The call for bills for the May 2025 Clark (the first of the 61st Cosă) is now open. You may post a link to a bill's Hopper thread underneath in the usual fashion, provided it has passed the Hopper according to Lex.H.2 and you are entitled to Clark bills.

I will take any such bills (except for any that fall foul of H.2.7) that are presented between now and the publishing of the Clark, no earlier than the TST morning of May 1st.



Sir Lüc da Schir
Secretary of State

Quote from: Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir on April 25, 2025, 04:59:25 PM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on April 25, 2025, 07:19:38 AMYes, the only question is whether the fee for Antaglha was paid twice, as the transaction summary seems to suggest. Nobody was notified about the 14 April payment so I'm a bit confused as to what went on here.

Anyhow: I declare @Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir and @Eðo Grischun duly elected and seated. Congratulations again!



--Lüc, SoS

I am a bit confused about this myself as o was not made aware of a payment on my behalf, and I only made a payment myself on 23rd april

It's not for me to decide, but it seems to me you can benefit from the provisions of Lexh.B.9.2, and recover the extra fee the next time you need to pay.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on April 25, 2025, 04:56:40 PM@Sir Lüc , the Progs and Avant would like to have a place to discuss this issue, solicit input from others, and work on potential legislation or rules. Would you please create a board within the Lobby for this purpose, titled, "Summit on Toxicity and Destructiveness?"

Voilà: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?board=56.0

To avoid confusion and scattered posting, I'm locking this thread and redirecting Senators to the other thread opened by the Acting Mençei: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4025

I think it will be very helpful for me to post the full Standing Rule 2.3, which governs the election of a new Mençei, so Senators may be mindful of its provisions:

QuoteThe Acting Mençei shall allow for nominations to be lodged for a period of at least a week from the beginning of a term.

Should a Senator receive nominations from a majority of Senators, the nomination period shall end and the Senator be considered duly elected; otherwise, a ballot shall be held using Instant Runoff Voting.

Seniority shall resolve any ties that may occur during any stage of elimination.

Lastly, it appears that the Senators for Cézembre and Maricopa have lodged their nominations once the process was restarted, while the Senators for Fiovă and Florenciă had lodged nominations earlier and may want to restate them.

Quote from: Þon Txoteu É. Davinescu, O.SPM on April 26, 2025, 12:35:36 AMI hereby nominate myself for Mencei and furthermore a vote for myself.

Davinescu

The nomination is in order but the vote cannot yet be cast, as before voting there is a nomination process of one week, as per that same first sentence of Rule 2.3 which I quoted above. (Besides, there's high likelihood it will be a ranked vote, again as per the remainder of Rule 2.3, since there are multiple nominees)

Quote from: GV on April 25, 2025, 09:09:30 PM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on April 25, 2025, 07:47:20 AMPopping in again to notify the Senate that you guys have a full roster again. You guys may want to officially get the Mençei election started now.

@Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir , @Iason Taiwos , @þerxh Sant-Enogat , @GV , @mximo , @Þon Txoteu É. Davinescu, O.SPM , @Sir Ian Plätschisch , @Eðo Grischun

But below, someone states a winner's fee has not been received for one of the races.  By Talossan, until that seat's winner pays their fee, that Senäts seat if vacant.

That is not what anyone stated in that thread. If anything, we're wondering why the fee for the Senator for Atatürk appears to have been paid twice.

The Chancery has officially seated all Senators-elect as all fees have been paid. No seats are vacant.

QuoteWe *cannot* have a Mencei race until all fees are paid, right?

With the proviso that all fees ARE paid, technically no - as per standing rule 2.3, you could have opened nominations for Mençei as early as April 13, when the term began, even though two seats were still vacant back then:

QuoteRule 3.2 The Acting Mençei shall allow for nominations to be lodged for a period of at least a week from the beginning of a term.[...]

Popping in again to notify the Senate that you guys have a full roster again. You guys may want to officially get the Mençei election started now.

@Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir , @Iason Taiwos , @þerxh Sant-Enogat , @GV , @mximo , @Þon Txoteu É. Davinescu, O.SPM , @Sir Ian Plätschisch , @Eðo Grischun

Yes, the only question is whether the fee for Antaglha was paid twice, as the transaction summary seems to suggest. Nobody was notified about the 14 April payment so I'm a bit confused as to what went on here.

