Anyway, I am extremely upset that we have not had the State Opening of the Ziu before the First Clark went out. This is not the fault of the SoS, who is doing his job right; nor of the Seneschál, who's written the Speech from the Throne. But people say that the justification for the Talossan Monarchy rests on ceremonial stuff like this.

Yeah, but why, Brenéir. No satisfactory explanation has even been given about how you flipped from volunteering yourself for Cabinet positions to turning against us. It is actually personally hurtful to me, who had to do some fast talking to get the TNC involved in the coalition in the first place. I feel like I got kicked in the face and I don't even know why.

Objection. Under El Lexhatx H.23, the Opposition are those members of the Cosa who vote CONTRA on the VoC.

Of course there's an option for amendments in between, but then it would have to go back to the first chamber for those amendments to be approved.

Quote from: Glüc da Dhi S.H. on July 29, 2021, 03:40:10 PM
Well the first part of this is an egregious lie.

Interesting that you're happy to call Senator Plätschisch an egregious liar. I'm just repeating what he told me.

ETA: it's precisely this sort of "raising the rhetorical temperature" which makes Talossa unpleasant for people who don't pick political fights for fun. I know I'm guilty of it myself, but to quote Samuel L. Jackson, "I'm trying, Ringo."

Quote from: El Lexhatx H.1.1Following each General Election there shall be an official "State Opening of the Ziu". At the start of the State Opening, the new Seneschal shall be sworn to the office publicly. The Sovereign shall then deliver a speech outlining the Government's legislative agenda and program for the term. The contents of this speech shall be communicated to the Sovereign by the incoming Seneschal prior to the ceremony. The Seneschal may announce Cabinet Ministers during the ceremony. A rebuttal by the Leader of the Opposition shall follow, which may be followed by a further rebuttal by the leader of the third largest party. When practical, the State Opening may include an official Living Cosă (and 'Living Senats') in which food and drink shall be featured and as many Talossans as possible shall be invited to attend. The event shall be organized and conducted by the Speakers of both Houses of the Ziu, working in coordination and cooperation with each other.

I know that the new Seneschál has drafted up a Speech from the Throne and is sending it to the King, so we've got that part sorted out. What we need to organise from here is:

- a date/time/setup for a live video conference featuring the Seneschal, the King and the Leader of the Opposition;
- an Opposition Leader, lol.

As to the latter:

Quote from: El Lexhatx H.23. Members of the Cosâ who (in a given session of the Cosa) have voted NON on the most recent Vote of Confidence, or intend to do so on the next Vote of Confidence, shall be known as El Contrapharti Fieir da Sieu Maxhestà, or "His Majesty's Loyal Opposition" in English, or in short "El Contrapharti / The Opposition". Unless and until the members of the Opposition decide otherwise by majority vote, the "Leader of the Opposition" shall be the leader of the party with the most Cosa seats assigned to MCs who voted NON on the last Vote of Confidence.

... but the problem is we haven't had a VoC yet; unless you count the Seneschál election. The party tallies for votes against the current Seneschál on the VoC were:

NPW 11
Tafial 5
KLüP 11
DIEN 14
Balançéu 17

So, if we take that as the equivalent of a VoC, then X. Pôl Briga is the Leader of the Opposition and gets to do a rebuttal at the Speech from the Throne? And M. Tresplet is the "third party" leader who can also make a speech if desired? Do we need to modify the law on the Leader of the Opposition to cover this case in future?

Hmmm. Well, if that's the only problem... I have no problem with introducing a bill to repeal OrgLaw VII.6, but that would probably have to wait until the end of the Cosa to go through. Maybe as part of an omnibus with other OrgLaw fixes.

However, it should be replaced - in this bill - by a means for the Ziu to "declare urgency" and skip straight to Clarking if necessary. What would give the most democratic safeguards - a 2/3 majority, or the consent of the Leader of the Opposition? (OppLeader is one of those offices I'd honestly like to "beef up". At the moment I think their own real job is to read a rebuttal to the Speech from the Throne at the State Opening of the Ziu.)

I no longer support removing the Seneschál's Free Pass after Senator Plätschisch pointed out that some kind of "urgency measure" for emergencies is useful; although of course an argument could be made that we have PDs for that. But once more that's an issue for the OrgLaw Reform Committee.

I simply don't agree with you on what the real practical effect is likely to be, given that the vast majority of legislation in Talossa comes from the Government in any case. What we want is a situation where opposition and cross-bench MZs get maximum time and motivation to go through every bill and point out problems. If you want to strike an anti-government pose, fine; let's say that Government-aligned MCs and Senators have less motivation to "get it right the first time" because 'we can amend it later', so delayed law = good law.

