Preparatory Debate |
(07-13-2022, 05:15 PM)Griffindor Wrote: I would like to debate whether we think the current thresholds for certain things to pass are best. Is a 60% vote for constitutional amendments too high/low? Are confirmation votes thresholds too lenient? Debate may bring an answer to it. What do you think the best range for a threshold would be?
Not too sure, perhaps 2/3rds, or even 3/4ths. Why even have a supermajority at all? I’d just like to see some debate on that and see what other people think. Perhaps a new government structure would naturally demand a different threshold for things than we have now.
-Griffindor/Ebonhand
-Current Roles/Positions -Legislator 2/24/20- -High Court Justice 6/7/20- -South Pacific Coral Guard 11/17/20- -Minister of Engagement 6/17/22- -Past Roles/Positions -Legislator 7/3/16-4/10/18 -Secretary of State 4/3/20-2/24/21 -Chair of the APC 9/24/16-5/31/17 -Vice-Chair of the APC 6/1/17-4/10/18 -Local Council Member 7/1/17-11/17/17 -Citizen 5/2012-12/2014 and 2/26/16-7/3/2016 (07-13-2022, 09:26 PM)Griffindor Wrote: Not too sure, perhaps 2/3rds, or even 3/4ths. Why even have a supermajority at all? I’d just like to see some debate on that and see what other people think. Perhaps a new government structure would naturally demand a different threshold for things than we have now. Yeah, I think you have a good point on the percentages, particularly with low numbers of assembly members...maybe a move to 70% would be a nice mid point? (07-13-2022, 09:26 PM)Griffindor Wrote: Not too sure, perhaps 2/3rds, or even 3/4ths. Why even have a supermajority at all? I’d just like to see some debate on that and see what other people think. Perhaps a new government structure would naturally demand a different threshold for things than we have now. 3/5ths is already a difficult threshold to meet. I think we're good on keeping the thresholds as is.
One potential reform to supermajorities I had considered was whether it should be set as a % of total legislators rather than just of those voting - in other words counting abstentions and absences as though they were "Nay" votes. This would prevent potentially significant changes from being passed on the back of legislator apathy.
However I have not studied recent votes in detail to understand whether, say, a 50%+1 majority of all legislators would make much difference to outcomes compared to the current supermajority threshold.
(07-14-2022, 09:29 AM)Bleakfoot Wrote: One potential reform to supermajorities I had considered was whether it should be set as a % of total legislators rather than just of those voting - in other words counting abstentions and absences as though they were "Nay" votes. This would prevent potentially significant changes from being passed on the back of legislator apathy. I strongly disagree with this. This would make apolitical actions such as telling people to vote but suddenly political. If you track vote counts over time, you'll notice that there was a significant uptick during most of my terms due to me sending DM reminders to legislators who did not vote on proposals. While you can certainly argue whether it was a good idea or not to to that, I think debating the merits of reminding legislators to vote should be separate from the debates over the proposals themselves.
I think that there is no reason to change the voting thresholds. So why bother? Just because we are having a GC doesn't mean that everything is broken.
It's worth discussing, although I personally could be persuaded to just make everything a simple majority. A lot of what we have included as a "Constitutional law" versus a normal law is fairly arbitrary. A majority of the Assembly is no small feat and is honestly sufficient, imo, to demonstrate collective will for a proposal.
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Does the political party system still work? If it was revived and promoted it could be a way to increase activity.
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Political parties were pretty much dead by the time I joined TSP, but I don't think our broadly non-adversarial political culture creates much need for them. I also tend to think that structures like political caucuses or parties are best left to develop naturally rather than being prescribed into existence.
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