[Status Unknown] The SCORE Bill

Praetor

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Praetor#6889
Security Council Oversight and Reliability Enhancement (SCORE) Bill

The Security Council Oversight and Reliability Enhancement Bill (SCORE) mandates that Security Council members be reappointed by the Regional Assembly every six months.

As it stands, Security Councillors are the only government officials which do not have regular oversight by the Regional Assembly. Having regular oversight sessions of Security Council members provides a number of benefits to the Security Council and the region as a whole.

First, it will provide a formal, regular venue for members of the Security Council to have feedback on their performance and ways that they can improve. Along those lines, it would reduce the chance of the recall of a Security Council member drastically. Issues with a Security Councillor's performance would be able to be brought up during reviews without having to resort to a drastic recall (unless of course, the situation merits one). It is unfortunate—albeit frequently necessary—when the RA resorts to a recall to a government official. Having a periodical review would help flag issues with a Security Councillor prior to them being recalled and give warning should there be any problems.

Lastly, the SC has frequently suffered from negative perception issues (whether accurately or not) and has been viewed as a retirement home. Having periodical reviews of the performance of SCers would help to alay those perceptions and would help communicate that SCers take their job seriously.

The concept of this bill, various wording and the title came from r3n; he had discussed it with me a while ago and recently gave me permission to use what he had prepared.

Security Council Oversight and Reliability Enhancement Bill:
  1. The following clause is added to Section 5.3 of the Legal Code:
    Each Security Council member must be reconfirmed as a member of the Security Council by majority vote of the Regional Assembly within six months of their last reconfirmation or since assuming office as a member of the Security Council, whichever is more recent.
  2. Section 5.3 of the Legal Code is renamed to "Suspension, Removal, and Reappointment".
  3. Current members of the Security Council will have six months from this bill becoming law to be reappointed by the Regional Assembly.
  4. The Regional Assembly urges existing members of the Security Council to stagger their reconfirmations to avoid them all needing to be reappointed within a short time frame.
 
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I would quibble a bit with your assertion that the SC does not have regular oversight. It is not subject to frequent votes or elections, but those are not the only methods of oversight that exist. You yourself have been more than happy to lead that charge on numerous occasions, and I would hardly discount that. There is also clearly an appetite for it, which is actually why you ought to have great success with this proposal. So really what you want to do is create a regular, similar form of accountability that other offices in the region also have, and this bill would certainly do that.

I am curious though: what criteria do you believe should be considered when reappointing SC members? Every citizen will of course have their own they use when casting their vote, but what are the deal breakers for you? SC members (in just about every case) were nominated by the SC itself, giving them the stamp of trust from that body, and they were confirmed by the RA after a discussion. Things do change, however, I believe most of the fundamentals don't. So if someone can be trusted, has the ability to endotart, and is around for what is often a sit and watch and wait kind of job...how do you evaluate if they are not longer up to the task other than some kind of radical crisis or obvious issue that likely would make them subject to resign, lose the office, or be recalled? What do those specifics look like? If this is going to be more like a rubber stamp kind of situation, it's going to take a lot of time, especially with the SC at its current size, to work through all these reappointments, so I hope you have some things in mind that perhaps are currently undervalued and in need of consideration that you don't believe rise automatically to the level of recall, but would come up in these reappointments.

And on the subject of those recalls, while I appreciate your argument about avoiding "drastic" recalls, I have not seen recall ever seriously contemplated for SC members outside of the not-so-recent-these-days attempted recall of Roman. However, recalls are difficult because we have always held a high standard for them, and no matter how prevalent or consistent the criticism for members like Roman, when the time did come for the recall, there was still hesitance. This method will definitely guarantee that action of some sort is taken and serious reckoning comes sooner. I also agree that it is likely to put people at ease whenever they start getting weird about how to deal with the SC. It is my hope that if it were to pass, it would put to rest the seeming hostility and lack of trust, or perhaps simple boredom, that seems to animate and motivate some people in this region and lead them to set the SC in their crosshairs. But that being said, I do want you to walk me through the sorts of factors that need to be considered in these votes, because I'm thinking this is possibly solving a problem that does not actually exist, and is creating a lot more work for the RA.
 