The question is how to maximise scrutiny of laws before they go on the Clark. You've deliberately ignored the question of what happens if the A-Xh is no longer on the CRL, so I'll repose that; also the question of, what if a lower threshold (eg 1/3) were required to take a bill to Committee?

The goal of this bill is not a Government power grab, although I'm sure AD interprets it that way. It seems to me that AD has a habit of seeing virtually anything that happens in the Talossan State as a question of "how much power the institutions of Government have, and how they can be checked" (viz. the recent agonies over the Criminal Code). I have a very different lens: I see State actions through the question of "how effectively can good things be done, and bad things be revoked".

The goal of this bill is increased scrutiny over legislation which should lead to increased quality of legislation, something that I thought we were all agreed on was a goal. AD's best previous answer to this has been to shame people for making errors in legislation that weren't picked up; an approach which he just got on the receiving end of re: translations into Talossan and didn't seem to enjoy much. So, an institutional rather than personal answer seems best to me.

If AD objects to the Seneschal's Free Pass, that's in the Organic Law and I invite him to throw repeal into the pot in the All-Party OrgLaw Committee thread. If AD objects to having a Cabinet Minister on the CRL, well, that's a different question. I see it as "the Attorney-General has State responsibility for the quality of law". AD sees it as the Government getting control over things. See above. So would a different composition of the CRL sweeten the deal?

The fact that we need this bill at all is shown by the fact that - once again - this bill was ignored until its proponent said "right, I want to Clark this". A step before Clarking - "right, I want to take this to Committee" - seems indicated.

The question of "what the Secretary of State can do" right now is subservient to the question of "when will the Database get much-needed repairs, or be replaced altogether", a question which is being worked on out of the public eye.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial on July 25, 2021, 05:40:39 AM
I hate misspelled names. I hate them so much that I wrote a blog post about it, albeit in Talossan... anyway, the rampant misspellings that float around on here are the bane of my existence, especially considering that the correct spellings are not recorded in one place. The Database, the Wiki, Talossa.Net and of course Witt all have different flavours of misspelled names, making it impossible for laypeople to figure out which one is actually correct!

In that case, it sounds like we need a programme to make sure the correct spellings are used on the Database, the Wiki and talossa.net. This sounds like something the Ladintsch Naziunal, @the Secretary of State and @the Minister of STUFF should be getting their heads together on, ASAP.

The argument for a Real Cosa has to be tied to the argument that it is not right that any joker should be able to get legislative seats just with their own vote and $10. I've run the numbers and you could definitely get a seat in a 21-seat Real Cosa with 2 votes, although 15 would make it trickier.

The Coalition Agreement states: "Any further fundamental Organic Law reforms, including the question of a unicameral Ziu or a "Real Cosa", will be referred to a Standing Committee of the Ziu representing all elected parties."

This is that Committee, and I hope to see all 8 (!) parties represented in the Ziu commenting here. The goal of this Committee is that we don't want to run the Ziu aground on struggles over future OrgLaw reforms, so let's try to come to a consensus on fixes before writing up a bill and Clarking it.

Without further ado, here are some suggestions I want to raise:

• That old chestnut, the Real Cosa. Organic Law IV.1 to be changed to: "The Cosa is the national legislative assembly, and is composed of seats apportioned among political parties based on their performance in the General Election. The number of these seats shall be set by law, except that it shall be no fewer than twice the number of Senators, minus one. It may administer itself as it sees fit."
• Write the Túischac'h into the OrgLaw. The Mençéi is an Organic post, why not the President of the Cosa?
• Possible further fixes to the Seneschál election. My top two questions: do we want to make it possible to abstain? Do we want to continue to require MCs to name two preferences?

The floor is now open for further vague suggestions.

So what do you guys reckon on my bill for a form of "two readings" of legislation?

WHEREAS the quality of legislation passed by the Ziu of our Kingdom has always been of questionable quality, given not only the volunteer, part-time nature of our MCs and Senators, but also of the lack of "professional" legal advisers to proofread amateurishly-written bills;

AND WHEREAS the Hopper itself was an early attempt to improve the process; but has always been hampered by the disinterest or forgetfulness of MCs and Senators in reading legislation until it is Clarked, by which stage it is too late for amendments;

AND WHEREAS the last Cosa brought in la Comità da Redacziun Lexhislatïu (CRL) to streamline this process, but this body simply did not function in the last Cosa;

AND WHEREAS even if the CRL functions as foreseen in this Cosa, it does not solve the large problem mentioned above, that MCs and Senators do not pay attention to the details of bills until after they are Clarked;

