ABC; Rebuilding the Speaker's Office - Term 2

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

You definitely have my vote ABC.

How do you respond to those who question your ability to serve in the Speaker's Office due to frequent activity fluctuations which purportedly have:

1. On occasion, unnecessarily lengthened the legislative process concerning certain bills, and;

2. have also led your deputy/deputies to begin performing certain duties more and more that would normally belong to you?

Do you believe that, if re-elected, you will be able to maintain consistent and efficient activity levels, and how will you achieve this?

[quote uid=3375 name="Syrixia" ]How do you respond to those who question your ability to serve in the Speaker's Office due to frequent activity fluctuations which purportedly have:

1. On occasion, unnecessarily lengthened the legislative process concerning certain bills, and;

2. have also led your deputy/deputies to begin performing certain duties more and more that would normally belong to you?

Do you believe that, if re-elected, you will be able to maintain consistent and efficient activity levels, and how will you achieve this? [/quote]1. This is very rare and has only happened either when I was briefly away or near the beginning of my term.

2. I do everything possible to make sure that my deputies have a balanced work schedule. If they are unable to do something I take it over and if I am away (for things I actually can't prevent), I prepare things so that they go smoothly while I am away. I note that I have routinely prepared RA Digests, votes, done citizenship checks, etc when my Deputies are unable to. They should never have to deal with too much work and if they do, they are to let me know. It's true that I give them more work than some Speakers have, but I believe doing such helps to prepare them for a term as Speaker if the choose to pursue that.

3. I would like to maintain as much activity as possible during this term. However, unforeseen events that have happened to me such as the death of a family member and close friend have led me to brief periods of inactivity. I do though, make sure that my Deputies know if I'm going to be inactive. At the moment, there is nothing scheduled for the next term IRL that would conflict with my work as Speaker, so as long as something requiring my urgent attention happens, I will be active.

Abc, you have indeed worked in the Speaker’s Office a long time. I don’t dispute your narrative because it’s true and it’s not entirely your fault that you have had some of the troubles and mistakes that have occurred during you term. However, there are problems with how you’ve managed the office that have nothing to do with what you know or what your deputies are able to do.

I don’t think delegating work to deputies is a problem, though if you delegate you are responsible for making sure the duties assigned are done and done properly. What I have seen this term is a lot of finger pointing and mistakes compounded due to lack of communication. Then when you took work upon yourself, work that was done by your deputy consistently and effectively, you didn’t complete it and you gave conflicting explanation for why it happened. I also was not pleased with your response to criticism. It wasn’t always fair and wasn’t always respectful, but you have to own it.

This office is near and dear to my heart, and I follow its successes, and failures, very closely. It was one of the worst terms the office has had since I’ve been here, if not the worst. We’ve had absent speakers and backlogs, and we had that this term too, but I’ve never seen the number of errors and controversy that this office generated. Your deputies were not innocent of that either, which makes this an interesting decision for me since I have reason to be frustrated with both you and Wonderess. I am glad you have a bit of a challenge now, because challenges make you stronger and teach you a lot about yourself and what you’re capable of. I wish you had been challenged more in the last election, but I believe that you have been challenged and tested a great deal in the past 4 months and that some of that has to make you better in this office should you be re-elected. I would have liked a better acknowledgment of many of the things I said in your campaign though. Good luck.

I have decided to own up to my mistakes during the past term. I have made a number of them and haven't properly apologized.

I'm sorry.

If re-elected, I plan to make amends and prevent these things from happening again. Some of the policies I have indicated above are intent on accomplishing this.

Criticism is necessary and it is something that I admit, have been ignoring to some extent. Starting now, I want anyone and everyone to direct any criticism they have of me and my office to the Speaker's Desk or privately contact me by telegram, DM, or PM. I will do my best to fix it if possible now, or prevent it from happening again. I want to understand all the mistakes that I am making so that this office can be run smoothly.

I want your input so I can do a better job.

Thank you,
ABC

A few questions for you. These are not the same as the ones I asked your opponent, so no copying his answers!
1) A brand new forum brings brand new challenges and opportunities. Have you given any thought to how you would like things to change when we move to the Xenforo? For example, a different method of doing citizenship applications and checks?