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Praetor:
First, it will provide a formal, regular venue for members of the Security Council to have feedback on their performance and ways that they can improve. Along those lines, it would reduce the chance of the recall of a Security Council member drastically. Issues with a Security Councillor's performance would be able to be brought up during reviews without having to resort to a drastic recall (unless of course, the situation merits one). It is unfortunate—albeit frequently necessary—when the RA resorts to a recall to a government official. Having a periodical review would help flag issues with a Security Councillor prior to them being recalled and give warning should there be any problems.

Lastly, the SC has frequently suffered from negative perception issues (whether accurately or not) and has been viewed as a retirement home. Having periodical reviews of the performance of SCers would help to alay those perceptions and would help communicate that SCers take their job seriously.
Seriously? "Performance"? Are you middle management? :eyeroll: I'll echo this:
I am curious though: what criteria do you believe should be considered when reappointing SC members? Every citizen will of course have their own they use when casting their vote, but what are the deal breakers for you? SC members (in just about every case) were nominated by the SC itself, giving them the stamp of trust from that body, and they were confirmed by the RA after a discussion. Things do change, however, I believe most of the fundamentals don't. So if someone can be trusted, has the ability to endotart, and is around for what is often a sit and watch and wait kind of job...how do you evaluate if they are not longer up to the task other than some kind of radical crisis or obvious issue that likely would make them subject to resign, lose the office, or be recalled? What do those specifics look like?

If you honestly feel like there needs to be an easier mechanism to remove SC members, it seems like it would be better served to change language around the recall, making it easier/faster/etc. Or how about we change it so the SC *aren't* government officials, hmm?
 
How would this bill interact with the fact that the threshold for appointment changes dependent on whether someone is nominated by the Security Council or not? Additionally, with the removal of standing nominations, wouldn't this mean that all of these reappointment votes would be at the 2/3rds threshold rather than the 50%+1 threshold? Or, would the expectation be that the Security Council goes through the nomination process every time someone's term is about to expire?

Depending on how this goes, a minority of RA voters could have the potential to unseat a Security Councilor. Is that what you really want?
 
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I would quibble a bit with your assertion that the SC does not have regular oversight. It is not subject to frequent votes or elections, but those are not the only methods of oversight that exist. You yourself have been more than happy to lead that charge on numerous occasions, and I would hardly discount that. There is also clearly an appetite or it, which is actually why you ought to have great success with this proposal. So really what you want to do is create a regular, similar form of accountability that other offices in the region also have, and this bill would certainly do that.
I should have included regular formal oversight there to be more precise (albeit I do mention it later).

I am curious though: what criteria do you believe should be considered when reappointing SC members? Every citizen will of course have their own they use when casting their vote, but what are the deal breakers for you? SC members (in just about every case) were nominated by the SC itself, giving them the stamp of trust from that body, and they were confirmed by the RA after a discussion. Things do change, however, I believe most of the fundamentals don't. So if someone can be trusted, has the ability to endotart, and is around for what is often a sit and watch and wait kind of job...how do you evaluate if they are not longer up to the task other than some kind of radical crisis or obvious issue that likely would make them subject to resign, lose the office, or be recalled? What do those specifics look like? If this is going to be more like a rubber stamp kind of situation, it's going to take a lot of time, especially with the SC at its current size, to work through all these reappointments, so I hope you have some things in mind that perhaps are currently undervalued and in need of consideration that you don't believe rise automatically to the level of recall, but would come up in these reappointments.
I think most of the criteria that would be considered when a citizen is considered to first join the SC would be of merit to be reconsidered. Obviously, people consider different criteria. :P I imagine one criteria that may not be considered is whether someone is trustworthy enough to join the SC (unless someone voted against them earlier due to that and would then have a chance to reconsider and switch their nay vote to an aye). New information which I think would now be taken into consideration is what were the results of any discussion surrounding the last reappointment and whether they were appropriately addressed in the time since then (eg. say concerns have been raised about the amount of endotarting done, this could be re-evaluated in another six months). I think the "new" criteria that would be looked at during reappointments would be what sort of engagement that Security Councillor has had with the region over the past while. Information which would be viewed is that I frequently see citizens wanting more than just a warm body being a SCer, that there's something extra so to say. Whether that information is still relevant is something that I reviewed (eg. was something qualified to join the SC because they were active and engaged on the RMB despite little activity on Discord)? Has that changed noticeably in that we are concerned that they are not engaged with the rest of the region? Obviously, different citizens will have different standards on what is concerning or not, however, this would provide a regular venue for those concerns to be raised and addressed.