AND WHEREAS the idea of a system of "multiple readings" of legislation before they become law has been raised in the past;

AND WHEREAS the incoming Attorney-General and Túischac'h have agreed on this proposal, which will require a form of "first reading", whereby bills will need a affirmative majority of both houses (along the same lines as a Túischac'h election) to go to the CRL, and subsequently cannot go to Clark for 30 days unless the CRL gives its affirmative say-so;

AND WHEREAS at the very, very worst this bill will only mean a 30-day delay in Clarking bills;

AND WHEREAS there is still an "escape hatch" for cases of legislative urgency, in the provisions of Organic Law VII.6: "The Seneschál shall have the right at his discretion to withdraw any legislative proposal from the Hopper and instruct the Secretary of State to treat it as a properly submitted bill"; and also in the provision for Prime Dictates;

AND WHEREAS a future reform, whereby the Cosă and Senäts will vote separately on legislation to allow even more opportunity for scrutiny and debate, may be presented later in this Cosă term, whether this bill passes or not;


BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts of Talossa in Ziu assembled that

1.  El Lexhatx H.6 shall be replaced in its entirety as follows:

Quote6. No bill may be published in a Clark unless it has passed the Hopper, as provided in this section.

6.1.  All citizens of Talossa are entitled to participate fully in discussions and debates in the Hopper, within the bounds of law and of the decisions of the administering and presiding authorities of the Hopper. Any citizen may submit a draft of legislation to the Hopper, though these shall not be considered to be "legislative proposals" until sponsored by one or more individuals authorised to submit legislative proposals under Organic Law VII.5.

6.2. After a legislative proposal has spent at least 10 days in the Hopper, its proposer may request that it "move to committee". A bill shall be considered to have "moved to committee" after at least half of the Senators and half of the Cosă seats express their support in the Hopper for it doing so.

6.3. A Legislative Advisory Committee of Talossa (in Talossan, el Comità da Redacziun Legislatïu; and hereinafter, "the CRL") shall review or revise all legislative items from the Hopper once they have moved to committee; and may recommend acceptance or rejection, or suggest amendments in their best judgment.
6.3.1 The CRL shall conduct all its deliberations openly in the Hopper.
6.3.2 The CRL shall consist of the incumbent Mençéi, Túischac'h, and Avocat-Xheneral.
6.3.3. The CRL may create further committees to which their functions may be delegated, as concerns any bill or category of bills. Such a committee must have at least 3 members, including at least 1 MC and at least 1 Senator.

6.4. After the CRL has given its recommendation, or if it gives no recommendation within 30 days of the bill having passed to committee, the sponsor of the bill may ask for it to be Clarked, with or without amendments.
6.4.1 The same bill can not be submitted to the Clark more than once in the same Cosa, unless the original bill was vetoed, the original bill had been retired or voted down by its main sponsor during the voting period, or the bill has been substantially amended, as judged by the Secretary of State.
6.4.2. Bills must be submitted to the Secretary of State more than 24 hours before the publication of the Clark. Bills received less than 24 hours before publication of the Clark shall be published in the next Clark or postponed for one Clark, at the Secretary of State's discretion.

6.5. The Secretary of State is empowered to refuse to put a certain bill on a Clark if said bill;
6.5.1. appears to him to be obviously on its face inorganic, or to have such grave errors as would make it ineffective and/or require further legislation or a Prime Dictate to make it effective.
6.5.2. does not specify exactly the Law(s) or Article(s) which it seeks to amend, change, or repeal, if the bill seeks to amend, change, or repeal any Article of the Organic Law or any Law
6.5.3. is not clearly typed or word-processed; and/or
6.5.4. is so substantially different from its form as a legislative proposal when "passed to committee" that it constitutes a significantly different proposal.
6.5.5. Any such decision shall be subject to judicial review.

6.6. All bills submitted for the Clark shall be in one of the national languages.

6.7. The Secretary of State shall remove legislative proposals from "The Hopper" at the request of the author.
6.7.1 If a legislative proposal has remained in the "The Hopper" for more than 59 days, it shall be considered to have been removed, though any person entitled to do so may subsequently re-publish it.

6.8. Notwithstanding the rules about a bill's eligibility to be Clarked, if no bill was submitted to the Clark at the moment of publication, the Secretary of State shall be allowed to add to the Clark a simple bill asking for Quorum where Cosa Members and Senators can vote to confirm their presence for the Clark.

6.9. The Secretary of State is under no obligation to create a permanent record of legislative proposals in "The Hopper."

2. El Lexhatx H.7, H.11, H.12 and H.13 are hereby deleted in their entirety, and Title H of El Lexhatx will subsequently be renumbered.