality of local government by allowing the Local Council to primarily focus on actual local government, rather than focusing on the Assembly and block voting on legislation that very often has no relation at all to local government. Meanwhile, though, these amendments ensure that not only Charter amendments but also amendments to constitutional law that directly affect the game-side community must be debated and voted on by the game-side community, thus ensuring that game-side residents still have democratic participation in important constitutional matters that affect them.

(This post was last modified: 03-25-2017, 05:09 AM by Cormac.)

Omega · 03-25-2017, 08:26 AM

1. On a point of order: there is little to no precedent for us drafting amendments this way. I believe traditionally we have always just written out the amendments instead of making it into an act. I would ask the Chair for guidance on this.
2. Yeah so we have talked about doing this and as you will soon find out people feel strongly about this issue. Personally, I am opposed to most of the amendments you are submitting, however, I do like the amendment to XIII.2. The amendment to XIII.1 is, in my opinion, not needed.

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**Belschaft** · 03-25-2017, 09:43 AM

Speaking personally, I'd be happy to exchange the LC block vote (which is cumbersome and I've never liked) for an expansion on in-game referendums when they address matters effecting the in-game region.

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Escade · 03-25-2017, 10:16 AM

I think that the Local Council needs deep revision as it currently seems to be not functioning as a strong local government. I support these changes.

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~~Cormac~~ · 03-25-2017, 10:23 AM

(03-25-2017, 08:26 AM)Omega Wrote: 1. On a point of order: there is little to no precedent for us drafting amendments this way. I believe traditionally we have always just written out the amendments instead of making it into an act. I would ask the Chair for guidance on this.

Article 2 of the Law Standards Act appears, from my reading of it, to require this formatting for amendments as well as acts. It's possible I'm misreading it though, so I would welcome guidance from the Chair as well.

(03-25-2017, 08:26 AM)Omega Wrote: 2. Yeah so we have talked about doing this and as you will soon find out people feel strongly about this issue. Personally, I am opposed to most of the amendments you are submitting, however, I do like the amendment to XIII.2. The amendment to XIII.1 is, in my opinion, not needed.

I feel that the amendment to Article XIII, Section 1 is needed, because without the amendment it would leave ambiguous language that could be applied to the wrong type of amendment.

I should note that the amendments to Article XIII are part of a package. I support them along with the amendments to eliminate the block vote, but I would not support them in isolation as doing so would just create further imbalance between game-side local government and off-site regional government.

(This post was last modified: 03-25-2017, 11:21 AM by Cormac.)

***sandaoguo*** · 03-25-2017, 01:41 PM

Regarding constitutional laws, these are simply laws that the Assembly thinks is important and should be harder to change or repeal. The changes the LC/Assembly relationship a couple months ago actually means that the Assembly can't pass laws, constitutional or not, that are about the game-side community. So there's really not a reason for the language about constitutional laws to change here.

The provision about the Charter is because it's a shared document. Whereas Assembly laws aren't, and the same thing for LC laws.

(This post was last modified: 03-25-2017, 01:41 PM by sandaoguo.)

**Belschaft** · 03-25-2017, 02:13 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong Glen, but the Assembly can't pass laws solely about the in-game region, but can pass laws that directly effect it. You're misrepresenting the situation slightly.

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***sandaoguo*** · 03-25-2017, 02:31 PM

I don't need to explain this five million times. The LC is the LC. The Assembly is the Assembly. You understand this just fine.

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~~Cormac~~ · 03-25-2017, 02:53 PM

It seems to me that it's still possible for legislation to directly affect the game-side community without solely affecting the game-side community.

This legislation is intended as compromise legislation, to trade off elimination of the Local Council's block vote in favor of letting the game-side community vote on constitutional laws that directly affect them. Without the latter, it seems to me that it's going to be difficult if not impossible to achieve the required Assembly and game-side majorities for the former. It seems completely worth it to give the game-side community a vote on constitutional laws if it will mean getting the Local Council to focus more on actual local government.

Escade · 03-25-2017, 03:17 PM

Maybe more examples would help make this concrete? What could 4. cover?

At the end of the day if game side members want to determine things that are decided by the Assembly they need to join the forums. We also need to figure out some of the double dipping.

Escade

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