I think you take a somewhat narrow view of what the fundamentals requirements are viewed for a Security Councillor member. While I will not go into specific details of applications to avoid missing the forest for the trees, there have been a number of discussions previously as to whether an individual was sufficiently involved in government/active (whether the individuals in question were active enough or not is not relevant but rather that there was discussion of that sort in relation to merit in joining the SC). That's a bit further than just the being trusted, endotarting and being around as you put it.

Seriously? "Performance"? Are you middle management? :eyeroll:
Very constructive of you. Thanks for the input.
If you honestly feel like there needs to be an easier mechanism to remove SC members, it seems like it would be better served to change language around the recall, making it easier/faster/etc.
There are a variety of reasons for this bill that are included in the original post.
Or how about we change it so the SC *aren't* government officials, hmm?
If you would like to propose this, you are free to do so. I am not sure what is gained by removing the need the Oath of Office for Security Councillors or the requirement that they maintain citizenship. That being said, the relatively recent requirement that Security Councillors maintain citizenship did gain unanimous support from the Regional Assembly so I'm not sure how well your efforts would turn out.

How would this bill interact with the fact that the threshold for appointment changes dependent on whether someone is nominated by the Security Council or not?
Currently, it only requires a majority vote to reappoint. Do you think there should be a different threshold?

Additionally, with the removal of standing nominations, wouldn't this mean that all of these reappointment votes would be at the 2/3rds threshold rather than the 50%+1 threshold?
The proposal legislation currently states that it is through a majority vote.

Or, would the expectation be that the Security Council goes through the nomination process every time someone's term is about to expire?
That is neither the expectation nor what the bill currently has written (or at least, what I intended it to mean). Do you think the proposed text could be improved in some way to make that clearer or is it sufficient? I don't think that that additional step would be necessary given that the Security Council would have a chance to provide input on that individual's suitability during the reappointment. Obviously, not a SCer here though. Do you think it would be beneficial to have it?

Depending on how this goes, a minority of RA voters could have the potential to unseat a Security Councilor. Is that what you really want?
How would this work? Are you operating under the assumption of some SCers that did not get approved by the SC to meet the 2/3 threshold? I am not leaning in that direction at all (and did not consider it all until you raised it).
 
It would appear that I made a simple mistake and missed the part where you specified the threshold, and I withdraw. I believe that renders the rest of your questions moot.
 
I suggest using "reconfirmed/reconfirmation" instead of reappointed/reappointment. Just a minor wording quibble.

Let's say that the RA discusses a council member and doesn't get around to voting until after the 6-month period has passed. Would that member be removed from the SC? And who would be able to start discussion for reconfirming a SCer?
 
Combining Cretox's suggestion and a few of my own, I would recommend the wording be changed to "Each Security Council member must be reconfirmed as a member of the Security Council by majority vote of the Regional Assembly within six months of their last reconfirmation or since assuming office as a member of the Security Council, whichever is more recent."

Just to explain, constitutionally Security Councilors are called "members of the Security Council" or simply "members," I think that should probably carry-over to the Legal Code whenever possible. Besides that it's just a few grammatical changes.
 
Wouldn't this undermine the SC's purpose as a stable, apolitical group that exists to protect the region from a coup?
 
I don't believe there's a need for this legislation, and actually think it would do harm to the region. There is nothing that currently prevents the RA from discussing individual SCers and proposing a recall as needed. There is precedent for this, if you recall (pun intended) the recall effort of Romanoffia. The existing system addresses the concerns of the RA when members feel an SCer has not maintained the activity, profile, or stature becoming of the office. In my view, SCORE does not improve SC transparency or accountability over the current recall system, but would introduce a tedious process that would detrimentally affect regional security. Namely, by reducing the RA majority needed for a recall from 67% to 50%, SCORE is effectively a constitutional amendment posing as ordinary legislation. Reducing this barrier to removing SCers introduces numerous ways someone could more easily subvert the SC and seize control of the region. It does not take much imagination to see how.

