The Spare Seats Act

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

WHEREAS currently any seats not assigned to a registered party are given to the King for assignment, and

WHEREAS this could be problematic should more than 50% of these seats be assigned to an unregistered party, and

WHEREAS this would let the King be Prime Minister, and

WHEREAS we can't have that, and

WHEREAS we therefore need an alternate system, preferably one that let's us honour Talossan heroes of the past that are not affiliated with any one party, now

THEREFORE we proclaim that:

Article VII, Section 9 be amended to read:

In the case of vacant seats occurring between elections, the Secretary of State shall inform the Túischac'h and the leader of whatever party held the vacant seat. The Túischac'h shall then announce this vacancy to the Cosa If the seat belonged to a party with a functioning party leader, the Túischac'h must appoint as a replacement whichever person shall be so designated by that party's leader. If there is no functioning party leader, or if the party leader refuses to designate a replacement, the Túischac'h shall ask the Cosa for nominations of Talossan citizens to occupy these empty seats. Once all nominations have been announced the Túischac'h in concert with the Secretary of State shall have the Members of the Cosa vote on who they think should occupy these vacant seats. Whoever wins the most votes will get these seats. However, in the event of a tie the seats shall be split equally.

Uréu qe estadra sa:
Alexandreu Gavárþic'h (MC-CRO)

[Capt. Sir Mick Preston]

Dreu-

Do you wish to also tackle the situation where (like now) we have seats that were won in a General Election by an un-registered party?

[Daniel Filan]

"However, in the event of a tie the seats shall be split equally."

What if there are, say, 11 seats to be occupied?

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Oct 25, 2008 18:54:44 GMT -6 Capt. Sir Mick Preston said:

Dreu-

Do you wish to also tackle the situation where (like now) we have seats that were won in a General Election by an un-registered party?

Exactly.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Oct 25, 2008 20:44:49 GMT -6 Daniel Filan said:

"However, in the event of a tie the seats shall be split equally."

What if there are, say, 11 seats to be occupied?

Dunno... maybe there'd be a run-off? I'd have to think about it.

[Capt. Sir Mick Preston]

Oct 27, 2008 5:34:21 GMT -6 Dréu Gavárþic'h said:

Oct 25, 2008 18:54:44 GMT -6 Capt. Sir Mick Preston said:

Dreu-

Do you wish to also tackle the situation where (like now) we have seats that were won in a General Election by an un-registered party?

Exactly.

OK .... how so ?

[Deleted]

No, we are not voting on who will receive the vacant seats. That just undermines the entire system.

Presently, we vote for parties, the party appoints MCs. If you vote for an unregistered party, the party can register (like the RUMP did in previous years), if, after all of the voting and such, 50% of the people voted for unregistered parties, why wouldn't someone just register them?

Allowing MCs to vote for new MCs is a bad idea. Sorry Dreu, you've had some questionable ones, some ideas that I thought could be done but didn't really need to be done, but what you are proposing here is meant to fix a problem that

A) Is not realistic
B) has a solution that is more problematic than the problem itself and
C) adds a power to the Cosa that is not adjusted for in the other areas of government and screws with the balance of power.

[Xhorxh Asmour]

I agree with you, Cap. Tim. Sorry, Dreu!

[Capt. Sir Mick Preston]

I can see how this would make an already existing Majority Party in the Cosa even stronger.

If Party A holds 101 seats in the Cosa, then I predict every vacant seat that comes up from the 1st Clark to the 6th Clark would go to the Majority Party.

Now, this may be just 5 seats- or, as in the 38th Cosa, when the LRT imploded , it could be a great deal more.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Oct 27, 2008 11:26:52 GMT -6 Capt. Sir Mick Preston said:

I can see how this would make an already existing Majority Party in the Cosa even stronger.

If Party A holds 101 seats in the Cosa, then I predict every vacant seat that comes up from the 1st Clark to the 6th Clark would go to the Majority Party.

Now, this may be just 5 seats- or, as in the 38th Cosa, when the LRT imploded , it could be a great deal more.

Hmm... quite right! I hadn't thought of that. Thanks Tim and Mick. This was originally supposed to just be a discussion thread but then my computer crashed when I was about to press "post" so I couldn't post what I did!! Anyway, this is a real problem so I would appreciate any other solutions! (I was thinking that we could just divide the seats equally between the minority parties).

[Capt. Sir Mick Preston]

Well, conversly, let's offer this scenario:

The majority party, let's call them PMUR - has 89 seats, and 5 other parties split the remaining 111.

While not in the Majority, the PMUR has a coalition with the TRL party, giving it a working Majority. But not all of the time - the TRL party occasionally votes the other way, and their 15 votes go against the PMUR.

The TRL party implodes, and all 15 of their seats are up for grab. 15 Vacant seats...

Now , how are you going to assign them?

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

This reminds me of a bit of history. Talossan law used to provide for by-elections in the case of vacant Cosa seats that could not be filled by the party that won them. In other words, a new mid-term election could be held to fill just the vacant seats. But, of course, minority parties were more likely to have seats go up for by-election, and PC (Progressive Conservative -- the majority party for much of Talossa's history) voters would have a chance to pick up some (presumably most) of the minority's seats without any of its own seats being at risk.

In 1997, the Vacillation Party imploded for the last time, and all its seats were supposed to be filled through a by-election. But the SoS at the time, former citizen Adiens Glaça, refused to hold by-elections because he thought the practice was grossly unfair. This was one of the skirmishes between Glaça and King Robert I that ultimately led to a number of Talossans renouncing their citizenship and forming Penguinea over the next year or so.

[Owen Edwards]

I am struck by the idea that if a majority of people vote for a party so disorganised as to fail to register, there could be ANYBODY qualified to sort the situation out, King or Speaker.

[Sir C. M. Siervicül]

Yeah, seems like that would be the time to call the whole thing off and cede our territory back to Milwaukee.

[Dréu Gavárþic'h]

Still... right now the King has appointed (I think) 7 seats. And that's 7 seats too many! There must be a separation of powers. We need to brainstorm some kind of idea.