Case #10 -- Senate Chats

[Togas]

DO NOT POST IN THIS THREAD UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED TO DO SO BY A JUDGE

The following complaint has been received by The Court. I will serve as Cheif Justice on this matter as the other Judges have conflicts that would keep them from being able to fully tend to this hearing. However, all of the Judges will participate in this case.

civman2000 states in his complaint:

I would like to bring a case before the Court over the validity of this poll and the laws passed subsequently in the recent Senate meeting:

This bill will authorise decisions reached in any meeting of the Senate posted on the forum at least 24 hours in advance and meeting quorum to have all of the constitutional authority of a normal threaded Senate Bill.

1. From Article II of the Constitution:

(a) To propose a law, a senator (or minister under the conditions above) [added by Amendment I, 12/23/02] must post a poll that is clear, unbiased, states the proposed law in its entirety, and gives three options: “yea”, “nay”, and “abstain”.

Although the COnstitution does not explicitly define what "posting a poll" means, it is a commonsense understanding that this refers to posting a new thread and using the poll tool available on this forum. The laws made under the said bill would not be/were not posted in a poll and therefore are invalid.
2. From Article II of the Constitution:

(d) The poll must be open for at least 72 hours.

This argument only applies to the laws passed in the meeting that has been held already. Even in teh bills proposed counted as "polls," these polls were not open for 72 hours and thus are invalid. Note that the principle of a meeting is still legal in respect to this argument, but the meeting must be open long enough for all bills proposed to be voted on for 72 hours, and that would deny the whole point of such meetings, though legally they would be possible.


Plaintiff is civman2000
Defendant is Thud

The Court will allow no parties of interest in this matter. The Court may allow for additional defendants. If you feel you should be listed as a defendant in this action, please PM me.
Each party may appoint counsel, however, if counsel is appointed and accepted by The Court only your counsel may post in this thread. This Thread will be run by the following guidelines:

Only the parties OR their counsel and the Judges may post in this thread.

The Court will now give the Defense 48 hours to post a reply or to find counsel and have his counsel post a reply to this complaint.

Once a reply is received, we will begin this proceeding. The Plaintiff will post his first argument, defense may then post a respone. Parties (or their counsel) may respond to each other's arguments as they choose.

The Judges may at any time ask parties (or their counsel) questions which the parties (or their counsel) must answer before responding to any arguments or comments made by the other side.

Once we begin, the thread will continue until The Court is satisfied that all arguments have been heard, all evidence has been collected, and all questions answered. The Court will then allow both parties a closing argument and then close this thread to discuss.

Questions? PM to me.

--Judge Togas

[Togas]

Jurisdictional Note:

4 of the 5 Judges have responded thus far to this complaint. 3 of the 4 agreed to hear this matter, 1 moved for dismissal, however with 3 agreeing to hear this matter The Court shall proceed on this complaint.

--Judge Togas

[Thud]

Your Honors, I will be representing myself in this case. My counter-argument is as follows and in full:

In Response to Point 1:
I frankly disagree with what civman2000 presumes. In the opinion of myself and others attending, a poll (the first) was posted at the chat, which was worded correctly, and the results were all a standard yea, nay, or abstain, collected by a member of the cabinet, and counted and verified by Justice Nimitz. Indeed, I will consent that the second poll, that concerning what to do with our leader, is technically invalid as a bill. However, I believe that the first bill, if considered by the court to be law, is a clear instruction that the game must be continued in the very near future, and gives the cabinet authorization to take whatever action necessary to do so. The second poll is simply a suggestion to the cabinet on what that course of action should be.

In response to Point 2:
Here there seems to be an interesting contradiction. Also from Article II:

10- The Senate may make its own laws regarding Senate procedure.

Now, I believe that this is a clear case of the freedom of the Senate to make laws regarding their own procedure. I believe the drafters of the Constitution foresaw such a disagreement, and did not want a new amendment introduced every time a new Senate position was created or a new, time-saving, procedure was enacted. As an analogy, for the U.S. Presidential election there are write-in ballots. These are obviously collected during a wider spread of time than one day in November, as the mail simply cannot all arrive at residences and then be sent back to the government at the same time. The nature of the forum is the same. People are not all on at the same time, they cannot post messages every day, and it works slowly. The chat is more like going to a voting place to cast your ballot. You have to physically attend during a short period of time. If you cannot, you send in a write-in ballot. The two methods need to be considered separately when attempting to tally votes.

