Writing a New Constitution

[Panag]

Originally posted by Togas
I appreciate Octavian X for starting up this thread, however, I don't think what we need is just to import Fanatika's Con into our game. We've had 2 prior Constitutions. The first failed due to vagueness, the second "failed" due to completeness ... being too large and spelling things out to such a degree that people were intimidated to read the entire document.

Unorthodox has some good points about the Con. One of my main concerns when joining the Court in the last game was to try to fix the tedious system of Justice that we'd had to live with. I think we were on the right track when the game concluded, but there is still more to be done.

I'd like to see things simplified. I've never been fond of our complicated Impeachment system, and other system can be axed entirely. There seems to be enough public trust in our Ministers and Judges that less "checks & balances" need to be imposed ... less bureaucracy and "red tape".

I propose we form a Revision Committee to not REDRAFT an entirely new Constitution, just to tweek, reoganize, and simplify the one we have. A group of 4, perhaps less, to polish the problem areas, simplify the language, and make some key changes.

The other option, it seems, is to draft something entirely new, and I have to admit that it's not as easy to do as some might imagine. I believe it would be fun to come up with an entirely different style of Constitution for this game. I just don't think that it would be fun for most of the team -- many would find it just a distraction.

--Togas

hi ,

, we could put up a couple chat sessions , .... 6 people at least , why , well that 6 people to toggle any problems and it shall give us more input , ...

we should also make an idea thread for the constition , ask all the people who ever held a seat what they found that was not working or needs to be improved , ...

have a nice constitutional day

[Togas]

Here's a draft revision of the Senate. It uses most of the old Senate rules. Please make suggestions on how to make this simpler and if you think this idea works.

First Senate Revison

Article II. The Senate

1 All citizens are a part of the Senate and any citizen may propose a law.
(a) To propose a law, a citizen must post a poll that is clear, unbiased, states the proposed law in its entirety, and gives three options: “yea”, “nay”, and “abstain”.
(b) The poll’s subject must begin with the text “SENATE BILL:”
(c) The first post of the poll must clarify the options if clarification is needed and state the expiration date.
(d) The poll shall originally be set for 72 hours, unless the Chairperson has given permission for a different timeframe.
(e) To pass, the proposed law must receive more “yea” votes than “nay” votes. It must also meet the quorum.
(i) The quorum: The total number of votes cast in the poll for passage must be greater than or equal to 25% of the total number of votes cast in the most recent Presidential election.
(ii) Any “abstain” votes are considered solely for quorum purposes. “Abstain” votes may not be considered “yea” or “nay” votes.
(iii) The Senate has the power to modify the quorum requirements or to perform a census without amending the Constitution.
(f) Proposed laws may not violate or change the Constitution. Proposed laws may change any existing laws or Executive orders.

2 Citizens 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.

3 The Senate shall elect a Chairperson who will serve a one month term.
(a) The Chairperson shall be responsible for keeping records of all laws, motions, resolutions, and all other matters that are passed, amended, or removed.
(b) The Chairperson may set a different voting period on any law, motion, or other matter. With permission from the Chairperson, the citizen who posts a Senate Bill may set the voting duration for 24 hours to 7 days.
(c) The Chairperson may “table” any Senate Bill one time only, by posting in the thread that the issue is tabled.
(i) Any Senate Bill that is tabled is immediately invalidated.
(ii) The tabled Senate Bill is to be further debated and discussed for a period of at least 7 days.
(iii) A Senate Bill may be reproposed 7 days after it was tabled.

4 The Senate has the sole power to declare war.
5 The Senate may approve Military Alliances, Trade Embargos, and Mutual Protection Pacts instead of the President.
6 The Senate has the sole power to set Mobilization level to “War-Time”.
7 The Senate has the sole power to change the form of the government.
8 The Senate has the sole power to decide how Great Leaders are used
9 The Senate has the power to determine how money is spent. The Senate is not required to use this power. Should the Senate fail to act on any spending matter, or should a spending matter be vetoed, the President may decide.
10 The Senate may make its own laws regarding Senate procedure.
11 All powers not specifically given to the other branches are hereby given to the Senate.


