VOTE A Bicameral Semi-Presidential System

unibot

unibot

TNPer
One of the things that I've always felt has possibly diminished feeder governments is the clear disconnect between the forums and the region. When I was a much younger player, I wanted feeder governments to be run entirely on-site.. which nowadays I'd think of as too radical and chaotic. But as I reflect back on the idea, I wonder if there is something to the idea -- I think the opportunities of having an "assembly" of WA Nations in the region would be incredible.. new people becoming engaged in the region and submitted bills, discussion of bills on the RMB, larger voting electorates. I propose a system where we essentially amalgamate this radical idea with our current system and introduce the "Prime Minister" position which has been popular. There would be the Communal Assembly, the collection of WA-Members in the region who elect the Delegate, Vice Delegate and the CA's Speaker and likewise debate public policy and the region on the Regional Message Board and may vote and submit bills -- you could consider the CA, the "on-site" chamber. There would also be The Regional Assembly, in a reduced capacity from what it is now -- it would now only elect the Judiciary, the RA Speaker and would work with the Delegate to decide on a Prime Minister; you could consider the RA, the "off-site" chamber.

Elu suggested having the Delegate be the sole nominator of the Prime Minister and the Regional Assembly could approve/disapprove, I've proposed a system where either the Delegate or the RA could nominate the Prime Minister and the other has to approve/disapprove, thus the relationship is entirely mutual and symmetrical. I believe the idea of the Prime Minister is that he can be removed at any time with a non-confidence vote by the RA.

Elu also suggested the idea of having two speakers, one for each chamber.

Obviously, because this is a bicameral system, for any bill to pass, it must pass in both The Communal Assembly and The Regional Assembly. Here is a diagram:


bicameral.png

Questions? Comments? I'm willing to attend to them! :)
 
Interesting arrangement and nice flow chart. The question is, where does the ultimate executive authority lay?

We've had a number of previous Constitutions in which the Delegate is essentially a head of state and the PM was head of government. Essentially a unicameral 'Westminster' model. It had its good and bad points in terms of the mechanics of Nation States.

But I like the Bi-Cameral concept. The problem is deciding how an Upper and Lower house should be determined in terms of how a nation is assigned to those houses. It could be possibly done by age/population/endorsement levels based upon a statistical division of the citizen population. By that, I mean, create a median line in the population of full citizens that participate and the nation above that median line would be in the upper house and those below in the lower house.

Essentially, if you have 100 nations participating one would pick a division point such as endorsement ranking. Nations that are in the top say 25 % in endorsements are in the upper house and the rest are in the lower house at the beginning of each term. That way you keep stable ratio between the houses.

There would also have to be a separation of how legislation is introduced to make a difference in function between the two houses. For instance, all legislation must originate in one particular house and the other house, the upper, would have an advise and consent function as one example.

Also, you have to consider the need for balance of power being sufficiently divided between executive, legislative and judicial functions that are part and parcel of any stable government. I don't think that a Prime Minister is a particularly good idea as it tends to diminish the capacity and function of the Delegate to be other than a 'place holder' who does not much more than hold the region.

The trick is to find something rather on the simplistic end of the spectrum that functions regardless of activity levels. Potentially, any system, including the one we have, can effectively continue to operate with very few participants provided the arrangement is simple enough and intuitive enough. This would presume that most people are literate in three branch governments with bicameral systems (which is easy because most governments in the real world are arranged in one of three variations of this scheme).
 
In this model the PM is not selected independently of the delegate; they must be someone the Delegate agrees to. Semi-presidential rather than parliamentary.
 
I say we start all over again and create an entirely new Constitution that is simple in terms of being one or two pages long. The existing Constitution is a shambles, or rather, the government is a shambles because it cannot function under the existing constitution.

I propose a new Constitution and as soon as that is completed, new elections to put the new Constitution in actioni.

Nothing less will work. We cannot rework the old Constitution. It has resulted in the mess we now have. It has served its purpose but it's time we replace it and do it soon before this situation becomes even nastier as a result of an attempt to preserve a vegetable government.
 
I know, but none of the multiple calls for a new Constitution seem to be getting anywhere.

What we need to do is to have a whole-sale up or down vote on holding a Constitutional Convention and go from there.
 
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