Further, I contend that the poll was in fact open for 72 hours. There was certainly a 72-hour period in which absentee ballots could have been sent in to SMC E_T or Justice Nimitz. Everyone had the opportunity to vote. Obviously, had swift action been taken immediately after the chat, this would not be the case. However, this law had yet to be enacted and used until the time of this writing. Interestingly, that means that the meeting authorized by the bill in question really accomplished nothing that could be considered a violation of the Constitution. (Though it was not without effect in general) Clearly, this bill will not stand as a reasonable or productive method of meeting in the future, however by the time this becomes relevant a related Amendment should be proposed and passed that will fix this and other issues.

[jdjdjd]

civman2000,

Please clarify how the poll you mentioned in the second argument has any impact on the matter of whether or not the Senate Bill Thud posted is valid.

Thud,

Please clarify whether or not as civman2000 mentions in his first Point,

Although the COnstitution does not explicitly define what "posting a poll" means, it is a commonsense understanding that this refers to posting a new thread and using the poll tool available on this forum.

a meeting is poll.

To both,

Please do not confuse the poll Thud posted with the meeting and polls mentioned in the meeting organized by E_T. As I see it, the validity of Thuds Senate Bill is in question here. Let us deal with the facts of that Bill so as to not confuse ourselves. At least, in your posts distinguish them make sure you are clear and not moving from one to the other.

Thank you.

[Togas]

The Response by the Defense has been submitted.

Both parties may begin their arguments after each has addressed any questions given to him by The Court.

This process will continue until all of our questions have been asked and answered, and all of the outstanding issues regarding this case have been discussed.

--Judge Togas

[Thud]

Your Honors: Now, is the meeting itself considered a poll? No, I do not beleive this to be the case. However, the decisions reached (provided that they do not violate the constitution--- sort of an unspoken law in my bill, as of course these decisions must not violate the constitution) constitute an agreement by the Senate (obviously, in order to come to an agreement, a poll is posted which the Senate votes on--- noting that this agreement\poll does, of course, not violate the constitution), and that agreement of the Senate is then invested with the power of a true Senate-enacted law.

I apologlize for the confusion there. I was speaking entirely about the polls in E_Ts meeting. I was doing so to establish that nothing illegal or unconstitutional has come of this law. In fact, Civmans's original complaint states that he is challenging "the validity of this poll and the laws passed subsequently in the recent Senate meeting", so I beleive I am correct in addressing these concerns.

It may not be clear that I am operating under the assumption that my bill itself was entirely legal: after all it meets all the requirments, unless Civman would like to point out that it doesn't. So, in fact, I am attempting to disprove that the law contained within the bill in fact led to events taking place that are unconstitutional.

EDIT: This is my full response to Jdjdjd's questioning.

[GodKing]

I beleave that I may be somewhat confused as to what civman2000 is questionining. civman2000 - can you please expand and help to clarify what your contention is?

[civman2000]

As Thud said, I am challenging both E_T's meeting and Thud's bill. Also, as I said in my complaint, my second argument ONLY applies to the meeting, not the bill.

I contend that the poll was in fact open for 72 hours. There was certainly a 72-hour period in which absentee ballots could have been sent in to SMC E_T or Justice Nimitz. Everyone had the opportunity to vote.

I contend that unless every single issue is clearly posted with all of the other constitutional requirements met as well as instructions for giving absentee votes are posted for 72 hours, the bills made in the meeting are unconstitutional. It was not until E_T's post (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...0&pagenumber=4) at 16:34 GMT on the 11th that this was done, and even then it is questionable that it was clear enough to meet the constitutional requirements (if you want i will elaborate on this but i think it unnecessary). The meeting ended only a few hours later.

In response to Thud's response to my first argument:
I still contend that a "poll" must use the forum's poll function. THis is something that there are no true arguments for or against, and is merely a matter of opinion.

