Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on December 31, 2025, 05:11:16 PMThere is a great example, which I wrote about once, where I compared the same chapter about former Seneschál Tamorán dal Navă before and after he fell out with King Robert.

That was one of the issues of Qator Itrins, if I remember my Talossan reading correctly.

62RZ01: PER. I believe we have gotten a fair compromise made to this bill, and will support it.
62RZ02: CON. Given the opposition to this bill from some individuals with a good deal of experience with our legal system, I cannot support it. I'm open to looking at altering how advisory opinions work, but they appear to still be of use in some form, and this bill deletes them outright.
62RZ03: PER. I have some reservations about the removal threshold being a simple majority, but these can be addressed with additional legislation.
62RZ04: CON. I've made my stance pretty clear on this elsewhere.
62RZ05: AUS. Given the actions taken by the Foreign Ministry under the previous Government, and that the current one has not yet rescinded them, this bill seems somewhat weak compared to the current official position. Frankly, I'm more concerned with trying to stop democratic backsliding in Talossa.

VoC: NON

Begging the Seneschal's pardon, but it appears in his edit to his bill, he altered the text of the "currently reads" as opposed to the "shall be amended to read" portion in Item 1.

Edit: I see he's fixed it, carry on.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on December 28, 2025, 04:08:18 PMSo what's the deal? Why would we want to alter the immigration procedure so that the government no longer has the ability to halt the process, and instead requires the cooperation of the opposition?

The simplest answer would be that the Seneschal himself has campaigned against the Immigration Minister having a secret, unilateral veto over citizenship applications. One of his most zealously-delivered criticisms was his concern that the Immigration Minister could simply reject applications they found objectionable, including on political grounds. While this was obviously not happening under the previous Immigration Minister, it is a valid concern more generally, and an effective way of addressing this would be to require the permission of a politically-opposed individual in order to terminate an application. His bill, after feedback from others, finally addresses the "secret", but not the "unilateral". Why settle for fixing one when we can fix both?

Let's maybe take stock of what each side would stand to gain from a compromise:

Government gets:
- Basically everything they want out of the PPA2, including addressing the secrecy of the immigration process.
- Regaining some of the trust from the Opposition that they have squandered before the Cosa has even been seated.

Opposition gets:
- Addressing the unilateral nature of the Immigration Minister's power, which we believe to be of equal importance.
- An indication that the Government understands the necessity of government by consensus during the term to come.

Both sides get:
- Their respective leaders as co-sponsors of this bill (assuming the Seneschal is open to doing so).
- "Partial credit" for improving the accountability and impartiality of the immigration process.
- As a result, all involved get to count this as "a win" for their side, so to speak.

The country gets:
- An immigration process that can be better held accountable.
- A "lowered temperature", to an extent, that can hopefully lead to further collaboration on practical issues facing the country.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on December 28, 2025, 06:00:53 PMI do really think we should get to actually talking about why we would want to change the immigration process to require the opposition leader (Mic'haglh right now) to approve of halting immigration.

As previously noted, that would be any member of the opposition, not just myself. Just wanted to clarify in case you had actually failed to notice the first time I corrected you, and are not simply mischaracterizing the plain text of the bill in an attempt to spin a narrative.

Sir Marcel has done a good job of offering criticism of this bill (in terms of form, content, and process) but to add a few other points in parallel:

- The people who suffered most under KR1's harassment back in the day have stated — back in 2019, mind you — that they would need to receive some kind of fence-mending from Ben to be comfortable with inviting him back.
- They have not yet received any such apology or anything from Ben in the six years since he tried to re-immigrate. He has had ample time and not used it in the slightest.
- Therefore, it is not appropriate for the Ziu to invite him back at this time.

This bill requires us to extend the hand first, when the proper way to make amends is for the one who caused the harm to swallow their pride and reach out. The door has remained open for six years, and no attempt to walk through it has been made.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on December 27, 2025, 08:42:16 AMIt feels like the phone number is still a pretty important requirement to have. There are a couple of applications from the past couple of days to be processed, and I think the main way I would check their authenticity if I doubted them was to call their phone numbers. What are the changes that have happened in how people are reachable? I'm not 100% sure what that means.

Alright, then let's see what other people think.