My constructive criticism would be to say:
The Security Council Oversight and Reliability Enhancement Bill (SCORE) mandates that Security Council members be reappointed by the Regional Assembly discuss a recall of each Security Councillor every six months.
This would fulfill the intent of SCORE by holding a formal re-assessment of each Security Councillor at regular intervals, but would maintain the constitutionally mandated 2/3 majority to recall government officials, alaying my concerns that SCORE itself would undermine regional security.
 
@Praetor I would like you to indicate what you think the performance indicators for Security Councilor members would be. All you said in the original post was "their performance". You never actually gave what the expectation was for an SCer's "performance". What is the expected criteria for evaluation that would be considered by the RA that you could tie to an individual SCer? Since there are certain things already built in around logging in/maintaining citizenship, what outside of that are you expecting an SCer to be evaluated on?
 
I should have included regular formal oversight there to be more precise (albeit I do mention it later).

I think most of the criteria that would be considered when a citizen is considered to first join the SC would be of merit to be reconsidered. Obviously, people consider different criteria. :P I imagine one criteria that may not be considered is whether someone is trustworthy enough to join the SC (unless someone voted against them earlier due to that and would then have a chance to reconsider and switch their nay vote to an aye). New information which I think would now be taken into consideration is what were the results of any discussion surrounding the last reappointment and whether they were appropriately addressed in the time since then (eg. say concerns have been raised about the amount of endotarting done, this could be re-evaluated in another six months). I think the "new" criteria that would be looked at during reappointments would be what sort of engagement that Security Councillor has had with the region over the past while. Information which would be viewed is that I frequently see citizens wanting more than just a warm body being a SCer, that there's something extra so to say. Whether that information is still relevant is something that I reviewed (eg. was something qualified to join the SC because they were active and engaged on the RMB despite little activity on Discord)? Has that changed noticeably in that we are concerned that they are not engaged with the rest of the region? Obviously, different citizens will have different standards on what is concerning or not, however, this would provide a regular venue for those concerns to be raised and addressed.

I think you take a somewhat narrow view of what the fundamentals requirements are viewed for a Security Councillor member. While I will not go into specific details of applications to avoid missing the forest for the trees, there have been a number of discussions previously as to whether an individual was sufficiently involved in government/active (whether the individuals in question were active enough or not is not relevant but rather that there was discussion of that sort in relation to merit in joining the SC). That's a bit further than just the being trusted, endotarting and being around as you put it.

Alright. I haven't waded in to the technical/practical issues, particularly with the timing of these. There's no getting around how frequent these would be, and you will have to answer for what happens if the length of time is not met, as Cretox asked. I am curious about that stuff too, but I'm more interested in wrestling with the relation between this idea and the recall.

It is kind of funny to me that recalls have this sacred, almost untouchable quality to them, this reverence that I can see in your opening post, and I get the feeling you don't want to overuse them or diminish their significance by using them in almost an overkill kind of way. That's fine, but it's kind of funny then that your solution is to make it easier to potentially get rid of someone for less than what we normally consider in a recall. The tool to remove an official is awesome and should only be used when absolutely necessary, so you don't want to use it as a performance review tool for SC members who may otherwise be perfectly great people and decent at their job, just not as high performing as they could or should be for how important a job it is...but we can have a routine re-vote with a lower threshold to take them out of office, and that makes it okay to remove them more easily than the super important big deal recall process, which again, shouldn't be used for these not-as-big-a-deal reasons because that diminishes it somehow. Given the way we tend to think about recalls, I think we're creating a bizarre situation where a change like this is desirable despite undercutting the checks inherent in the way the recall currently exists. If we changed our thinking on recalls, I think this would be a bit easier to swallow.