2) What is the most frustrating or hardest part of the speaker's duties to train new deputies on? How can you make this easier or more intuitive?

3) What is the required majority to overturn a delegate's veto of a treaty?

4) When you think about the speaker's discretion, can you give an example where you believe it was misused? Preferably this would be from your term, but I will accept an example from when you were a deputy under a different speaker.

5) Can you list the court rulings which interface with the speaker's duties and responsibilities? Will your competency test for deputies include these rulings?

6) I'll be honest, I'm not stoked about the idea of a competency test. The role of a deputy is to come in unprepared and to learn the ropes as you go; to ask questions and propose changes and gain a deeper understanding through practice and application, not just from reading and memorization. How do you plan to attract promising new talent to the office if they first have to pass a test to participate?

[quote uid=2308 name="SillyString" ]A few questions for you. These are not the same as the ones I asked your opponent, so no copying his answers!
1) A brand new forum brings brand new challenges and opportunities. Have you given any thought to how you would like things to change when we move to the Xenforo? For example, a different method of doing citizenship applications and checks?

2) What is the most frustrating or hardest part of the speaker's duties to train new deputies on? How can you make this easier or more intuitive?

3) What is the required majority to overturn a delegate's veto of a treaty?

4) When you think about the speaker's discretion, can you give an example where you believe it was misused? Preferably this would be from your term, but I will accept an example from when you were a deputy under a different speaker.

5) Can you list the court rulings which interface with the speaker's duties and responsibilities? Will your competency test for deputies include these rulings?

6) I'll be honest, I'm not stoked about the idea of a competency test. The role of a deputy is to come in unprepared and to learn the ropes as you go; to ask questions and propose changes and gain a deeper understanding through practice and application, not just from reading and memorization. How do you plan to attract promising new talent to the office if they first have to pass a test to participate?[/quote]1. I have actually discussed this a little bit with some of the admins and one of the ideas that came up was that applicants' applications would be tagged to indicate which checks had been passed.

2. Probably doing votes. There are so many possible mistakes you can make with this so it's vital that you show them manually yourself. Next term, we'd like to produce some guides for training that can be handed along to deputies to help save time and provide a better explanation of how things work.

3. Treaties are not presented to the Delegate for their signature or veto as it is the Delegate themselves who introduces or designates an Executive Officer to an introduce the treaty itself, so there'd be no point in vetoing a treaty even if you could. I think you were trying to lead me to answer this as if it were regular legislation in which a 2/3 majority would be required.

4. With the Vice Delegate Recall Motion. I made multiple mistakes with this vote, but one of my chief ones was choosing to hold the vote for only 3 days rather than a full week. When I scheduled this vote, I was thinking of this as an urgent situation (which to some extent, it was) and thought it would be best to hold a vote quickly, but failed to realize that such a thing as recalling an official should be given much more time than that.

5. #6 On the Speaker's Powers to Restrict the Format of Votes
#16 On the Speaker's Power to End Debate
#22 On the Constitutionality of the Minor Error Clause
#36 On the Permanence of Rejected Applications for the Regional Assembly
#39 On the Use of the Speaker's Power to End Debate
#40 On Promptness and the Time at which Regional Assembly Membership Begins and Ends
#51 On the Speaker's Power to Extend Voting Periods

My competency test will not include these rulings for the general questions, however possibly for a big question I could have them refer to a ruling, but they'd be given time to do so.

6. I don't plan to require the applicants to memorize a significant portion of the laws regarding the RA and the Office's jurisdiction; all I am hoping for is a general understanding of how things work in the office. I don't intend to make questions hard except, as I said previously, for a big question where they'd refer to a ruling, but be given plenty of time to find out the answer. I want to encourage all applicants to have at least enough passion for the job that they research the basics, but I won't have any questions that require specific numbers or the like. I will tell them pretty much the scope of stuff they need to know (won't be much), so that they are prepared beforehand.

1. I was struck by the curious title of this thread. Generally a challenger looking at unseat an incumbent would speak of the need to rebuild the Speaker's office, not an incumbent seeking a second term. You have been in office for months. Why do you now think the office is in such dire need?