QuoteSo the other change from the main bill is that you would need to sign off on the public halting of anyone's application process? That is a pretty dramatic change, S:reu Opposition Leader, because I'm not aware of much else in the law where the Opposition gets to share government powers. Could you tell me more what you mean by the carrot and the stick? Who is the donkey in the metaphor?

Not necessarily myself, or any other future Opposition Leader. Could be anyone. Could be Miestra, could be Iac Moritzescu. Anyone who shares the concerns of the Immigration Minister about a given prospective citizen. Interestingly enough, Immigration is actually one area that the Opposition has had a stake in before, the difference there being that back in the day it was only the Leader.
Also, to be clear, the donkey in the metaphor is an immigration process in need of accountability and transparency.

QuoteThe last thing I'll note is that your bill as written conflicts with the Public Process Act, so probably we will need to tweak it so that it can be considered alongside that.

As this bill does everything the Public Process Act does and then some, it renders the PPA redundant. On the upside, this means that I am certainly open to co-sponsorship from the Seneschal (as well as Sir Tafial) in return for dropping the PPA, to make sure credit is distributed as deserved. Unfortunately, with the Government's actions early in their tenure eroding what little trust they enjoyed among the wider Ziu, I do not believe the appetite exists from our side to engage in what I'll call "Wimpy-style dealmaking" ("I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today"), so I think it's best to try and work on a single compromise bill rather than to play hardball.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on December 26, 2025, 10:23:35 AMOkay, but I was really first asking about the phone number thing. You don't explain that in the bill or anywhere else. Could you please unpack that for us?

Ah, you asked me to "explain any other differences that might exist", so I was focusing on the main functional difference between this bill and the PPA. Since this bill is deliberately intended as a compromise act that can safely count on the approval of the Ziu, obvious similarities with the PPA are to be expected.

The deletion of the phone number requirement is mostly due to changes over the years in how people are reachable; the previous Immigration Minister had even mentioned that this is likely an outdated requirement. It is also probably the least important change in the bill, so I am flexible on it if it means we can look at the rest of the bill.

Quote from: Xheralt Del'Encradeir on December 26, 2025, 02:54:11 PMWHY is there deletion of the user account?!  That is very unfriendly and not conducive for reapplication.  Say instead "Wittenberg access shall be restricted to the level of access permitted other non-citizens (Landing Pier, etc.)"

Deletion of the user account is not a change enacted by this law, to be clear. That appears to have been first put in place by 35RZ22, if not before even that. 35RZ22 was passed on the December 2005 Clark, so we've been doing things this way for 20 years now. If you think that's something we should look at, I'm ok with that, but I'd like to keep this bill focused if possible.

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The other main difference is the inclusion of that bolded text in Item 3:

Quote5. If, at any point during the process, either before or after creation of the Wittenberg account, the Immigration Minister and any member of the Opposition determine that the prospective immigrant shall not be considered further

This is that "dilution of power" I referred to, the clause that actually removes the Immigration Minister's power that the PA campaigned against. The IPRA portion is the carrot, the PPA portion is the stick, and it would seem to make the most sense to do both.

As the title implies, this is meant to be a good-faith compromise between the Public Process Act and the Immigration Process Reform Act that improves upon both.

- The PPA was criticized for doing nothing to actually prevent abuses of the law and requiring the Immigration Minister to "tell on themselves", so to speak. The re-introduced version, to its credit, addresses the latter more effectively, at least.
- The IPRA's dilution of power was well-received, but some criticized the introduction of a new bureaucracy needed to do so. This bill still dilutes ministerial power, but does so without the creation of new bureaucracy, so hopefully the IPRA's critics will look upon this new bill more favorably.

