Quorum

mr_sniffles

mr_sniffles

TNPer
Constitutional Amendment:
Art 1.2 Amendment Procedure
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3) All amendments require a quorum of either 15 members or 30% of the RA, whichever is higher.

Art 2.3 Legislative Action
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7) All bills require a quorum of either 15 members or 30% of the RA, whichever is higher.
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I wanted to just add one sentence but requiring both bills and amendments seemed messy and confusing by leaving it in one place to the exclusion of the other.

Thoughts?
 
I believe that a quorum requirement in the Constitution, to amend the Constitution or Bill of Rights, is unavoidable. I am of the opinion that a law or internal rule cannot add to the requirements for the adoption of amendments to either or those documents.
 
Eluvatar:
I would rather not have this in the constitution. I'd prefer a set of Assembly Procedures that set this.
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To be honest I like the idea of an internal policy more than an amendments but an amendment offers more guarantees. However I am a servant to the ppl.
 
Grosseschnauzer:
I believe that a quorum requirement in the Constitution, to amend the Constitution or Bill of Rights, is unavoidable. I am of the opinion that a law or internal rule cannot add to the requirements for the adoption of amendments to either or those documents.
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You're right. Currently the Constitution does not allow for Assembly rules to change how Amendments are passed.

How about the following proposal then:

Apologies that some of the procedures are non-germane, but I felt that since I was writing Assembly internal rules up, why waste the opportunity >_>.

A Bill to amend the Constitution of the North Pacific and to introduce a set of Assembly Procedures.

Section One

The Constitution of the North Pacific shall be amended as follows:

Article I:
Section 2: Amendment Procedure

1. The Constitution and Declaration of Rights and Obligations may only be changed via constitutional amendment in the form of 75% Assembly approval in a vote lasting ten full days a 3/4 majority vote of the Assembly.
2. Proposals for constitutional amendment are immune to veto.
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Section Two

Should this bill's Section One pass the requisite vote, the Assembly of the North Pacific hereby adopts the following procedures:

Assembly Procedures:
I. Definitions

1. When these procedures refer to a location, the location is the appropriate location on the official off-site forum.
2. A Quorum is defined as either 15 Assembly members or 15% of the Assembly, whichever is greater. It is met if a Quorum votes on a proposal.
3. A Motion is defined as a request to subpoena or motion to recall a member of the Government.
4. A Procedural Motion is defined as a proposal which changes only Assembly procedure.
5. A Bill is defined as a proposal which changes the North Pacific Legal Code, unless it is also a Major Bill.
6. A Major Bill is defined as a proposal which includes a Constitutional Amendment.

II. Procedure for a Motion

1. Motions shall be proposed in the area set aside for Preliminary Discussions.
2. Motions must be proposed by Assembly members.
3. If a Motion is seconded by another Assembly member, the Speaker shall immediately put it to a vote in the Assembly Public Halls.
4. A Vote on a Motion shall continue at least 3 days until a Quorum has voted.
5. Assembly members may vote in favour, against, or abstain on a Motion.
6. After 7 days have passed, if a Motion fails to meet Quorum it shall fail.
7. If more Assembly members vote favourably than unfavourably and the Motion meets Quorum, it shall pass.

III. Procedure for a Procedural Motion

1. Procedural Motions shall be treated like Motions except for the below listed differences.
2. A vote on a Procedural Motion must continue for at least 5 days.
3. If a Procedural Motion fails to meet Quorum in 5 days, the Speaker may choose to extend the vote to 14 days and ignore the Quorum requirement if there are no objections from Assembly members.

IV. Procedure for a Bill

1. Bills shall be treated like Motions except for the below listed differences.
2. A Bill may not go to a vote until either half a Quorum has nominated it or 3 days have passed, whichever comes first, unless it is brought to a vote by the CLO.
3. A vote on a Bill must continue for 7 days.