2. You speak a lot about delegation, which has certainly been a feature of your first term. However, to those not in the department your management style in the first term appeared less like delegation of responsibilities and more like abdication of responsibilities. How can we have any confidence that a second term will not be more of the same?

[quote uid=22 name="flemingovia" ]1. I was struck by the curious title of this thread. Generally a challenger looking at unseat an incumbent would speak of the need to rebuild the Speaker's office, not an incumbent seeking a second term. You have been in office for months. Why do you now think the office is in such dire need?

2. You speak a lot about delegation, which has certainly been a feature of your first term. However, to those not in the department your management style in the first term appeared less like delegation of responsibilities and more like abdication of responsibilities. How can we have any confidence that a second term will not be more of the same?[/quote]1. The title also says "Term 2", meaning that this is a continuation of my attempts to build up the Speaker's Office and the Regional Assembly as a whole; attempts which I began upon my first election to this office.

2. My style of governance in this office is more one of guiding, managing, and occasionally taking on duties when needed. While I realize that this doesn't sit well with all, it allows me to focus more on things like increasing activity, rather than simply doing responsibilities of the office. I do agree though, that I should have a more active role in carrying out the duties of the office, which is why I have for the past month been doing citizenship checks in place of my Deputies. That way, I am carrying out both management and proactive work. Next term, I plan to have a system in which the work which my deputies and I do is changed every so often so that all of us have a chance to carry out different sections of the work that the office does. I am also happy to do any work (besides what I already do) that my Deputies lack the time to do.

[quote uid=5930 name="abc" ]I do agree though, that I should have a more active role in carrying out the duties of the office, which is why I have for the past month been doing citizenship checks in place of my Deputies. That way, I am carrying out both management and proactive work.[/quote]This is now the third explanation you have given for why you told your deputies to stop doing citizenship checks, but it strikes me as the honest one. To me, this plays into a negative perception people have of you and your office, one that holds that you are less than forthright or accountable in what you do and how you respond to them. I appreciate your post earlier acknowledging this to a great degree, but I would advise you when questioned directly about a decision, especially one that leads to the office performing less than 100%, you be upfront and clear in your response, or at least have your story straight before you reply.

[quote uid=5577 name="Pallaith" ][quote uid=5930 name="abc" ]I do agree though, that I should have a more active role in carrying out the duties of the office, which is why I have for the past month been doing citizenship checks in place of my Deputies. That way, I am carrying out both management and proactive work.[/quote]This is now the third explanation you have given for why you told your deputies to stop doing citizenship checks, but it strikes me as the honest one. To me, this plays into a negative perception people have of you and your office, one that holds that you are less than forthright or accountable in what you do and how you respond to them. I appreciate your post earlier acknowledging this to a great degree, but I would advise you when questioned directly about a decision, especially one that leads to the office performing less than 100%, you be upfront and clear in your response, or at least have your story straight before you reply.[/quote]Thank you. I was trying to get this through earlier, but you're right in saying I didn't have a clear response.

Previously I said to you:

"I chose to do this because I felt a need to allow my Deputies to focus on other aspects of the office, while I took over one of the other responsibilities. "

I partially got this across to you in my first response, but probably should have elaborated to make it clearer. I apologize for my previous response being vague.

After reading some more, it truly shows you haven't prepared your deputies for this,
I also saw that after Owen's resignation, you decided not to appoint another duty even when one of your two deputies, Yuno, wasn't very active.

I would also like to point out is that you took over the job of what the deputies were supposed to do for you, help schedule voting of a proposal, see if a nation passes the Speaker's Check or not, and ask in Admin Requests for Remasking of accounts to member or resident.

I would like to point out as part of your staff, you never really trained us, you just assume we could finish the digests, and while you were lucky that you were able to have nations who actually could do it correctly, I question your capability to train people that have worked for you under this term, I also question your staff's activeness due to you have not very active people such as Yuno and Deropia (now removed).