I understand and generally agree with your thinking on recalls. I don't think they should be done frivolously, and one reason we don't see them happen for SC members who perhaps fall short of your expectations is because those things can seem to some people to be frivolous reasons to employ a recall. However, I accept that the kinds of criteria you have in mind for SC members are not frivolous to you, and I don't think you're alone there. I think that's the point of your bill - if I am reading your intentions correctly, you want us to focus less on these big obvious bad things that lead to recall, and place greater emphasis on a higher standard of basic performance. This is essentially a system to essentially "re-elect" SC members, and as some have pointed out, this can turn into popularity contests and lead to a string of bad luck or bad timing causing the SC member to fall out. But it would put a lot more emphasis and thought into things that would not normally be enough on their own to inspire people to use a recall. I actually think it wouldn't be crazy if were willing to use the recall more, in the sense that when our standards and expectations change for how people do their jobs, we should apply that standard to the people in office. Recall is on the table when someone is abusing their office, is chronically not performing their duties, is incapable or unwilling to do their job, in short, is clearly not up to the job and not doing it, or a clearly bad actor. That's obvious. But there's a spectrum of good reasons beneath those, things that we can consider just as carefully and responsibly, and we don't consider this mechanism for those things. Maybe we should. In practice I think we don't most of the time because terms in office are reasonable and elections can often handle our concerns if they rise to a level we might contemplate a recall. This is indirect in the case of ministers, obviously, but the point is that SC members don't have that potential release valve by virtue of their "permanent" position. If people don't accept the logic, if they are not willing to apply the same high standard you clearly have for SC members, then these reappointment votes will be routine and foregone conclusions. More work for the RA, sleepy predictable affairs. The release valve will exist, however. We can see how this can be abused, but we can also see how the responsible, strict standard for recall can also be abused to shield people by virtue of how difficult and uncommon it is. Normalizing recall for less glaring reasons but that are still sober, responsible, and measured, would mitigate that as well, but that kind of cultural shift takes time.

Fiji's suggestion that you force a recall discussion doesn't seem right to me. I agree with the underlying point, which is that recall is still the best and most appropriate method to handle SC members who fall short (and the RA decides whether the case is strong enough to warrant its use). But I do not like the idea that we force a discussion on a recall, because if a recall is being debated, it is because someone feels that an official must be removed for whatever reasons they lay out. As a starting point it has us thinking in a judgmental, negative way, and outright means that on some level, someone thinks someone has done wrong. Your proposal, to have regular reappointment, is neutral in intention and simply demands a discussion, but has the potential for removing someone from office more easily than a recall, and only for this type of official. I understand that, say, a delegate can be re-elected or not with a majority, but while they are in office it takes more than that to remove them, and in the case of a minister, it is the only way that can be done by the RA. So we would say it is harder to remove a minister in a vote of the RA than it is to remove a member of the SC? A good blend of these ideas, I think, would be for you to raise the voting requirement to a 2/3 majority so that it matches that of a recall. While I do believe recalls could be utilized more often, because of all the baggage and connotations inherent with them, and because of the unique nature of the Security Council, simply changing the frame to be that of an evaluation is I think a defensible approach. An SC member who loses such a vote is going to be removed from the SC, which is no different from a recall. The reasons to do so could just as easily have been argued in a recall vote. And yet, not every official is evaluated from the assumption that failing the evaluation means they get removed from office, and that the possibility of their removal is on the table from the very start and they must survive the vote to avoid it. So if this happens, I think it makes sense that it be a 2/3 majority vote.
 
I suggest using "reconfirmed/reconfirmation" instead of reappointed/reappointment. Just a minor wording quibble.

Let's say that the RA discusses a council member and doesn't get around to voting until after the 6-month period has passed. Would that member be removed from the SC? And who would be able to start discussion for reconfirming a SCer?
Suggestion done and incorporated in the way Peeps suggested.

I believe that's the way it is written and that's the way that it was intended. SCers have 6 months to schedule (or whatever time it ends up being) so I would hope that there wouldn't be any issues timewise in scheduling.

My thought was that leaving it open-ended is best such that either the SCer or the VD could start the discussion. The VD is the Chair of the SC and thus it would make sense for them to start the discussion but I'm not sure if there's a rationale for making it so solely the VD can start the discussion (unless you had any reasons in mind). I wouldn't mind it being written as the VD proposing the reconfirmation if that's how others feel.
Combining Cretox's suggestion and a few of my own, I would recommend the wording be changed to "Each Security Council member must be reconfirmed as a member of the Security Council by majority vote of the Regional Assembly within six months of their last reconfirmation or since assuming office as a member of the Security Council, whichever is more recent."

