Now that I'm out of office, I can propose it. I wish I had this during my third term.

1. The Prime Minister will be the head of government and the leader of the Cabinet. They will be responsible for the overall coordination of executive activities, being a liaison between the government and the community, and protecting the Coalition. They hold ultimate authority over all executive activities, though they may be overruled by unanimous consent of all their subordinate Cabinet ministers.

Something like that.

(This post was last modified: 09-10-2018, 07:03 AM by Roavin. Edit Reason: Amended title )

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I'd be for this or something like it. Everyone complains about the PM having no real authority (call it "soft power" or "no power").

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

How would you suggest I had addressed the issues in my last term then?

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Perhaps this could be useful, but we shall see. I am doubtful, but I support it for now.

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

The Prime Minister is elected as the leader of the Cabinet, per the Charter. When a minister’s only portolfio is “leadership,” what does that mean? Drugged Monkeys ran the Cabinet in a hands off manner. Roavin ran it highly involved in foreign affairs, where we basically had 2 MoFAs. That’s just a sample of two, which I don’t think establishes a tradition. There has been disagreement about the role of the Prime Minister in every election. It’s an open debate still. So if we codify a true leadership role, that doesn’t quite rise to the level of a fundamental change to our government.

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

How would you suggest I had addressed the issues in my last term then?

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Strongly opposed; this fundamentally changes our system of government, and makes the separate election of Ministers redundant and incongruous.

The Prime Minister is elected as the leader of the Cabinet, per the Charter. When a minister’s only portolfio is “leadership,” what does that mean? Drugged Monkeys ran the Cabinet in a hands off manner. Roavin ran it highly involved in foreign affairs, where we basically had 2 MoFAs. That’s just a sample of two, which I don’t think establishes a tradition. There has been disagreement about the role of the Prime Minister in every election. It’s an open debate still. So if we codify a true leadership role, that doesn’t quite rise to the level of a fundamental change to our government.

Every cabinet in our history has had deal with this problem; of how to merge multiple political agendas and platforms into a coherent whole, and to reconcile potentially quarrelsome egos and personalities. The level of success has varied, as has the methods used. I think your earlier terms were sucessfull, but the final one less so due to the inability to reconcile the personalities.

This is no different to when the Delegate acted as head of government; in my second elected term I had problems relating to Foreign Affairs, due to my desire to take a stronger position on Lazarus than the Minister of Foreign Affairs did. I believe that history vindicated my posisition, but at the time I lost the debate on the issue. We moved on and got on with other business.

The job of our head of government has always been to reconcile these differences, and produce an effective platform for government. On occasions this has not been possible, but I don’t think we should alter the collaborative nature of our executive - which otherwise functions well, and prevents the cronyism and “yes men” we see in other GCR’s with appointed ministers - due to the minority of cases where it doesn’t work well.

Ultimately I think the reason why your last term ended up so problematic was due to political deadlock; two cabinet members vs. two cabinet members on most issues. The solution may be to create another Ministry, so that such issues would resolve themselves on a 3/2 basis.

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I think that decisions should be able to be overridden by a simple majority, not unanimous consent.

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The job of our head of government has always been to reconcile these differences, and produce an effective platform for government. On occasions this has not been possible, but I don’t think we should alter the collaborative nature of our executive - which otherwise functions well, and prevents the cronyism and “yes men” we see in other GCR’s with appointed ministers - due to the minority of cases where it doesn’t work well.

There is a large step between elected ministers with a powerful Prime Minister and a fully-appointed Cabinet.

Ultimately I think the reason why your last term ended up so problematic was due to political deadlock; two cabinet members vs. two cabinet members on most issues. The solution may be to create another Ministry, so that such issues would resolve themselves on a 3/2 basis.

No. I would recommend reading the release from the Joint Security Room. If a Cabinet Minister clearly states "this is my unilateral authority, I'm deciding it unilaterally, sue me if you don't like it", 10 additional Cabinet ministers all in my favor would not have helped.

The point of this amendment is to prevent that exact scenario. If I, as PM, think what the MoFA is doing is counter-productive, I can step in and override it so long as the rest of the Cabinet doesn't think I'm being counter-productive.

I think that decisions should be able to be overridden by a simple majority, not unanimous consent.

In the scenario I proposed above, that could lead to a 2 vs 2 standoff where the Prime Minister's side loses by default.

I'd be okay with making it some supermajority so that there can be one dissenting Minister if we do ever add a fifth senior Cabinet member.

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They hold ultimate authority over all executive activities

I think this needs to be worded in a better manner, as that current language could effectively let a PM basically say "Okay [insert Cabinet position], you're not allowed to do anything". This could 100% be used as a political weapon by a Prime Minister to silence their political rivals who might also be in office. 

However, I do support having a stronger Prime Minister position. Our current PM position is frankly toothless as all hell and, with exception of Roavin's terms as PM, is basically given every term to a mostly-inactive TSP veteran who won't rock the boat too much. While I imagine that was the intent, a soft power focused advisory position, it's become more of giving someone a rocking chair and a fancy title for a couple months.

What you recommended on Discord was the following:

ROAVIN! Yesterday at 2:24 PM

The PM can override ministerial policy and actions, unless the rest of the Cabinet disagrees.

I think the language you proposed is very different from the language you discussed on Discord. Veto power is significantly less than "ultimate authority", and provides a lot less avenues for abuse. If you want a PM who has complete say and power over the other Minister positions (i.e ultimate authority), you should eliminate Minister elections altogether as they'd ultimately just have to follow what the PM wants. There's no point running for a position where you don't even get to set your own agenda and plans. 

Elected Ministries work in TSP because our PM position lacks teeth. While I think there are ways to make the position less toothless, thus ensuring elected Ministries still work and make sense, I don't believe that giving the Prime Minister "ultimate authority" is the way to promote a political dynamic. It's effectively making a mountain out of a molehill, with said mountain then rocksliding over all the crops we've been growing.

I would propose a less over-the-top amendment:

1. The Prime Minister will be the head of government and the leader of the Cabinet. They will be responsible for the overall coordination of executive activities, being a liaison between the government and the community, and protecting the Coalition. The Prime Minister has the right to veto executive action by a Minister, though may be overruled by unanimous consensus of the other Ministers.

I believe this ensures that the PM has an actual oversight power, without going off the rails and more-or-less invalidating any reason to even bother with elected Ministers moving forward.

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(This post was last modified: 08-08-2018, 03:10 PM by Tim.)

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