Senator Lüc's Office

[Lüc da Schir]

While the national Capitol will probably stay closed for at least another week, there's no harm in opening this thread so that I can post here some stuff (and other people can too!)

[Lüc da Schir]

You can find the First Clark here.

All of this month's business is about immigration law:
RZ1) The Redacted Act, which allows underage immigrants to refuse to disclose to Interior officials nonessential details of their home address;
RZ2) The Birds of a Feather Flock Together Act, which allows acquaintances of a citizen to petition to join the same province;
RZ3) Yet Another Error Correction Act, which fixes a legacy error in the law concerning closed provinces.

I'm currently leaning in favour of all three bills. In particular, RZ3 is an uncontroversial correction and I'm in favour of RZ2, even though it is a little broader than I envisioned. I don't find any issues with RZ1 at the moment.

RZ3 is a bit clerical, so any comments on RZ1 and RZ2?

[Vitxalmour Conductour]

RZ1 makes sense, I didn't give it a thorough read through, but the idea seems appropriate.


RZ2...I've got mixed feelings about. It actually fixes the -personal- issues I had with a certain other act that passed a while ago...but follows right along with my general philosophical objections to that act.

[Lüc da Schir]

Aug 1, 2018 10:42:18 GMT -6 Vitxalmour Conductour said:

RZ1 makes sense, I didn't give it a thorough read through, but the idea seems appropriate.

Well, the only real change is that if an underage immigrant doesn't want to reveal his home address, one can only reveal the portion that is necessary to provincial assignment. Best case scenario, anyone outside of the USA would only have to share the nation. Worst case scenario would be a prospective from WI or Talossa's territory itself, logically.

RZ2...I've got mixed feelings about. It actually fixes the -personal- issues I had with a certain other act that passed a while ago...but follows right along with my general philosophical objections to that act.

Do elaborate, please! I think it's a valid compromise between local preestabilished communities and some sort of geographical contiguity, and a belated acknowledgement of Benito's peculiarity. I'm happy to discuss the merits of the bill more in detail, of course.

[Vitxalmour Conductour]

I will try to remember to write more about my opinion later, if you want, but I am not able to to focus well enough at this moment.

As things are, I agree with you that it is an acceptable compromise amongst the various known opinions.

[Lüc da Schir]

Apparently, RZ2 has been withdrawn. Any thoughts on a potential "symbolic abstention" to signal support for the bill *in principle* rather than in its current form?

[Lüc da Schir]

Hello everyone, I suspect I will be of limited availability in September, so I would like to open debate in advance on what we know will be in the Clark.

* the Budget
* the Royal Civil Service bill - I didn't like it at all, as I was radically against politicising most of the Royal Household, but I didn't keep up with all the edits. I still need to read it properly.
* the BenArd impeachment bill - Tentatively in favour, but I need more opinions.

This is very important: the only bill I have made up my mind on is the Budget AND all three are quite sensitive bills, so any kind of feedback is very welcome.

[Istefan Perþonest]

Aug 31, 2018 3:55:06 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

Hello everyone, I suspect I will be of limited availability in September, so I would like to open debate in advance on what we know will be in the Clark.

* the Budget
* the Royal Civil Service bill - I didn't like it at all, as I was radically against politicising most of the Royal Household, but I didn't keep up with all the edits. I still need to read it properly.
* the BenArd impeachment bill - Tentatively in favour, but I need more opinions.

This is very important: the only bill I have made up my mind on is the Budget AND all three are quite sensitive bills, so any kind of feedback is very welcome.

My primary concern on the budget is the special clause about postage, which seems to suggest that expenses incurred as an intrinsic part of carrying out sales should be counted as needing official notification, rather than being merely accounted for as part of the process of making the sales, like the PayPal fees. If people are going to bureaucratize the process by which the money that only ever enters the accounts in order to pay for shipping gets expended to pay for shipping, y'all are going to have to find someone else to do the job of recording sales and mailing the stuff out, because it's enough of a hassle as it is.

[Lüc da Schir]

Aug 31, 2018 22:23:58 GMT -6 Istefan Perþonest said:

Aug 31, 2018 3:55:06 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

Hello everyone, I suspect I will be of limited availability in September, so I would like to open debate in advance on what we know will be in the Clark.

