Minions of the Assembly,

As you are no doubt well aware, it has been exactly 54 days since the election of Delegate Supreme Beepee the Cruel. While historically, there has been some time between the election of a Delegate and their mechanical ascension to the gameside position, this transition in particular has raised concerns among even my most carefree of advisors that legislative revision is necessary.

At present, the Elections Act provides that the "Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon achieving the most endorsements".^[1] I respectfully submit to this august body that this clause is amended to give effect to the transition immediately at the conclusion of the election; whereby all Regional Officer powers are granted to the Delegate-elect and they carry out the duties of the Delegacy in all but (technical gameside) name only.

This is, however, only a suggestion and I am sure—as recent conversations on Discord has evidenced—that Legislators have much to say on the matter. I look forward to this discussion.

Yours insincerely,

His Supreme Majesty of all Ice Cream, Admiral-General Dentist Doctor Stewie G., the Magnificent Ultimate Leader of all of NationStates, King of Kings, Democratic President and Prime-Minister-For-Life, Invincible and All-Triumphant Lord Commander, Chief Ophthalmologist and board-certified Dermatologist of the South Pacific Special Forces, Brilliant Genius of Humanity, Noble Prize winner in everything but Peace, and Benevolent Oppressor and Ruthless Protector of the Expendable People of Amerion the Malevolent.

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^[1] Article 3, Clause 4 of the Elections Act stipulates that:

The Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon achieving the most endorsements. Prior to inauguration, the sole responsibility of the Delegate-elect is to gather endorsements, in coordination with the incumbent Delegate and in cooperation with the Council on Regional Security. The incumbent will continue to hold the office of the Delegate and will remain responsible for all responsibilities of that office, serving out the remainder of their term, until the inauguration of the Delegate-elect.

(This post was last modified: 03-14-2021, 01:17 AM by Amerion.)

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Here's the issue with this proposal, and why I originally wrote the language setting the Delegate-elect's inauguration to their in-game ascension: The vast majority of the responsibilities of the office of the Delegate, and certainly all of its important ones, require the in-game delegacy. Aside from endotarting, the principal tasks of the delegate's office are 1) WA approving, 2) WA voting, and 2) safeguarding the Executive authority. None of these can be done as a mere RO labelled "Delegate-Elect".

What's more, the incumbent Delegate not only still has to carry out all of the delegacy's primary duties, but is also still the one that gamesiders will view as the head of the region. The incumbent Delegate's name remains on the top of the region page, as well as on the WA page under every vote. Think about how many new nations right now telegram the Sandaoguo nation because it has the RO label of "Prime Minister", versus how many telegram Amerion because he's sitting at the top of the region page. The Delegate-elect couldn't even effectively fulfill the Delegate's responsibility to be a gameside point-of-contact.

Instead, the incumbent Delegate would control the majority of the duties of the delegate's office, but the Delegate-elect would officially have the title. The result is inevitably that there are de facto two people in the delegate role at the same time, and nobody knows who to actually approach about matters concerning the delegacy. This isn't just a hypothetical: I proposed the inauguration provision precisely because, when I was transitioning into the delegacy, there was a long "transition period" where the incumbent Delegate still held some powers, but I held others, and nobody was really taking any initiative because they didn't have full control of the office.

This is not a real solution to the problem we have with the delegacy transition right now -- that the Delegate-elect's endorsement gain is simply too slow for the current length of our terms.

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

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In many RL organizations, there's a president and president-elect whereby the "president" holds the power and the "president-elect" assists and learns from the current president before taking office.

I'm wondering if we did something like that where we always had a delegate-elect waiting to take over would be useful? The "delegate-elect" would have six months to gain endorsements to take over, which would get out of this system.

-tsunamy
[forum admin]

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I don't want to sound critical of our incoming or outgoing delegates, but what have they been doing over the last 54 days to speed up the process?

I count 3 mass-TG's from Amerion in that timeframe asking for endorsements for Beepee, and none from Beepee despite possessing the communications authority.

Further, since I am endorsing them both, I have no way to know this, but have those two been actively TGing individual nations asking them to endorse Beepee?

Perhaps it isn't our current transition process that is the issue. Perhaps it's just a slow transition due to the lack of action by Beepee and/or Amerion. Or perhaps more likely, it shows that our current endo qualifications for delegate elections are too low and will not provide for a speedy transition.

As I said again, I could be wrong about how much they have actually worked behind the scenes to transfer authority, but on the surface, it does not look too active.

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[1] Article 3, Clause 4 of the Elections Act stipulates that:

The Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon achieving the most endorsements. Prior to inauguration, the sole responsibility of the Delegate-elect is to gather endorsements, in coordination with the incumbent Delegate and in cooperation with the Council on Regional Security. The incumbent will continue to hold the office of the Delegate and will remain responsible for all responsibilities of that office, serving out the remainder of their term, until the inauguration of the Delegate-elect.

 Here is what I would propose: The Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon receiving the most endorsements upon the election result being certified. Prior to inauguration, the sole responsibility of the Delegate-elect is to gather endorsements, in coordination with the incumbent Delegate and in cooperation with the Council on Regional Security. The incumbent will continue to hold the office of the Delegate and will remain responsible for all responsibilities of that office, serving out the remainder of their term, until the inauguration of the Delegate-elect. The Delegate-elect shall receive all authority by ordering the prior Delegate to perform all legal orders by the Delegate-elect for gameside orders and to work between themselves to help get the Delegate-elect to become Delegate with help from the Council on Regional Security. The Delegate-elect shall assume all authority outside of the gameside community when he shall be formally inaugurated.