I would also like to quote something from your previous campaign:
[quote uid=0 name="Citizenship Checks" ]Under Darcania, citizenship has been faster and easier to obtain than ever. Because of their role as both an Admin and as Speaker, citizenship checks now only require the approval of the Vice Delegate and the Speaker. We also saw them introduce a tool they had created themselves to verify that oaths of citizenship match the required text. Of course, as Darcania is running for Vice Delegate now, citizenship checks won't be nearly as fast. That does not mean that they have to be slow though.

If elected, I will ask Darcania for the program so that I as well can use it and citizenship checks will remain very efficient. Additionally, I will try my very best to do the Speaker Checks on all applications at least once a day so that they remain fast and easy to obtain.[/quote]
I have looked at some checks in the thread and usually your comes about 7 or more hours after the application was sent, not to mention the VD, Administration, or both would had already finished, and while you must grant citizenship if all three checks are done, probably by then you would be too late to do your check unless afterwards, I question the activeness of the Speaker's Check process, maybe you would be discussing it with your deputies but I don't always see you on Discord, however your Force Discord Account, Renegalle, is mostly online.

I'm afraid to say that if these issues aren't cleared up, it doesn't show me you'll be able to serve another term and be able to help and train your deputies and staffers.

When you took over for Darcania and when Feyt was decommissioned, I thought I remembered you were working on restoring the auto-masking functionality by implementing it on your bot. I know there were recent issues with the bot not starting, but both our bots seem stable now. Do you still have the source code and do you plan on putting Blue back together? Whether you won or lost this election, would you share it, assuming it's open source, with any future speakers or bot owners?

[quote uid=7063 name="Dinoium" ]After reading some more, it truly shows you haven't prepared your deputies for this,
I also saw that after Owen's resignation, you decided not to appoint another duty even when one of your two deputies, Yuno, wasn't very active.

I would also like to point out is that you took over the job of what the deputies were supposed to do for you, help schedule voting of a proposal, see if a nation passes the Speaker's Check or not, and ask in Admin Requests for Remasking of accounts to member or resident.

I would like to point out as part of your staff, you never really trained us, you just assume we could finish the digests, and while you were lucky that you were able to have nations who actually could do it correctly, I question your capability to train people that have worked for you under this term, I also question your staff's activeness due to you have not very active people such as Yuno and Deropia (now removed).

I would also like to quote something from your previous campaign:
[quote uid=0 name="Citizenship Checks" ]Under Darcania, citizenship has been faster and easier to obtain than ever. Because of their role as both an Admin and as Speaker, citizenship checks now only require the approval of the Vice Delegate and the Speaker. We also saw them introduce a tool they had created themselves to verify that oaths of citizenship match the required text. Of course, as Darcania is running for Vice Delegate now, citizenship checks won't be nearly as fast. That does not mean that they have to be slow though.

If elected, I will ask Darcania for the program so that I as well can use it and citizenship checks will remain very efficient. Additionally, I will try my very best to do the Speaker Checks on all applications at least once a day so that they remain fast and easy to obtain.[/quote]
I have looked at some checks in the thread and usually your comes about 7 or more hours after the application was sent, not to mention the VD, Administration, or both would had already finished, and while you must grant citizenship if all three checks are done, probably by then you would be too late to do your check unless afterwards, I question the activeness of the Speaker's Check process, maybe you would be discussing it with your deputies but I don't always see you on Discord, however your Force Discord Account, Renegalle, is mostly online.

I'm afraid to say that if these issues aren't cleared up, it doesn't show me you'll be able to serve another term and be able to help and train your deputies and staffers.
[/quote]There was not a need to appoint another Deputy so late in the term. Owenstacey was helping me improve activity rather than doing a job in the RA.

I did teach some of the Speaker's Staff, although certain people (cough cough) were never active enough for me to. There are certain things I couldn't truly train you in such as voting as you'd actually have to gain access to certain things restricted to Deputies.

7 hours is perfectly acceptable and is about as reasonable as it's going to get. Darcania left without leaving me the source code to that. Renegalle is online because it is linked to the Discord App itself, but I'm on about as much on both accounts, if not more on the ABC one.

So...

