Well, Political Parties definitely had influence and sway been 2016-2018. They were more frequent in the years before that, but they have definitely died, especially since 2020.

I don’t think there is enough activity in the region to support shadow ministries, especially since anything a shadow ministry would do (like in your UK example would be redundant).

-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

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Yeah I get your POV. I don't think this should be The Chair forming Commissions but rather approving them. For example if I wanted to form a Commission for...an independent regional newspaper (just an example), I would make a request in one of the Assembly threads. There would be a list of active Assembly Commissions which legislators could join if interested in certain topics.

I think this would boost activity (political, quasi-political and apolitical) overall and it would lessen the burden of the executive for holding ministries such as the former MoM.

The Orange Records | Viliakmon (Pacifica) | NationStates Account Main | Discord: genericsequencealias#0990

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I get the impression that HumanSanity’s proposal is about forming committees within the context of a legislative body, not about civic organisations or political parties.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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Then I believe I can speak for both Ebon and myself that we'd appreciate further feedback from OP

The Orange Records | Viliakmon (Pacifica) | NationStates Account Main | Discord: genericsequencealias#0990

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You're talking about a completely different idea. It should probably go in another thread.

Regarding the idea itself, political parties just don't work and aren't relevant. Forcing them to work is not going to change anything, imo.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

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I was more talking about appreciating your elaboration on what you intended to formulate in the Assembly, because if it's not parties, representation of specific groups, control commissions/shadow ministers or civic commissions, I don't understand what you're proposing.
Regarding more threads, I'd rather not, as I've explained extensively elsewhere. So, please return to your original idea, I've re-read it a few times and if it isn't any of the above then I don't know what it is.

The Orange Records | Viliakmon (Pacifica) | NationStates Account Main | Discord: genericsequencealias#0990

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Then I believe I can speak for both Ebon and myself that we'd appreciate further feedback from OP

To be clear, I understood exactly what HS meant, and it's in-line what Kris described.
 

I was more talking about appreciating your elaboration on what you intended to formulate in the Assembly, because if it's not parties, representation of specific groups, control commissions/shadow ministers or civic commissions, I don't understand what you're proposing.
Regarding more threads, I'd rather not, as I've explained extensively elsewhere. So, please return to your original idea, I've re-read it a few times and if it isn't any of the above then I don't know what it is.

HS is talking about allowing the Chair to create (and place members on) various committees when the need arises. Asking questions to the relevant institutions so that individual legislators don't have to figure out if something is off, then ask the questions.

My thoughts of what a committee would look like could be an oversight committee that ensures that the Sunshine Act is being followed, and sensitive threads are actually sensitive, or an investigative committee that seeks to determine what happened and give an objective report (e.g. Timscade).

-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

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oversight committee that ensures that the Sunshine Act is being followed, and sensitive threads are actually sensitive, or an investigative committee that seeks to determine what happened and give an objective report

Thank you so much for explaining it, Ebon. Just to clarify, a RL example of this would be the US Senate Church Committee of 1975? If so, this is easy to formulate into law.
The technicalities will further have to be discussed - our lack of a civic sector, bureaucracies being too small for The Whistleblower Protection Act to be enforced, general lack of vigilance from legislators, when is the Committee secret, how does it operate and such. However, I do agree with OP that codifying this would, at the very least, make legislators more aware of their own responsibilities and powers.

The Orange Records | Viliakmon (Pacifica) | NationStates Account Main | Discord: genericsequencealias#0990

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I'm kind of... ambivalent... on this. Like, it's good if the Assembly starts getting more engaged with oversight of the executive. I'm not sure if this would actually help with that? It's not too hard to imagine some kind of chain of events where the committee for a particular policy area ends up pretty inactive. Any legislator can still petition to join the relevant committee (which seems an inefficient route if the committee isn't particularly more active than the Assembly as a whole to begin with) or just raise the issue with the entire Assembly (in which case the committee system isn't providing much other than bureaucratic overhead).

More broadly, we have a significant emphasis on executive involvement in our structures for engaging newcomers in our regional government. That makes sense — it takes quite a few people to carry out everything our government does — but it also means the line between joining a committee for a policy area and joining the ministry for it isn't all that defined.

To some extent, it may be worth structuring some parts of our government processes to encourage ministers to engage as legislators rather than being held accountable (nominally) by them. If we're going to require legislator status to vote and run for Cabinet positions, we might as well embrace that aspect of regional government as well. Members of the Cabinet, and the executive more broadly, come face-to-face with the intricacies and realities of the actions taken by our government. There's no harm in creating a culture with greater emphasis on the Cabinet as an originator of legislation, rather than executive decisions subject to approval (which often just lends itself to rubber-stamping).

To tie that all back to the actual purpose of this thread — I think that kind of culture would hopefully lend itself to the people in various parts of our executive, working with those policy areas first-hand, to also voice their ideas through the Assembly and not just through the inner workings of our executive. Otherwise, I think the people in each part of the executive will often be the same people in the committee for that policy area.

Just floating some ideas here; apologies they're hardly well-formed right now. I may also pull an 180 on them when I'm in a fresher state of mind and consider them again

Esfalsa | NationStates | Wiki | Roleplay | Discord

(This post was last modified: 08-19-2022, 04:00 AM by Pronoun.)

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Just to clarify, a RL example of this would be the US Senate Church Committee of 1975? If so, this is easy to formulate into law.

An example of HumanSanity's proposal would be the various committees that exist in any legislative body, one example of which is the US House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
THE MATT-DUCK Law Archive | Mavenu Diplomatic Archive | Rules of the High Court | Case Submission System | Online Rulings Consultation System

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