* the Budget
* the Royal Civil Service bill - I didn't like it at all, as I was radically against politicising most of the Royal Household, but I didn't keep up with all the edits. I still need to read it properly.
* the BenArd impeachment bill - Tentatively in favour, but I need more opinions.

This is very important: the only bill I have made up my mind on is the Budget AND all three are quite sensitive bills, so any kind of feedback is very welcome.

My primary concern on the budget is the special clause about postage, which seems to suggest that expenses incurred as an intrinsic part of carrying out sales should be counted as needing official notification, rather than being merely accounted for as part of the process of making the sales, like the PayPal fees. If people are going to bureaucratize the process by which the money that only ever enters the accounts in order to pay for shipping gets expended to pay for shipping, y'all are going to have to find someone else to do the job of recording sales and mailing the stuff out, because it's enough of a hassle as it is.

I'm taking a look at past budgets and the only difference I've found is that, in seeking a reimbursement, publishing the receipt would now be not necessary, unless MZs esplicitly ask for it.

I will however seek clarification and report back.

[Ian Plätschisch]

If I may interject, explicitly listing the reimbursement expense on this budget is no different than taking the reimbursement out of the "Miscellaneous" appropriation in past budgets. We are just being more clear this time about where the Miscellaneous money was going.

Just as before, it will not be necessary for you to notify the Ziu every time there is a reimbursement for postage.

[Lüc da Schir]

Is there any more feedback on any of the items on the Clark? I plan to cast my vote in the coming weekend.

[Lüc da Schir]

It's already the third Clark!

This month's business:
RZ7 - The Provincial Depiction Right of Determination Act - Lean Për.
RZ8 - Recommendation of a Commissioner of the Royal Civil Service - Lean Për. I have a few questions I would like to ask Flip before committing, hopefully some of my colleagues in the Senate will concur.

As always, feedback and comments are very much welcome. You can find both bills here.

[Flip Molinar]

Ask away my friend!

[Lüc da Schir]

Slightly heftier amount of bills this month: (database link)

RZ9 - A Bill To Create An Organic Law Convention - Lean PER

I support this bill in principle, especially for the specific way it attempts to open up the process of amending the draft while expediting the process of considering and voting on amendments. This is exactly what I'm trying to do in the Senate with the Rules Committee.

That said, I still have several minor issues with it, including:

• The bill calls for publishing a draft in the final Clark, so there would be just two rounds of amendments ("pseudo-Clarks"), and that still assumes we'd be working during recess. Or actually, potentially just one pseudo-Clark.
  
• The bill calls for adopting the Cosa's rules of order, which presently are nonexistent, but at least there's a provision to eventually adopt a different set.
• The bill has several procedural holes that are I suppose only implied (quorum? voting time?). Maybe they're intended to be included in the Cosa's rules of order, but those are nonexistent, or at least customary rather than written.
  
• The bill doesn't provide for weighting the convention members's votes. (Minor issue since that's not really a problem until it gets exploited)
  

Ultimately, I still intend to vote for it, but I'd like to push for an integration of the bill through motions or similar devices so that the convention operates under a complete, fixed set of rules.

RZ10 - The Call Me Maybe Not Act - PER

A step in the right direction. Nuke the public ballot next. Per.

RZ11 - The Logical Act - PER

Hey, nobody knew healthcare IRV was so complicated, right? Per.

RZ12 - The Transparency in Government Positions Act - PER

Per, I guess. When I was Seneschal myself, I mostly left a lot of the minor positions alone, either because I hoped the relevant Minister would eventually fill/update them or because I didn't think much of them, so good on Ian for acting, assuming he's doing this at least partly because he wants to fill those positions (maybe with new people?). (Did you know the Royal Bank and Post had a board? That's cool, I wish it actually did something.)

RZ13 - The Ailing BHAID Act - Lean CON
Presently leaning against. This I'm unsure of, because the reason BHAID is inactive is certainly not the requirement to pass legislation to donate funds. Do: merge TalossAid and BHAID, and push for fundraising drives; Don't: fix a piece of legislation that is not the cause of the inactivity.

[Lüc da Schir]

Hello everyone, this is a month of Recess, but I will still be active (hopefully) and trying to contribute to the new Organic draft. I have just submitted five amendments to the current draft (you can read them in the "Pseudo-Hopper"), but I have yet to review some of the chapters.

Feel free to reach out to discuss the OrgLaw draft or any other ongoing issues (or just to say hello!).