Assembly Procedures Amendment

[Deleted1]

Spoiler

Assembly Procedures Act of November 2019

Proposed by: Debussy

Section 1. Administration

(1) The Assembly will be administered according to all provisions mandated for the Assembly by Mandate 12 and according to the below procedures.

Section 2. Legislative Procedures

(1) A minimum discussion period of three days is required before any proposal may be brought to vote. The Speaker is not required to open a vote if they determine that the proposal has not had sufficient discussion, but they may not delay opening a vote for more than seven days from when the motion to vote on the proposal was seconded.

(2) In order for a proposal to be brought to vote, a citizen eligible to vote on that proposal must make a motion to vote, and another such citizen must second the motion. A motion to vote may only be made by the initial author of a proposal unless the initial author is no longer a citizen or has not posted on the off-site regional forum for more than seven days without posting a leave of absence.

(3) Only the Delegate may introduce a proposal to enact, amend, or repeal a treaty or declaration of war, and only the Delegate may make a motion to vote on such a proposal.

(3) In the event that there are multiple competing proposals regarding the same matter in the judgment of the Assembly Speaker, the Assembly Speaker will bring them to vote one at a time, in the order they were motioned to vote. If such a proposal is enacted, the subsequent competing proposals will not be brought to vote.

(4) All votes will take place for five days. Citizens eligible to vote may vote "Aye" or "For," "Nay" or "Against," or "Abstain" or "Present." Voters may not post any other content in a voting thread or embellish the format of their vote in any way, and votes that include additional content or embellishment will be discarded and split from the voting thread. Voters may cast their votes by posting in each voting thread.

(5) The Assembly Speaker will determine which discussions will take place publicly and which will take place privately, and may accordingly move discussions to and from the Assembly's private forum, except that the Delegate may determine whether proposals to enact, amend, or repeal treaties will be public or private. All votes will be conducted in public.

Section 3. Deputies to the Assembly Speaker

(1) The Assembly Speaker may appoint deputies to assist in presiding over the Assembly according to its procedural rules. Appointment of a deputy will be subject to confirmation by 50%+1 vote of the Assembly if the deputy-designate has previously been removed from office by the Assembly.

(2) Deputies to the Assembly Speaker will serve until resignation, removal from office by the Assembly or the Assembly Speaker, or automatic removal from office as defined by Mandate 12.

(3) Any powers or responsibilities assigned to the Assembly Speaker by these procedures, Mandate 12, or any other law, unless explicitly directed otherwise, may be delegated by the Assembly Speaker to their deputy or deputies, and rescinded by the Assembly Speaker. Deputies will not have the power to appoint or remove other deputies.

Section 4. Legislative Formatting

(1) Unless otherwise noted, legislation brought to vote proposed in the Assembly will be formatted as follows:

Example Title

Proposed by:

Additional credit to:

This is an example of an additional credit section. It should not exceed 5 people. Credit sections are optional.

Preamble

This is an example of a preamble. It should not exceed 50 words. Preambles are optional.

Section 1. Example Section Title

(1) This is an example of a subsection.

(2) This is an example of another subsection.

a. This is an example of a subparagraph.
b. This is an example of another subparagraph.

(2) The forum name of the author will be provided in the "Proposed by:" section of a proposal. In the event that the author's forum name changes, the Assembly Speaker may amend a law to reflect the author's new forum name.

(3) Following enactment of a proposal, the Assembly Speaker will append the month and year of enactment to the proposal's title.

(4) An optional preamble for a proposal will not exceed fifty words.

(4) An optional credit section for a proposal will not exceed five people.

(5) Unless otherwise noted, all amendments brought to vote in the Assembly will be formatted as legislation, and the amendments therein will be marked up so as to clearly delineate the changes being made.

(6) Only general laws and constitutional laws will be subject to formatting for legislation, but all amendments will be subject to mark-up.

(7) The Assembly Speaker will not open a vote on a proposal that has not been properly formatted and/or marked up in the judgment of the Assembly Speaker, and no motion to vote on such an unconforming bill will be recognized, until the proposal has been properly formatted and/or marked up.

EDIT: McChimp posted some threads with fixes for the major stuff in this one.