[quote uid=5509 name="Sil Dorsett" ]When you took over for Darcania and when Feyt was decommissioned, I thought I remembered you were working on restoring the auto-masking functionality by implementing it on your bot. I know there were recent issues with the bot not starting, but both our bots seem stable now. Do you still have the source code and do you plan on putting Blue back together? Whether you won or lost this election, would you share it, assuming it's open source, with any future speakers or bot owners?[/quote]I do plan on doing that. I have the source code to use the identify command, but I haven't been allowed to move the bot there to test it. If I am not re-elected or someone else chooses to operate the bot, I'll be happy to share the source code.

You've had a number of activity issues this term. You have also faced fairly sustained criticism on a number of fronts. I think some of it was reasonable, and some of it unreasonable and personal. I can see from your platform that you're not entirely ignoring this more reasonable criticism which is good to see.

What do you think has been the most critical problem the Speakers office has faced this term? How would you overcome this next term?

Did you deliberately prevent your Deputies from exercising their responsibilities in the lead up to this election in order to minimise any potential threat to your candidacy as Speaker?

You mentioned previously in response to this question that you wanted your Deputies to focus on "other areas". Could you elaborate on what areas (in particular) you think your current Deputies have lacked the required training in order to carry out the role of Speaker effectively?

Has the training you provided to your Deputies this term been adequate?

Do you believe that your opponent has the required skills and knowledge to take on the role of Speaker and perform well? If not, why not.

Who was your favourite former Speaker of the Regional Assembly and why?

You've served as a Minister and you've served as Speaker. Which of the two branches of the government do you prefer and why?

If you could make one change to the laws of TNP despite any potential controversiality, what change would you make? Think big!

[quote uid=1669 name="mcmasterdonia" ]You've had a number of activity issues this term. You have also faced fairly sustained criticism on a number of fronts. I think some of it was reasonable, and some of it unreasonable and personal. I can see from your platform that you're not entirely ignoring this more reasonable criticism which is good to see.

What do you think has been the most critical problem the Speakers office has faced this term? How would you overcome this next term?

Did you deliberately prevent your Deputies from exercising their responsibilities in the lead up to this election in order to minimise any potential threat to your candidacy as Speaker?

You mentioned previously in response to this question that you wanted your Deputies to focus on "other areas". Could you elaborate on what areas (in particular) you think your current Deputies have lacked the required training in order to carry out the role of Speaker effectively?

Has the training you provided to your Deputies this term been adequate?

Do you believe that your opponent has the required skills and knowledge to take on the role of Speaker and perform well? If not, why not.

Who was your favourite former Speaker of the Regional Assembly and why?

You've served as a Minister and you've served as Speaker. Which of the two branches of the government do you prefer and why?

If you could make one change to the laws of TNP despite any potential controversiality, what change would you make? Think big!
[/quote]1. Thank you.

2. To be honest, my own activity has been a bit problematic this term. This was due to a number of family emergencies which hopefully won't happen again. There is nothing this coming term that will severely impact my activity again.

3. No. As I told to Pallaith, I took over one of the Deputies' responsibilities, citizenship checks. I did this because I felt that I should have a more active role in performing the actual work of the office, rather than just managing and directing its work.

4. I didn't mean I was training my deputies, they were just focusing on other areas such as improving activity, and giving them a bit more time for RL as they have been working very hard.

5. Yes, I believe it has been. They know how to carry out all vital functions of this office, but still have a lot to learn about leadership.

6. I believe he has the skills to carry out the functions of the office, but I am unsure if he has the skills to lead the office. So far, he hasn't been in a leadership position, so I am a bit concerned about whether or not he can carry out that.

7. I haven't been around long enough to see many Speakers, but Pallaith has been my favorite one so far. He was very hardworking and passionate about this office and his introduction of the Speaker's Office was a vital step; one that I have reinitiated because I saw the effectiveness of it.

8. The Legislative Branch. Although being Minister of Home Affairs was a great experience, being Speaker has been much more challenging as there are many more functions that need to be carried out and a lot more things that can go wrong. I've enjoyed the challenge over simply leading a Ministry that is already doing very well.

9. It would be interesting if rather than just amending the current legal documents, people were able to create bills and pass them into separate laws besides the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Legal Code, that could be a lot more specific and potentially temporary. This would be useful for specific situations or brief periods of time when legislation needed to only last temporarily.