Just to explain, constitutionally Security Councilors are called "members of the Security Council" or simply "members," I think that should probably carry-over to the Legal Code whenever possible. Besides that it's just a few grammatical changes.
Done. Thanks for the suggestion! :D
Wouldn't this undermine the SC's purpose as a stable, apolitical group that exists to protect the region from a coup?
No. SCers are already subject to a vote in the RA—having repeated votes would hardly make it more political. If anything, this would help the SC's purpose by increasing trust in the SC and providing ways for SCers to improve in their relationship with the region.
I don't believe there's a need for this legislation, and actually think it would do harm to the region. There is nothing that currently prevents the RA from discussing individual SCers and proposing a recall as needed. There is precedent for this, if you recall (pun intended) the recall effort of Romanoffia. The existing system addresses the concerns of the RA when members feel an SCer has not maintained the activity, profile, or stature becoming of the office. In my view, SCORE does not improve SC transparency or accountability over the current recall system, but would introduce a tedious process that would detrimentally affect regional security. Namely, by reducing the RA majority needed for a recall from 67% to 50%, SCORE is effectively a constitutional amendment posing as ordinary legislation. Reducing this barrier to removing SCers introduces numerous ways someone could more easily subvert the SC and seize control of the region. It does not take much imagination to see how.

My constructive criticism would be to say:

This would fulfill the intent of SCORE by holding a formal re-assessment of each Security Councillor at regular intervals, but would maintain the constitutionally mandated 2/3 majority to recall government officials, alaying my concerns that SCORE itself would undermine regional security.
This is not a recall. This is a reconfirmation. Those are two distinct concepts.

Perhaps I have less imagination than you but I do not think that the RA is as easily subverted as you seem to imagine.

SCORE increases transparency by having frequent, formal opportunities for questions to be addressed to SCers—it's rather bewildering that you argue that accountability would not be improved by this.
@Praetor I would like you to indicate what you think the performance indicators for Security Councilor members would be. All you said in the original post was "their performance". You never actually gave what the expectation was for an SCer's "performance". What is the expected criteria for evaluation that would be considered by the RA that you could tie to an individual SCer? Since there are certain things already built in around logging in/maintaining citizenship, what outside of that are you expecting an SCer to be evaluated on?
Thanks for engaging constructively. I think there are a number of different performance indicators for Security Council members and that they are dependent on each SCer. There are some basic ones which apply across the board (eg. frequency of endorsing others, how often are they checking in with the region and how deeply that is). Other indicators which I would not apply all of to a SCer but rather a couple depending on what it is include but are not necessarily limited to: RMB posting, forum posting (and what areas), involvement in government (and this doesn't necessarily mean the SCer is a Minister or Deputy Minister), posting on Discord, RPing, activity in admin, cards, NPA, etc.). A benefit of this reconfirmation process is that it also helps illustrate to citizens who may not necessarily see that a SCer is active in the community that the SCer in question is actually is.
Alright. I haven't waded in to the technical/practical issues, particularly with the timing of these. There's no getting around how frequent these would be, and you will have to answer for what happens if the length of time is not met, as Cretox asked. I am curious about that stuff too, but I'm more interested in wrestling with the relation between this idea and the recall.

It is kind of funny to me that recalls have this sacred, almost untouchable quality to them, this reverence that I can see in your opening post, and I get the feeling you don't want to overuse them or diminish their significance by using them in almost an overkill kind of way. That's fine, but it's kind of funny then that your solution is to make it easier to potentially get rid of someone for less than what we normally consider in a recall. The tool to remove an official is awesome and should only be used when absolutely necessary, so you don't want to use it as a performance review tool for SC members who may otherwise be perfectly great people and decent at their job, just not as high performing as they could or should be for how important a job it is...but we can have a routine re-vote with a lower threshold to take them out of office, and that makes it okay to remove them more easily than the super important big deal recall process, which again, shouldn't be used for these not-as-big-a-deal reasons because that diminishes it somehow. Given the way we tend to think about recalls, I think we're creating a bizarre situation where a change like this is desirable despite undercutting the checks inherent in the way the recall currently exists. If we changed our thinking on recalls, I think this would be a bit easier to swallow.

