ABC for Speaker
Rebuilding the Speaker's Office - Term 2
Promises and Results
Promise Made: Continuing the efficiency of citizenship checks
What Happened:
Exactly that. Citizenship checks continued as usual with little delay between applying for and receiving citizenship.
The Plan:
Citizenship checks will experience a bit of a change in that we are looking to initiate a new system once the move to XenForo is made. This system would involve tagging applicants with the necessary tag after passing a check rather than posting, helping to simplify and expedite the job of citizenship checks.
Promise Made: Holding polls to decide the future of RA Digests
What Happened:
A poll was held and it maintained the consensus that Digests should stay, but made us reconsider how we planned to change them.
The Plan:
The Regional Assembly Digests will continue in their current format, but rather than being published in set intervals, they'll be published only when there is a certain threshold of activity.
Promise Made: An increase in voter activity in the Regional Assembly
What Happened:
At the beginning of my term, legislative voting activity stood at around 1/3 of all citizens. Now at the end of my term, it stands at about 45%, although that fails to take into account that the last vote was held at the end of July, so the real voting activity number stands around 61% of all citizens around during the most recent vote.
The Plan:
If re-elected, I plan to work on increasing legislative activity in the area of creating bills and proposals. This term the focus on activity was put squarely on trying to make people vote more often, but next term it will be put on encouraging more people to propose bills.
Promise Made: Bringing back the Speaker's Staff
What Happened:
It's been a while since the Speaker's Office has had its own staff. Finally though, they're back once more. The Speaker's Staff have played an active role in producing the RA Digests and some have been trained in duties of the office.
The Plan:
The Speaker's Staff will continue to be expanded in both size and scope. Rather than just produce and be trained how to make RA Digests, they will also be trained in other duties of the office and if the size of the staff can be increased, they could also serve as active promoters of the RA and form a research division to figure out what is going well and what needs to be changed.
New Promises
Promise #1: Deputies who know what they're doing
Explanation:
The Speaker's Office has received complaints in the past about its Deputies not being experienced and sometimes not knowing answers to crucial questions which they should know. From now on, everyone who applies to be a Deputy Speaker will have to pass a competency test. They will be tested on their knowledge of all laws pertinent to the office and how it functions. Of course there are some things they might not be knowledgeable about simply from not being in the office before, such as holding votes, so that won't be part of the test. This is not intended to prevent new citizens from becoming Deputy Speakers, instead it is simply to ensure that Deputies are competent and can answer any questions posed without stumbling.
Promise #2: Create training guides for Deputies and Staff
Explanation:
To ensure that all Deputies and Speaker's Staff are able to perform their jobs properly, comprehensive training guides will be produced to train future generations of Deputies and current Speaker's Staff in how the office functions. This will most likely take a significant amount of time, but will have a lasting impact once completed.
Promise #3: Accountability throughout the office
Explanation:
The Speaker's Office didn't do the best job of being accountable when mistakes happened this term and hasn't done that well in previous terms either. From now on, I will be directly accountable to the citizens for all actions of my office, whether the actions are my own or not.
Promise #4: An Office Directed by the People
Explanation:
I noticed that throughout my term, a huge amount of suggestions were made by citizens, many of which never saw the light of day due to being buried up in a hoard of other posts. The Speaker's Desk thread is meant for this purpose, but suggestions are rarely made in that thread. If re-elected, I will hold biweekly voice chat conferences in The North Pacific's Discord in which I will address any concerns and take note of any feedback, suggestions, or ideas. If I am unavailable for any of these conferences, I will ensure that a Deputy is there to take my place and informs me of what happened.
Your vote is crucial; don't waste it
I have been in the Speaker's Office for a while now, in multiple different functions. Nearly a year and a half ago, I served as a part of the Speaker's Staff under Pallaith. There I learned the basics of the office. A few months later, Owenstacey took me under his wing as a Deputy Speaker, but in September, I resigned in order to serve as Minister of Home Affairs. During my time with Owenstacey I learned more and more about the office and my interest in it began to grow. Still, it wouldn't be until January when I once again joined the office.
Darcania was a great mentor and guide in the office and no doubt knew what they were doing. Still, they weren't all that active and didn't have time to teach me some things I would need to know as Speaker. When they decided not to run for re-election, I took my chances and ran. I was unopposed and thus won the election.
My term began rough as many things were in desperate need of repair. For one, the Regional Assembly had been slowly descending in its activity and a Digest hadn't been released in almost two months. Another problem was that there was no sure way to distribute work equally in the office. The Speaker for the most part, seemed to be doing everything while the Deputies were occasionally called in to help.
Despite these challenges, I worked to fix the office the best that I could. I had never held a vote as a Deputy Speaker, so had to read through the guides that Darcania luckily had time to put together before I assumed office. Once I had trained myself, I began to train my Deputies. Training went slow, mainly because it was hard to find times that would work. Once my Deputies had been trained though, things began to proceed a bit smoother. I held my first votes and my Deputies began doing citizenship checks. I worked with the Ministry of Home Affairs to produce templates for recruiting people to vote in the Regional Assembly and activity began to go up. The first Digest in months was released and from then they were released week after week. I made many mistakes in the beginning of my term, but as the term went on began to learn from these.
I learned that the role of the Speaker is far different from that of a Deputy. As a Deputy you are assigned work whereas as Speaker, you assign work and have to make sure it gets done. The job of Speaker is a massive one. Experience is something that proves vital in such an office and lack of it is a major problem. If re-elected Speaker, I will strive to continue what I have started and bring in new reforms. Above I have included how we have progressed this term under my leadership and how we are going to change things this term and continue to make progress.
Based upon this and what you have seen throughout this term, I ask for your vote to re-elect me as Speaker.
Sincerely,
ABC
Speaker of the Regional Assembly
Candidate for Speaker of the Regional Assembly
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