Anyhow: I declare @Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir and @Eðo Grischun duly elected and seated. Congratulations again!



--Lüc, SoS

Given that the required fees have reportedly been sent, that the First Clark is fast approaching, that we really need the Senate to get going and that the Senate has ways (Rule 3) to overrule me if it so wishes, I am amicable to declaring @Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir and @Eðo Grischun elected and seating them in advance if they provide me with proof of payment (a screenshot, or a PDF receipt, etc.).

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on April 23, 2025, 02:24:40 PMAh, ok that is fair then. I had a feeling we weren't quite responding to each other's direct concerns.

I still believe a reduction in Senators is important given the previously-discussed "warm bodies problem", but at least we now understand each other.

Sure, and I definitely initially misread your initial response.

I don't buy the "warm bodies problem" either for the following reasons:

1. As bad as the situation was in the last election, we had four candidates for three spots;

2. People avoid running for the Senate because of partisan or personal affiliation with the incumbent - I definitely passed up on running for my old seat because Iason announced he would run for reelection - and this wouldn't be an issue anymore if we ditch single winner races;

3. I disagree with the current ban on UC justices in the Senate while allowing them to serve on the Cosa and firmly think the reverse makes way more sense. I made the same point to V way back when this was enacted and his stance was to me quite baffling - how is it defensible for a justice to be a partisan politician elected in a party list just because they're towing the party line instead of voting their own conscience (and/or technically representing their province, currently) as independent legislators? Litz Cjantscheir was party leader of a party that (at least when it was founded in 2013, I'd need to check) explicitly had no platform, so how would that, or an explicitly single person party, be any different from being a senator?

4. Likewise, I would probably run for Senate if I wasn't forbidden to hold seats in the Ziu - which all Secretaries up to Iustì Canun were not, and in an era where senators actually still had overt partisan affiliations. I do recognise it's bad optics to have someone conduct their own election, so I'm not actually asking for this, but for the sake of playing devil's advocate 1. we have a quite effective Electoral Commission with comprehensive tools to identify fraud, and 2. again, it wouldn't be a single winner race anymore.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on April 23, 2025, 08:55:35 AM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on April 23, 2025, 06:02:00 AMLet's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.

The change in question is also present in Miestra's original text.

Oh yes, sorry, I should specify:

1. I am criticising both proposals and I only amended your Section 7 because I liked its wording more;

2. By "reverting back" I mean to the current eight-member Senate, and overall, to focusing the bill on the basic idea of a single nationwide constituency, which was my original idea some others are now developing.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on April 23, 2025, 09:14:08 AMIf @Sir Lüc is willing to remain on as Deputy, I would be glad to have him.

Equally glad to stay on as Deputy!

Current tally is 42 for @Baron Alexandreu Davinescu and 20 for @Munditenens Tresplet .

MCs who did not nominate anyone or cosponsor a nomination: @Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC @Bråneu Excelsio, UrN @Dr. Pôl dal Nordselvă @Barclamïu da Miéletz @Iac Éovard Valadeir @mpf @Munditenens Tresplet @Breneir Tzaracomprada @Muhammed Yasir and @xpb

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on April 22, 2025, 08:42:18 PM

Quote from: Sir Lüc on April 22, 2025, 05:01:00 AMI really don't like the reduction in the number of Senators without much thought to the massively increased power a single Senator would have - akin to a MC who could hold 33 seats.

A valid concern, though this is the main reason I sought a mild reduction in the power of the chamber as a whole to compensate.

But again, you reduce the number of senators because the transition would be simpler, which is a consequential change for a small, solvable issue, only to then rebalance it in a way that could be understandable for other reasons*, but has nothing to do with the starting issue to begin with. That to me is amputating an arm instead of putting a band-aid on a papercut, and then getting a prosthesis for the wrong body part.

Reducing the number of senators for an easily solvable transitional issue is indefensible. Let's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.




*: such as if the Senate continued to be skewed by provincial imbalance - hopefully not anymore - or if the Cosă needed to explicitly be the foremost nationally elected house of the Ziu.