Honorable Túischac'h, I rise to second this motion. I am usually not a fan for entwining Talossan politics with those of the Big Neighbour, but if there's anything Talossa stands for, it's democracy.

Whereas @the Government's original choice for Interior Minister had to resign before the new Ziu even met, and whereas the Distáin has been covering the portfolio since then, and the Distáin is severely overworked, and whereas a bigger Cabinet with more voices and more capability for doing jobs is always better:

therefore I am happy to recommend to the Regent, under Organic Law VI.3, that @Adam Grigoriu be named Minister of the Interior. Note that this will mean cxhn. Grigoriu having to give up his two Permanent Secretary roles, but I'm sure we can cover for those.

Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on January 04, 2021, 12:41:21 PM

Quote from: Açafat del Val on December 28, 2020, 01:28:54 PM
there would be no true consensus for a replacement.

How do you know?

I'm imagining a situation where we decide to keep the Monarchy as is but force-retire the absentee incumbent. Some people will say "oh God, no surrender, no King", and they have every right to; but others might think "if we are to persist with the monarchy, let's have someone who's universally respected and doesn't give anyone of any political persuasion the heebie-jeebies."

The practical problem arises that I could name a short list of such people. But all of them are either inactive, or "winding down their inactivity". To be blunt, it would be far easier for me to accept politically noxious but competent person as term-limited Head of State than someone genial, inoffensive, respected, and absent with a life term.

My personal belief is that no-one is qualified to be King of Talossa (someone who holds rights over the state by virtue of who he is, and these rights can't be revoked by the people or their representatives) except an Old Growther, someone who was Talossan back when it was a group of friends in East Side Milwaukee. If any of them were to show any interest in the job, then maybe you could talk me out of my firm stance on an elected Head of State.

Quote from: Ian Plätschisch on January 04, 2021, 09:36:50 AM
2. A periodically elected King (with quite long terms)

That would be perfectly acceptable to me as a "historic compromise" - something like 7 years.

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on January 03, 2021, 10:23:17 PM
Great.  So with 100 voters, it currently takes at least two votes to get a seat.

... your maths is upside down

Thinking about it, just setting the number of Cosa seats at the same number of votes cast in the election (1 vote = 1 seats) would simplify the hell out of calculations and eliminate rounding error! But that would require an OrgLaw amendment anyway. So why not think big.

I should point out that I still think my "circular party list" idea is valid and could apply to any number of seats, and should be considered on its own. The argument from Senator dal Vàl is that "more active legislators should get more seats". That doesn't happen, though. You're as likely to disappear off the face of the planet with 20 seats as with 1. Also, it gives too much power to a party leader to "play favorites" - contrary to certain smears I want to reduce the power of party leaders.

New Zealand doesn't have a 50/50 split. Out of a 120-seat Parliament, the South Island general (non-Māori) roll gets 16 MPs, and the North Island general roll and the nationwide Māori roll get proportionate figures (49 and 7 respectively) = 72 district MPs, 48 party list MPs.

I don't see any good reason why we need a 50/50 split; all we need is enough party list seats to make sure overhangs don't happen very often. The obvious 8 constituencies are the 8 provinces.

Anyway, kudos for dealing with the question of the threshold. The whole question is whether there should be a threshold, not "shrinking the Cosa". The reason why party lists were brought in was not to keep people out of the Cosa, it was to reduce the power of big parties to perpetuate their power via patronage (giving rank newbies seats thus buying their loyalty). There are currently 20 MZs in total and I have no interest in shrinking that number.

For all the talk about the glorious Talossan tradition of 1 person parties, we haven't had any of those for (*quick check*) miéida sant, since before Reunision. Even in the glorious days of the "blank cheque" ballot and RUMP dominance. We've had a few 2 person parties since then, of course, so that's the effective threshold that the popular will itself has imposed. Let's use that as our starting point.

^^^ Regent attempts to argue that 12 > 15  :o

Current membership of the Cosa: 12
Membership of the Cosa under my proposal: 15

Fairy tales about "shrinking the Cosa" are smears deliberately designed to upset and annoy.