This will aid the transition, but there arent many options due to how NationStates work. Suggestions are welcome.

T

(This post was last modified: 03-14-2021, 01:01 PM by SpaceLost.)

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[1] Article 3, Clause 4 of the Elections Act stipulates that:

The Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon achieving the most endorsements. Prior to inauguration, the sole responsibility of the Delegate-elect is to gather endorsements, in coordination with the incumbent Delegate and in cooperation with the Council on Regional Security. The incumbent will continue to hold the office of the Delegate and will remain responsible for all responsibilities of that office, serving out the remainder of their term, until the inauguration of the Delegate-elect.

 Here is what I would propose: The Delegate-elect will be considered formally inaugurated upon receiving the most endorsements upon the election result being certified. Prior to inauguration, the sole responsibility of the Delegate-elect is to gather endorsements, in coordination with the incumbent Delegate and in cooperation with the Council on Regional Security. The incumbent will continue to hold the office of the Delegate and will remain responsible for all responsibilities of that office, serving out the remainder of their term, until the inauguration of the Delegate-elect. The Delegate-elect shall receive all authority by ordering the prior Delegate to perform all legal orders by the Delegate-elect for gameside orders and to work between themselves to help get the Delegate-elect to become Delegate with help from the Council on Regional Security. The Delegate-elect shall assume all authority outside of the gameside community when he shall be formally inaugurated.

This will aid the transition, but there arent many options due to how NationStates work. Suggestions are welcome.

T

I will bring this up to a vote as soon as I get legislator status and there is support and amendments are done, or some other legislator filing a motion to vote. LegComm.. please.. *dies*.

(This post was last modified: 03-14-2021, 01:09 PM by SpaceLost.)

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If we want to speed up the transition why haven't we asked allied militaries to deploy and endorse Beepee?

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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As Somyrion stated, only the in-game Delegate has real power over World Assembly and executive matters. I would suggest that after a new Delegate has been elected, they shall be given a Regional Officer position (as has been) but with all of the non-WA/executive powers. This way, the current Delegate can still perform WA and executive-related duties, while the Delegate-Elect will be able to carry out other tasks assigned to the office whilst gaining endorsements.

I might or might not have said this in the regional Discord server, but after a new Delegate has been elected, and if the current Delegate is in the CRS, their nation should be temporarily removed from the SWAN's list of security councillors to endorse. This will make new WA members less likely to endorse the current Delegate, stagnating or lowering their endorsement count, while the Delegate-elect will still gain endorsements. This will speed up the transition of the Delegacy.

In many RL organizations, there's a president and president-elect whereby the "president" holds the power and the "president-elect" assists and learns from the current president before taking office.

I'm wondering if we did something like that where we always had a delegate-elect waiting to take over would be useful? The "delegate-elect" would have six months to gain endorsements to take over, which would get out of this system.

How exactly would that work?

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As Somyrion stated, only the in-game Delegate has real power over World Assembly and executive matters. I would suggest that after a new Delegate has been elected, they shall be given a Regional Officer position (as has been) but with all of the non-WA/executive powers. This way, the current Delegate can still perform WA and executive-related duties, while the Delegate-Elect will be able to carry out other tasks assigned to the office whilst gaining endorsements.

I might or might not have said this in the regional Discord server, but after a new Delegate has been elected, and if the current Delegate is in the CRS, their nation should be temporarily removed from the SWAN's list of security councillors to endorse. This will make new WA members less likely to endorse the current Delegate, stagnating or lowering their endorsement count, while the Delegate-elect will still gain endorsements. This will speed up the transition of the Delegacy.

In many RL organizations, there's a president and president-elect whereby the "president" holds the power and the "president-elect" assists and learns from the current president before taking office.

I'm wondering if we did something like that where we always had a delegate-elect waiting to take over would be useful? The "delegate-elect" would have six months to gain endorsements to take over, which would get out of this system.

that would be a good solution, but it would still leave an important part of the powers of the Delegate-elect in question, I suggest we combine the plan to give the regional officer position to the DE and give the DE rights to order the current Delegate to perform certain WA and executive actions "when necessary".

(This post was last modified: 03-14-2021, 02:58 PM by SpaceLost.)

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In many RL organizations, there's a president and president-elect whereby the "president" holds the power and the "president-elect" assists and learns from the current president before taking office.

I'm wondering if we did something like that where we always had a delegate-elect waiting to take over would be useful? The "delegate-elect" would have six months to gain endorsements to take over, which would get out of this system.

As you know, this was my suggestion to the rest of the CRS when we were discussing the transition issue. The basic idea would be to have two different operations happen at the same time every six months: first, a new delegate-elect would be elected; and second, the previous term's delegate-elect, having spent 6 months gaining endorsements, would quickly and easily switch into the delegate seat. Then, 6 months later, the new delegate-elect would have arrived at an endo count close to the outgoing delegate, and would switch into the delegacy, while the next delegate-elect would be elected.

There are certainly some side effects -- including forcing delegate candidates to do more long-term planning. But it definitely seems better to me than the current haphazard situation where a majority of a delegate's term is actually considered part of the "transition" to the next delegate.

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

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