 

[McChimp]

The author has drawn an erroneous implication that it is somehow the speaker's duty to format legislation as the law stands now. This is simply not the case. The law does explicitly mean that only properly formatted legislation will be brought to vote by the speaker. This is enforceable in a way that saying that proposals must meet the formatting requirements is not, since it means that the Speaker (a single point of authority) cannot bring legislation that does not meet the requirements to vote whereas as amended the enforcement is the burden of the person making the proposal, who is obviously not going to be objective about it.

I will be voting nay and I encourage others to do so too.

 

[Deleted1]

The author has drawn an erroneous implication that it is somehow the speaker's duty to format legislation as the law stands now.

Not true, I said that you can simply make that implication from how the law is written and I said it needs to change. It is the difference in interpretation that is the problem and McChimp is dismissing my concerns in favor of his own interpretation of the law when we could simply agree to clear it up for everyone. He was quick to dismiss this, and I would not follow his advice on this matter. Clear language can help us all understand and carry out the law to the best of our abilities.

(1) Unless otherwise noted, legislation brought to vote in the Assembly will be formatted as follows:

This is the law as it stands. The language "brought to vote" needs to be replaced with proposed so that people better understand the formatting guidelines. And even then, the procedures fail to outline that the citizen making the proposal has to post it in proper format. Subsection 7 of section 4 outlines that a speaker has a right to not bring something to vote that it not properly formatted but simply implies that that responsibility is on the citizen making the proposal. McChimp and I both want people to format their proposals, I just want that instruction outlined clearly in the procedures for everyone so McChimp, or anyone, does not need to find the time to explain it.

 

[McChimp]

I can only repeat that the amendment you are proposing makes it impossible to enforce proper formatting and that the law does not imply what you say it does: "legislation brought to vote in the Assembly will be formatted as follows:" simply does not mean that the Speaker must format proposals on behalf of those who proposed them. It doesn't even reference the Speaker.

Our laws are written explicitly and should be read as such.

 

[Deleted1]

The word "propose" does not take away the Speakers capability to enforce formatting rules. If anything, it extends them to the proposal period. If its already being done properly during that period, than the format requirements outlined "at vote" should already have been met.

That clause references the Speaker's authority as the only office that can put things to vote. For example, in the event someone posted something not of proper format, as it is written now, the speaker could properly format that suggestion and place it to vote if it has the motions, which is not a bad thing. No where does it say the Speaker must do anything as subsection 7 of section 4 gives the Speaker the right to ignore anything not formatted properly without givening citizens noticed that that responsibility is on them. It needs to be cleared up.

 

[Wymondham]

I agree with McChimp and will also be voting Nay

 

[Zapatian Workers State]

While I appreciate the spirit of Debussy's proposal in making the legislative system more accessible to newcomers like him and me, I would point out that making the burden of proper formatting fall upon the Speaker allows any nonsensical proposal to take up the time and effort of the Speaker when the assemblyman who drafted the basic proposal put relatively very little time and effort into it. At the same time, I feel that the Speaker's overwhelming familiarity with the law as it stands gives him a disproportionate advantage when it comes to crafting future legislation, but the only viable solution is for new citizens to try harder to assimilate, not relegate responsibility and handicap the Speaker.

 

[Zapatian Workers State]

Although I understand both sides, I ultimately think this is a trivial matter of semantics. Ultimately, I must agree more with Teazle/McChimp though, as the law can regulate whether a legislative act is brought to a vote based on its format, but it cannot regulate whether the assemblyman drafting the legislation formats it correctly when he first proposes that. It would be effectively unenforceable for the reason McChimp states, which is simply that the amendment seems to imply that the assemblyman bears the responsibility for determining whether format is correct so the legislation can go to a vote, whereas the original wording only concerns the Speaker's obligation to recognize correctly formatted legislation so it may be voted upon.

 

[Aflana]

(3) Following enactment of a proposal, the Assembly Speaker will append the month and year of enactment to the proposal's title.

(4) An optional preamble for a proposal will not exceed fifty words.

(4) An optional credit section for a proposal will not exceed five people.

You took out the clause about the Preamble and it not exceeding 50 words, however in Section 4 in the example format you left the Preamble there with the sentence stating that it should not exceed 50 words.

Example Title

Proposed by:

Additional credit to:

This is an example of an additional credit section. It should not exceed 5 people. Credit sections are optional.

Preamble

This is an example of a preamble. It should not exceed 50 words. Preambles are optional.

Section 1. Example Section Title

It seems a bit confusing to remain on the example but not in a clause. Is there a reason for that? If not, this should probably be cleared up.