--Togas

[GodKing]

One point - have elected ministers also be part of the "senate". That would eliminate the BS of not being able to post polls and such. The difference is minimal in the number of potential overall votes, etc. Ya, it might not be logical, but it would work.

Change the name - senate is formal. Lets make it informal.

Have the senate prez/chairpserson actually be the VP of the game. If the Prez has to leave, the VP takes over and appoints someone to be the next VP. That eliminates another position for someone to run for. Remember all the problems we had last time finding people to run for positions. It also gives the VP some formal powers.

Clauses 4-10 are redundent considering 11. Why clutter things up. Lets erase them. Although if the following suggestion is taken, this might not be that big of a deal

Put some additional lables in. For example, after 1, but before 1a, lable it "procedures for proposing laws". That way someone who is glancing at it will know if they want to skip over that section or not, as it is just procedural BS and nothing of substance. Also, if someone is looking up procedural stuff it makes it far easier to find the correct one. As this is all web based if someone was good with links and stuff thay can probably just put all the procedural stuff in another location with lots of links, making the whole document easier.

Hope these ideas help Togas. I have already offered to Unortho (our first DM) to help write regarding that positions responsibilities. I have some interesting ideas from my prior experience...

[Togas]

Here's a revision of The Court. I'm not sure if they fully addresses Unorthodox's concerns, but I hope that this is a good starting point...

First Revision of The Court

Article III. The Court

1 The Court has the power to rule upon contested disputes involving legal interpretations; validity of polls and elections; violations of the Constitution, law, or Executive orders; and any other dispute of national importance.

2 The Court is composed of Five Judges.
(b) Each Judge serves a three month term of office. There is no limit to the number of terms a Judge may serve.
(c) The Court shall select a “Senior Justice”
(i) The Senior Justice may preside over any hearing before the Court.
(ii) The Senior Justice shall ensure that a timely report is published for every decision and make sure that the decision is archived.
(iii) The report shall communicate the rationale behind the decision.
(iv) Failure to publish the report is grounds for an appeal.
(v) The Senior Justice shall also keep a public record of the Constitution in its most current form, listing all amendments and prior laws.

3 The Court shall come together to rule on any issue that is lawfully before it.
(a) Issues for the Court shall be posted publicly.
(b) Any Judge may begin a hearing on the issue once it is posted.
(c) The Court shall decide on its own what type of hearing it will have. It may make its own rules of procedure and enforce them upon citizens who are before the Court.
(d) Upon the agreement of 3 Judges, any issue may be dismissed at any time.
(e) When the Court feels that the Issue has been fully and fairly discussed, it may then issue a ruling on the Issue. At least three Judges must be involved in any ruling.
(f) Should the Court be tied about how to rule on an issue, any non-voting Judge is to then review the case and vote. If the issue is still tied, the Senior Justice shall break the tie.
(g) All rulings are immediately official and final until overturned by a subsequent appeal.
(e) Appeals may be granted if there are grounds to believe that an error in the application of the law has been made. Any citizen may make an application for an appeal. If at least 3 Judges agree to hear the appeal, a new hearing will be created to examine the issue.

4 The Court may issue an injunction to halt any aspect of the game for up to 72 hours if at least 2 Judges agree to do so.
(a) Injunctions may only be issued for good cause.
(b) An injunction may only be continued beyond 72 hours if a majority of the Court agrees to do so.
(c) An injunction may be overturned at any time by a majority of the Court.

5 The Court has the authority to view the poll results and/or votes cast of a contested poll for the passage of a law, decision, motion, or other Senate act; or any amendment’s ratification poll.
(a) This may be done to ensure that non-citizens did not cast votes in the poll.
(b) If it is found that a non-citizen cast a vote, that vote shall be removed from the final total.
(c) In the event that the Court does view the record of who cast which votes, the Court is mandated to keep the individual identities and votes of all lawful voters private.