I understand and generally agree with your thinking on recalls. I don't think they should be done frivolously, and one reason we don't see them happen for SC members who perhaps fall short of your expectations is because those things can seem to some people to be frivolous reasons to employ a recall. However, I accept that the kinds of criteria you have in mind for SC members are not frivolous to you, and I don't think you're alone there. I think that's the point of your bill - if I am reading your intentions correctly, you want us to focus less on these big obvious bad things that lead to recall, and place greater emphasis on a higher standard of basic performance. This is essentially a system to essentially "re-elect" SC members, and as some have pointed out, this can turn into popularity contests and lead to a string of bad luck or bad timing causing the SC member to fall out. But it would put a lot more emphasis and thought into things that would not normally be enough on their own to inspire people to use a recall. I actually think it wouldn't be crazy if were willing to use the recall more, in the sense that when our standards and expectations change for how people do their jobs, we should apply that standard to the people in office. Recall is on the table when someone is abusing their office, is chronically not performing their duties, is incapable or unwilling to do their job, in short, is clearly not up to the job and not doing it, or a clearly bad actor. That's obvious. But there's a spectrum of good reasons beneath those, things that we can consider just as carefully and responsibly, and we don't consider this mechanism for those things. Maybe we should. In practice I think we don't most of the time because terms in office are reasonable and elections can often handle our concerns if they rise to a level we might contemplate a recall. This is indirect in the case of ministers, obviously, but the point is that SC members don't have that potential release valve by virtue of their "permanent" position. If people don't accept the logic, if they are not willing to apply the same high standard you clearly have for SC members, then these reappointment votes will be routine and foregone conclusions. More work for the RA, sleepy predictable affairs. The release valve will exist, however. We can see how this can be abused, but we can also see how the responsible, strict standard for recall can also be abused to shield people by virtue of how difficult and uncommon it is. Normalizing recall for less glaring reasons but that are still sober, responsible, and measured, would mitigate that as well, but that kind of cultural shift takes time.

Fiji's suggestion that you force a recall discussion doesn't seem right to me. I agree with the underlying point, which is that recall is still the best and most appropriate method to handle SC members who fall short (and the RA decides whether the case is strong enough to warrant its use). But I do not like the idea that we force a discussion on a recall, because if a recall is being debated, it is because someone feels that an official must be removed for whatever reasons they lay out. As a starting point it has us thinking in a judgmental, negative way, and outright means that on some level, someone thinks someone has done wrong. Your proposal, to have regular reappointment, is neutral in intention and simply demands a discussion, but has the potential for removing someone from office more easily than a recall, and only for this type of official. I understand that, say, a delegate can be re-elected or not with a majority, but while they are in office it takes more than that to remove them, and in the case of a minister, it is the only way that can be done by the RA. So we would say it is harder to remove a minister in a vote of the RA than it is to remove a member of the SC? A good blend of these ideas, I think, would be for you to raise the voting requirement to a 2/3 majority so that it matches that of a recall. While I do believe recalls could be utilized more often, because of all the baggage and connotations inherent with them, and because of the unique nature of the Security Council, simply changing the frame to be that of an evaluation is I think a defensible approach. An SC member who loses such a vote is going to be removed from the SC, which is no different from a recall. The reasons to do so could just as easily have been argued in a recall vote. And yet, not every official is evaluated from the assumption that failing the evaluation means they get removed from office, and that the possibility of their removal is on the table from the very start and they must survive the vote to avoid it. So if this happens, I think it makes sense that it be a 2/3 majority vote.
At the moment, I am considering raising the length between reconfirmations to a year albeit I am open to further input on the timing.

As for your concern about the recalls vs reconfirmations, SCers are typically confirmed by a majority vote in the RA (barring Brendog). Personally, I would be rather confirmed if a SCer was no longer able to hold the confidence of a majority of the region during a regular vote. If you would like to use the recall function more, well, you know where the RA is. :P

I would not compare a SCer to a Minister. First off, a SCer is not appointed by a single individual like a Minister. Secondly, both Ministers and SCers would be recallable underneath the same conditions (2/3rds). A better comparison would be between a SCer and another elected official (Delegate, Speaker, Justice). In both cases, should this proposal pass, both positions would need a majority in order to regularly serve the region with a higher standard percentage wise in order for a recall to pass outside of these regular time periods. I will point out however that the period between reconfirmations/re-elections would be much longer for SCers.
 
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For me this proposal introduces an unneeded vulnerability to the SC. Strategic analysis of possible threats to regional stability include: 1. a delegate going rogue. 2. foreign invasion 3. RA stacking. SCORE weakens the SCs ability to withstand an RA stacking event. I feel that outweighs any benefits this bill would provide to the region.
 
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