V. Procedure for a Major Bill

1. Major Bills shall be treated like Motions except for the below listed differences.
2. A Major Bill may not go to a vote until either half a Quorum has nominated it or 5 days have passed, whichever comes first, unless it is brought to a vote by the CLO.
3. A vote on a Major Bill must continue for 10 days.
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Section Three

Should this bill's Section One fail to pass the requisite vote, but the rest of this bill pass the vote to institute Assembly Procedure, Section Two of this bill shall be enacted without Article V.
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If people have better ideas for time periods of course, I'm game.

Also, all suggestions are welcome :D

Including "stfu noob" :P
 
The procedures seem over restrictive, plus it'll confuse the hell out of our newer members. The whole idea of streamlining was to cut the bureaucracy. But I'll hold off and wait for additional opinions.
 
Defining a quorum in the Constitution is a good safety measure to prevent mob-rule or worse yet, an overturning of the Constitution and/or Government by a small number of RA members.

If anything, we need a means to enforce RA activity and remove those who insist upon being inactive. The easiest way to do this is to reduce the whole system to a Republic and limit the available RA seats proportionately to the number of "Citizens" or active participants.
 
Romanoffia:
If anything, we need a means to enforce RA activity and remove those who insist upon being inactive. The easiest way to do this is to reduce the whole system to a Republic and limit the available RA seats proportionately to the number of "Citizens" or active participants.
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We have a one month activity clause that allows me (the Speaker) to automatically cut them out. In fact, I just cut three.
 
mr_sniffles:
The procedures seem over restrictive, plus it'll confuse the hell out of our newer members. The whole idea of streamlining was to cut the bureaucracy. But I'll hold off and wait for additional opinions.
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Are they actually confusing?

Then I'll try and revise them again...
 
Eluvatar:
mr_sniffles:
The procedures seem over restrictive, plus it'll confuse the hell out of our newer members. The whole idea of streamlining was to cut the bureaucracy. But I'll hold off and wait for additional opinions.
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Are they actually confusing?

Then I'll try and revise them again...
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Do we really need to make things so official with bills, major bills, procedures for motions and procedural motions?

I mean I think the system we have now has worked fine. I mean I've eliminated Formal Discussions, at the end of the day shouldn't we trust the personality of those we elect? (As long as its lawful.)
 
Eluvatar, that proposal is way too complicated just to establish a quorum requirement. Under the last Constitution, it was done in one paragraph.

However, I agree with Roman that we need a quorum requirement where it relates to amending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
 
It doesn't simply establish a quorum requirement. It also establishes how things go to a vote other than Speaker fiat :ermm:
 
Elvia tows Mr. Sniffles Fiat:

dsci0288zz2.jpg
 
Eluvatar:
It doesn't simply establish a quorum requirement. It also establishes how things go to a vote other than Speaker fiat :ermm:
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It does seem overly complicated Elu.

Btw, don't you mean 15 members or 30%, as opposed to 15%?

I think we should focus on keeping a quorum here as opposed to other procedures in the assembly. Save for the quorum, I think the other stuff works fine.

Does an abstain vote count towards a quorum? :ADN:
 
It's sort of like voting "present" in the US Congress or Senate.
 
Objections or additions to what? The stated topic is "quorum," however, the draft I see goes way beyond the issue of quorum.

Second, I'm not sure the quorum issue has been properly addressed with respect to Constitutional amendments. If I understamd the one proposal, there is no quorum requirement being added.

This needs a lot more work than it's been given, so far.
 
Grosseschnauzer:
Objections or additions to what? The stated topic is "quorum," however, the draft I see goes way beyond the issue of quorum.

Second, I'm not sure the quorum issue has been properly addressed with respect to Constitutional amendments. If I understamd the one proposal, there is no quorum requirement being added.

This needs a lot more work than it's been given, so far.
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I speak of the amendment that I posted above (the first post,) Eluvatar has stated he's going to redo his since it's too complicated though his RA Procedural reform is another topic, though not without merit.
 
Take two...

A Bill to amend the Constitution of the North Pacific and to introduce a set of Assembly Procedures.

