First Clark stuff seems weird

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Probably good reasons for some of this, but at a first glance, a lot doesn't make sense.

Under the procedure of the draft, no legislation can pass during the first Clark? That seems weird.

Why is the Senats excluded from the first Clark? Don't they have to vote on the budget?

Why is the budget required for the first Clark? And why is it linked to the Seneschal inextricably... does that even make sense? As I understand it, the procedure is that any party can run a Seneschal candidate plus a full list of Cabinet nominees plus a complete budget, and this proposal(s) is then voted upon by the Cosa. That seems wildly optimistic in practical terms, especially since history shows that the budget is a pretty big deal that must be worked out at length. Are people supposed to select their cabinets, and then contact those people to work out a budget, which means coming up with a full slate of policies and plans for the year, and then inquire of the Burgermeister for the exact accounting of our current finances required by the budgetary law, and then put the whole kit-and-caboodle up for a unitary vote? That gives any small bloc within a party (maybe even any one individual) a complete veto over the whole thing, which incentivizes parties to exclusively choose people who will be assured of sticking to the party line. It also seems pretty impossible in anything but the best-case scenario.

How could this work, realistically?

[Lüc da Schir]

I wanted to parse the draft and comment on what I thought was problematic, but seeing as this has been already pointed out, I'll just note that I concur with AD's skepticism of the first Clark plan.

Let the Cosa choose a Seneschal, and only the Seneschal, using Instant Runoff Voting during a normal First Clark, and let the Ziu vote on the Budget. It has happened multiple times that the Budget had to be presented a bunch of days before the Second Clark was scheduled to begin, and had to be brought out of the Hopper by the Seneschal with little to no debate.

It's just the Budget's nature: unless we get a majority government, nobody is going to have a Budget ready for the First Clark. To point out how unlikely that is in 2018, the MRPT would still have needed no less than 10 more vote flips from other parties to get a majority in the 51st Cosa.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Heck, let the budget stay in the second Clark, IMO. if a government wants to propose in the first Clark, fine. But it is an unrealistic expectation to force even for the first.

[Ian Plätschisch]

I would be amenable to moving the budget to the second clark. No bills are allowed since the first clark is focused on government formation.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

That seems like another reason why this weird change to how governments form is a bad idea, then. Not only is it highly impractical given any complications, it's also stealing 17% of the legislating time out of the term.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

If a week can go by without actually fixing any of these problems or seriously engaging with them, why are we pretending to be engaged in a constitutional reform process?

If the people in the Government are so busy they can't work on this, why start this process?

Is this like a filibuster-type thing? Comment infrequently and partially, and wait out the clock?

[Ian Plätschisch]

The beginning of this process happened to catch me at a time I am abnormally busy. In a few days I should be able to respond much quicker.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Dec 3, 2018 8:03:10 GMT -6 Ian Plätschisch said:

The beginning of this process happened to catch me at a time I am abnormally busy. In a few days I should be able to respond much quicker.

What about the author of this whole thing, V, your Distain? It's been like a month since he engaged about this. Other than you and Miestra, no one else in the Government seems remotely interested -- or interested in getting people interested. The A-G has nothing to say about the justice system? The MinFin has nothing to say about the budget process?

I worry that the result will be to just present this huge fait accompli document, fob off any criticisms with minimal discussion, and then push the whole thing through as the product of an open and bipartisan process. I am not worried about some sort of conspiracy to do this -- I believe you are acting in good faith! -- but I do believe that is how it is playing out.

I have been devoting almost all of my Talossa time to this because you and yours insisted it was vitally important. Please treat it thus.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

Dec 3, 2018 8:19:07 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

Other than you and Miestra, no one else in the Government seems remotely interested -- or interested in getting people interested.

"This is a ModRad/FreeDem Government stitch-up document!"

AND

"The Government isn't sufficiently involved in this!"

Bad faith, bad faith. Whatever we did, you'd smear it.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Do you... think those two things contradict each other?

I mean, it's always weird to see someone accurately summarize your argument with an air of triumph, as though they'd refuted it. Yes, the problem is that you guys introduced a huge and complex new document on a short timetable and now most of you are too busy to discuss problems with it.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

But it's not an argument, is it? It's just your usual bafflegab, using words for the same purpose as a squid uses ink.

You've stated that you oppose this document, that you are only interested in amendments to the 1997 OrgLaw rather than a redesign. Therefore it is hard to take ANY complaint you make about the text, the process, or whether Government ministers are engaging in debates as anything other than bad faith.

Since there is nothing anyone could do to persuade you to vote for this OrgLaw draft, no matter what amendments are made to it, I can only assume your participation in this convention is motivated a desire for sabotage alone. For that reason, I would recommend to other Cabinet Ministers not to waste their time playing "pigeon chess" with you.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Dec 3, 2018 17:20:41 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

But it's not an argument, is it? It's just your usual bafflegab, using words for the same purpose as a squid uses ink.

You've stated that you oppose this document, that you are only interested in amendments to the 1997 OrgLaw rather than a redesign. Therefore it is hard to take ANY complaint you make about the text, the process, or whether Government ministers are engaging in debates as anything other than bad faith.

Since there is nothing anyone could do to persuade you to vote for this OrgLaw draft, no matter what amendments are made to it, I can only assume your participation in this convention is motivated a desire for sabotage alone. For that reason, I would recommend to other Cabinet Ministers not to waste their time playing "pigeon chess" with you.

It's comforting to know at times like this that, wandering free and proud and majestic, the noble ad hominem exists in its purest form.

Yes, I am recalcitrant about this entire process, because I think that the FDT/MRPT constitution is intended to be a fait accompli and that thing has a ton of problems. Nonetheless, I have engaged in 100% good faith to try to address some fraction of these problems. Everything I have pointed out is a serious problem, in my eyes... I didn't make anything up! This nonsense is in your own bill!

You can claim that I should be ignored, but that's just a rhetorical fallacy -- it doesn't have any actual effect on reality. It won't fix the problems to go after my motivations, no matter how energetically you ignore them!

The bill purports to create a CpI with three justices. We have four. There's no plan to kick anyone off the Cort, and no mechanism to do so absent malfeasance. Does saying that I am a villainous mastermind hard at work destroying this very quiet convention somehow solve the problem? No.

The bill is hideously overwritten, with large swaths of redundant text and provisions misplaced in the wrong sections. Will dismissing me out-of-hand perform some magical copyediting? Nope!

You want this thing? Then help fix it! Get your people in here to help fix it! It is riddled with errors and problems.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Wait a second... Miestra, be completely honest... have you read the whole thing in detail?

[Viteu Marcianüs]

Have you? You're being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. You can't actually think the 1997 Organic Law, which OUT OF NECESSITY WE ARE FORCED TO SWEAR TO UPHOLD, is actually a better document? A lot of the nonsense you raise is just because it's unfamiliar. But a State should not continue to function under an inept document like the Org Law simply because AD likes how comfortable it is.