Also in response to the fact that the Senate can make its own procedures:

2 No law may be created that violates or changes the Constitution.

Thus, the Senate may make its own procedures, as long as they are not contrary to the Constitution.

(iii) The Senate has the power to modify the quorum requirements or to perform a census without amending the Constitution.

This may seem irrelevant, but it is not. The quorum is the ONLY thing that may be changed in the constitution without an amendment. If it were possible to change the requirement of posting a poll or other constitutional requirements without an amendment, it would be mentioned in teh Constitution. If it was not mentioned that the quorum may be modified without an amendment, it could be arguable that the Senate procedures clause allows Senate bills to modify the requirements mentioned above, but because it is explicitly mentioned that one or the requirements may be changed, it must be assumed that the rest may not.

[Togas]

I believe there are two issues here.

1) over the validity of the bill posted by Thud that created the "Senate Chat" idea.

2) the laws (decisions) passed subsequently in the recent Senate meeting that occured this past Saturday.

If we find that the bill is Valid, then we would have to determine if the laws passed at the Senate chat followed the established rules. However, the key issue is on the validity of the bill proposed by Thud, and the arguments in this thread should focus primarily on that.

My question for civman2000:

You state that "The quorum is the ONLY thing that may be changed in the constitution without an amendment" because that is the only thing that is clearly spelled out, but you seem to discount Art II, Sec 10 (emphasis added) --

The Senate may make its own laws regarding Senate procedure.

What laws, if any, can the Senate make regarding Senate procedure? Isn't it true that any laws they make regarding procedure would violate the Constitution? How should The Court resolve this possible conflict within the Constitution?

--Judge Togas

[civman2000]

For example, the Senate could make rules on making a queue for voting on bills, so only (say) 3 could be voted on at a time. Or it could require 24 hours of discussion before posting a bill. Or other things, as long as the basic requirements of the format of a bill and that any Senator can make a bill are upheld. BUt it is clear that the Senate cannot make bills on its procedures that violate these requirements. After all, not only does Article VI express the supremacy of the constitution but also Article II itself: "(g) Proposed laws may not violate or change the Constitution. Proposed laws may change any existing laws or Executive orders." Also, if the Senate could use the powers given to it to violate the Constitution, it could remove the right of the executive to veto, for no other branch has that power and "All powers not specifically given to the other branches are hereby given to the Senate"

[Togas]

Question for civman2000:

Your only objection to this poll/bill is that it should have been an amendment to enact this new procedure, correct? Are there any other legal flaws with it?

--Judge Togas

[Thud]

Also, if the Senate could use the powers given to it to violate the Constitution, it could remove the right of the executive to veto, for no other branch has that power and "All powers not specifically given to the other branches are hereby given to the Senate"

I beleive that one thing at issue here is whether my bill did in fact change or violate the constitution. There is an obvious distinction for this when the case is that of eliminating established parts of the constitution. However, my bill neither struck nor added any parts of the Constitution.

So what we might be arguing here is this: If the U.S. Prohibition Amendment had passed as a law instead of an amendment, would it be a violation or change to the constitution? I beleive that it most certainly would not have been, and I also beleive this to be the case with my bill.

[civman2000]

Togas: If I understand your question correctly, you are asking whether I would think the bill would make a valid amendment. To that I say yes

Thud: It does not eliminate part of the Constitution, that is true. However, it does contradict it. The Constitution says that "Senators may also propose motions, resolutions, orders, and decisions of the Senate. These are proposed in the same way as laws and follow the same rules. These carry the same authority as a law." It seems clear that bills in Senate meetings would fit into this clause. Thus, in order to "carry the same authority as law," they must "follow the same rules," including the requirement that they be posted as polls, which in my opinion means using the forum feature. Because Thud's law gives a new type of law the same authority as any other law without following the COnstitutional requirements, it violates the COnstitution.

[Togas]

I invite any of the other Judges to ask additional questions. If none post any additional questions in the next 24 hours, we will move to closing arguments by both parties.

In the mean time, the parties may continue to debate each other if they choose.

--Judge Togas

[GodKing]

I have no further questions.