Back on topic!

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on January 02, 2021, 10:31:36 PM
Anyway, I'd like to put this up to the leader of the Opposition. The fact remains that - even if Option One wins the election - nothing will happen without an OrgLaw amendment, which will need 2/3 of the Coså (3/4 with a veto override) to happen.

So, @Senator Plätschisch or other members of the LCC or other Monarchists, please answer. Would you be any less likely to oppose an Elected Head of State if we continued to call them "King"? Or "Regent" for a permanently empty throne? If the answer is no, then all these "compromises" are a waste of time (in fact, cxhn. Andrinescù for one has already dismissed them in advance) and we might as well just go for what we want.

Anyway, yes, Kiwi national pride. Please rise for our anthem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HVogejKx_c

In an MMP system, the constituencies would be the provinces. 8 Provincial MPs, 7-12 party list seats. Why make it more complicated?

Big issue is getting 5 Senators to vote themselves out of existence, lol

The funny thing is that Eovart is Australian. The Australian federal and state governments had a generally good response to COVID despite their federal government being a bunch of Trump-lite clowns.

I'm sick of having this argument again and again, but the Regent cannot simply be allowed to rewrite history with his continued assertions that the Talossan Republic was a failure and the Kingdom "WON" the National Schism. The Kingdom being so gloriously successful in 2011 that they had to open the door to a despised group of "splitters" whom they had been insulting for years, because the RUMP's unchallengeable rule had become a boring dead end, just like the KR1's PC Party. Turns out it took both wings to make the Talossan bird fly.

Further, the Regent's citation of the titles of Earl of Kenwood or Viscount of Vuode is dishonest, in that neither of them are "peerages" in the way the modern law describes it (titles of nobility granted by the the King), as they were both created by the Ziu. The first was bestowed upon the republican Bob Murphy for trolling purposes; the second was a title which had always applied to the monarchy, which was legislatively "separated" from the Monarchy but re-bestowed on KR1. The peerage as we know it was created by the National Schism Kingdom.

But just to stamp on any misinterpretations: I have no interest in abolishing the peerage. What would that mean, declaring that Mà la Mhà isn't allowed to call himself Lord Hooligan any more? Waste of time. And I couldn't anyway. The law gives the Monarchy power to hand out titles of nobility, and specifies that nobles get to sit up front in the Order of Precedence with the orders of chivalry. That's it. I just think it's embarrassing - what GV calls "SCA Talossa".

Quote from: Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on January 03, 2021, 09:10:27 AM
The Republic boasted ownership of talossa.com, a citizenry with a ton of longtime Talossans, the form of government you're proposing, and experienced leadership in the person of your very own self.  But the Kingdom ended up, in the reckoning of our current Seneschal, "much more culturally rich and attractive to citizens."  So let's figure out why... before we jettison even more of that cultural richness.

Peerages are so fascinating that no-one has given any out since Reunision, lol. (cue: the Regent declares some superannuated reactionary the Duke of Earl or the Count de Monet or some such, just to annoy me :D)

There's a reason why, after Reunision, Talossan culture has more or less reverted to the older traditions (preserved by the Republic during the national schism), while RUMPish innovations have died out. This, the cultural tradition, is the continuity, which is far older than the current Absentee monarchy. The exception to this is heraldry, which meh. I have a coat of arms and I don't regret it. Why would I wipe it out? Açafat dal Vàl, a firebreathing Republican, is in the College of Arms.

Of course Talossans can do whatever they want as a subculture.  If a heavily Royalist province declared its own feudal chieftain and thanes or whatever, I would consider it silly but harmless as long as it didn't affect the actual political system. But the fact that the RUMP didn't stick around "do their culture" when they no longer had an absolute majority and force it down everyone's throat... says it all really. If you don't want to participate in Talossa as a minority, then your interest was never in Talossa, just in being the boss. Precisely because it relies on edicts from central government and cannot survive without it, he bogus peerage belongs on the same scrapheap of dead-ends in Talossan cultural evolution as consonant mutations.