Section One

The Constitution of the North Pacific shall be amended as follows:

Article I:
Section 2: Amendment Procedure

1. The Constitution and Declaration of Rights and Obligations may only be changed via constitutional amendment in the form of 75% Assembly approval in a vote lasting ten full days a 3/4 majority vote of the Assembly.
2. Proposals for constitutional amendment are immune to veto.
Click to expand...

Section Two

Should this bill's Section One pass the requisite vote, the Assembly of the North Pacific hereby adopts the following procedures:

Assembly Procedures:
I. Definitions

1. When these procedures refer to a location, the location is the appropriate part of the official off-site forum.
2. A Quorum is defined as either 15 Assembly members or 30% of the Assembly, whichever is greater. It is met if a Quorum votes on a proposal.
3. A Motion is defined as a request to subpoena or motion to recall a member of the Government.
4. A Bill is defined as a proposal which changes the North Pacific Legal Code or Assembly Procedure, unless it is also a Major Bill.
5. A Constitutional Bill is defined as a proposal which includes a Constitutional Amendment.

II. Procedure for a Motion

1. Motions shall be proposed in the area set aside for Preliminary Discussions.
2. Motions must be proposed by Assembly members.
3. If a Motion is seconded by another Assembly member, the Speaker shall immediately put it to a vote in the Assembly Public Halls.
4. Assembly members may vote in favour, against, or abstain on a Motion.
5. A Vote on a Motion shall continue at least 3 days.
6. After 3 days, if the Motion meets Quorum, it shall be closed.
7. Otherwise the Vote shall be closed after 7 days have passed..
8. If more Assembly members vote favourably than unfavourably and the Motion meets Quorum, it shall pass.

III. Procedure for a Bill

1. Bills shall be treated like Motions except for the below listed differences.
2. A Bill may be put to a vote at the discretion of the Speaker, unless a Quorum has nominated it or the CLO has brought it to a vote, in which case it is voted on immediately.
3. A vote on a Bill must continue for 7 days.

IV. Procedure for a Constitutional Bill

1. Constitutional Bills shall be treated like Motions except for the below listed differences.
2. A Constitutional Bill may not go to a vote until either half a Quorum has nominated it or 5 days have passed, whichever comes first, unless it is brought to a vote by the CLO.
3. A vote on a Constitutional Bill must continue for 10 days.
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Section Three

Should this bill's Section One fail to pass the requisite vote, but the rest of this bill pass the vote to institute Assembly Procedure, Section Two of this bill shall be enacted without Article IV.
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All suggestions are still welcome :D
 
I have a problem with a proposal that extends beyond imposing quorum requirements.

It is not clear that additional procedures are yet needed, and this proposal ignores the Constitutional authority granted to the Speaker with respect to discretion on the procedure to be followed within the Regional Assembly.
 
Do you mean this?

2. The Speaker decides the order in which bills will be voted upon and is responsible for opening and closing each vote.
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All this bill does in respect to that is require the Speaker to put to a vote proposals that a lot of people ask for, the Speaker still has discretionary power as to when to put what to a vote largely.
 
I don't see how this version was different than the other one, can you show us what changes were made?

Also, it seems you did nto address my concerns with this bill that I had on the first page of this discussion....:ADN:
 
Govindia:
I don't see how this version was different than the other one, can you show us what changes were made?

Also, it seems you did nto address my concerns with this bill that I had on the first page of this discussion....:ADN:
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Oh, I misunderstood what you wrote then. I'll edit my take two..
 
Long ago, in a galaxy far away, the Speaker also had the discretion to decide what bill even went to a vote - but that arrangement leads to the development of 'political parties'.
 
Setting a quorum rule within Assembly procedure is redundant since we need to change how we amend the Constitution. My proposal was shorter and snappier (it does jazz hands like crazy) so I think Elu`s proposal should be separate from this debate.

Elu, barring any other serious objections do you want me to move your proposal or should we just wait for you to open a new topic on your newer revised proposal?
 
The way written, it would allow for a running vote on constitutional amendments, which isn't a bad idea. I like the idea but an additional provision would be needed to remove votes by inactive/CTEd RA members in the total count at any time the tabulation is totalled out.
 
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