--Togas

[Octavian X]

My first comment - the labelling is missing the letter 'a' in the second clause of the court proposal...

Now, the proposals themselves...
The Senate revision works well. I'd rename the Senate to something like the 'Assembly' to make it sound a bit nicer.
Also, GodKing has a point - give everyone the ability to start a Senate poll. All ministers are citizens, and all citizens are members of the Senate.
The Chairperson is a needs new position, and should be one independent of any other position. I might ban him from actually voting in Senate polls, just so that he can have a tie-breaking one should need be.

The Court - I think this proposal will work.

[civman2000]

One point - have elected ministers also be part of the "senate". That would eliminate the BS of not being able to post polls and such. The difference is minimal in the number of potential overall votes, etc. Ya, it might not be logical, but it would work....

Have the senate prez/chairpserson actually be the VP of the game. If the Prez has to leave, the VP takes over and appoints someone to be the next VP. That eliminates another position for someone to run for. Remember all the problems we had last time finding people to run for positions. It also gives the VP some formal powers.

I like these ideas. Also, I think that if the Chairperson is NOT to be the VP, they should be removable by a simple majority in a 3-day no confidence vote. After the vote a new chairperson should be appointed by the president and approved. Until a new chairperson ahs been approved the removed chairperson can continue their duties as long as they do not interfere with their removal.

[Octavian X]

Well, are there any other thoughts or proposals? With a few ideas for change, I could tackle another article if necesary...

[Panag]

hi ,

should we put the names of cities in the con > law , .....

have a nice day

[GodKing]

NO. Lets let the DM office handle city names, and the SMC office handle army names.

[Togas]

I think we all appreciate the suggestions, and having OctavianX willing to help means that IF there is a redraft of our Constitution, we'll have another vetran drafter involved.

HOWEVER, I just need to make a very important point about this whole process:

What is "wrong" with the New Con, as voiced by most of those who dislike it, is that it is TOO LARGE, too complex, too bureaucratic, too hard to understand, and so forth.

IF there is to be a redraft, it should be simple, uncomplicated, easy to understand, well organized (and I think OctavianX can really help us in that department), and uncluttered with every single little detail and request that people felt was missing or vague.

We DO NOT need to go about re-spelling out everything. We've already done that once before and people were turned off by it.

Alternately, and very realisticly, we can continue playing with the current Con and propose Amendments to fix problems with it... I for one agree that the Senate should be opened up to everyone and my proposed redraft of that article addressed that concern by removing the requirement that "only senators" can post bills, and added in the new position of the Chairperson to manage the Senate.

As for The Court, even if the proposed changes I posted are not enacted, I (as a member of The Court) would impliment them to the extent that the law allowed. Our system needs to serve the interests of the law AND the interests of the game. And so long as I'm on the Court I'm going to push to expidite all matters and not wait 3-5 days just to make sure that every judge has had a chance to give his opinion.

In conclusion, we have two choices:

1) Redraft the whole Con and make one that is really simple, easy for anyone to understand, and unprohibitive to fun and progress of the game. NOT make another monsterous body of law.

2) Draft amendments to the current Con and make gradual changes within the current Amendment system.
Also better organize our Con so that players can better read and understand it.

My vote is for 2.

--Togas

[Octavian X]

This likely deserves a new poll. I agree, method two would work best to allow maximum citizen input into the constitution.

However, I think that we could change the formatting using HTML to make it look nicer. For exmaple, using a basic list code...

1. The Executive Branch.
   
   1. President
      
      1. Duties
         
      2. duties, etc.
      
      
   2. Another position
   
   
2. The Senate
   

[GodKing]

I have suggested 2 from the beginning of this discussion. I was hoping that those who wanted to change would offer to do the work themselves, but alas....

[Kloreep]

2 sounds fine to me. Probably best, since we don't have any sort of new constitution ready yet.

[Panag]

hi ,

two things ;

Keep
It
Simple
Stupid

or kiss , a thing we often dont see


Together
Everyone
Achieves
More

a thing we dont do to often , .....

have a nice day