WHEREAS, the current immigration process is noted for several shortcomings, and

WHEREAS, several different bills were proposed in the last Cosa term to address them, and

WHEREAS, these bills largely focused on different aspects of the process, and each had bill had its positives and negatives, and

WHEREAS, a compromise bill focused on a "carrot and stick" approach seems the most likely method to ensure the process is improved as much as possible; then

BE IT RESOLVED by the Ziu that the following changes be made to El Lexhatx:

• Title E, Section 2.1, which currently reads:

  QuoteThe Minister of Immigration shall ascertain to their own satisfaction that the prospective immigrant is a real human being with genuine interest in becoming a citizen of the Kingdom of Talossa. The Minister shall be free to inquire of the applicant on any and every subject, and shall be required to collect the legal name or name used in daily life, postal address (optional if the applicant is under 18 years of age, except for information needed to assign the applicant to a province), telephone number, and e-mail address(es) of the candidate, which information the Minister shall communicate to the Secretary of State. The applicant shall affirm or swear, under penalty of perjury and under the provisions of Lexh.A.16.1., that this information is accurate, and shall provide documentary evidence of the same if the Minister thinks it appropriate.

  shall be amended by deletion of the text "telephone number, ".
• Title E, Section 2.6 shall be created to read:

  QuoteAll immigration applications shall be automatically forwarded to an email address under the control of the Crown. This email address shall not be accessible to any member of His Majesty's Government, but the King shall give access to this email address to the Leader of the Opposition or their designee.

• Title E, Section 5, which currently reads:

  Quote5. If, at any point during the process, either before or after creation of the Wittenberg account, the Immigration Minister determines that the prospective immigrant shall not be considered further, the prospective immigrant shall be informed of this decision, and shall be made aware that a Grant of Citizenship may yet be obtained by the disappointed applicant if an act of the Ziu be passed directing that such a grant be issued. Any account created for the applicant on Wittenberg shall then be terminated.
  
  5.1 Any person, whose citizenship is denied, may in the first case appeal this decision by application to the Secretary of State, and be given the Chancery's contact details to enable them to do so. The Secretary of State may, if they believe the Ministry of Immigration has misused their discretion under Talossan law, report to the Ziu with their reasons for so deciding and recommend that the applicant or prospective citizen be given citizenship by act of the Ziu. Alternatively, the applicant or prospective may reapply by undergoing the entire procedure (minus any successfully completed portions) following the next general election.

  shall be replaced in its entirety with:

  Quote5. If, at any point during the process, either before or after creation of the Wittenberg account, the Immigration Minister and any member of the Opposition determine that the prospective immigrant shall not be considered further, the prospective immigrant shall be informed of this decision, and shall be made aware that a Grant of Citizenship may yet be obtained by the disappointed applicant if an act of the Ziu be passed directing that such a grant be issued. Any account created for the applicant on Wittenberg shall then be terminated.
  
  5.1. This decision may only be made after the application has been processed and posted, and the public must be informed of the minister's decision and the justification for the decision.  The public need not be informed if an insufficient application is being returned to the applicant under the terms of Lexh.E.2.4.
  
  5.2. Any person, whose citizenship is denied, may in the first case appeal this decision by application to the Secretary of State, and be given the Chancery's contact details to enable them to do so. The Secretary of State may, if they believe the Ministry of Immigration has misused their discretion under Talossan law, report to the Ziu with their reasons for so deciding and recommend that the applicant or prospective citizen be given citizenship by act of the Ziu. Alternatively, the applicant or prospective may reapply by undergoing the entire procedure (minus any successfully completed portions) following the next general election.

FURTHERMORE, nothing in this bill shall be construed as an ex post facto attempt to criminalize any associated behavior performed in any ministerial duties of the past, nor shall any such behavior be grounds for prosecution.

Ureu q'estadra så,
Mic'haglh Autófil (MC - URL)

It's worth looking at the Senate as well, just for curiosity, using the numbers from the four Senate races in the most recent election:

Party	% Vote (1st Rd.)	Seats	% Seats	Diff.	Sq. Diff.
PA	40.43	3	75.00	-34.57	1195.08490
URL	36.17	1	25.00	11.17	124.76890
Green	4.26	0	0.00	4.26	18.14760
Ind.	19.15	0	0.00	19.15	366.72250
				TOTAL	1704.72390
				TOTAL/2	852.36195
				GI	29.19524

As we can see, the Senate is significantly more disproportionate than even a 20-seat Cosa. This calls into question the motives and reasoning of those who may support keeping the Senate as-is, while opposing decreasing the size of the Cosa as "less representative".

However, we've seen people discussing changing the size of the Cosa recently, so it's not a bad idea to look at how that could affect things. For example, if the Cosa had 20 seats as recently proposed:

Party	% Vote	Seats	% Seats	Diff.	Sq. Diff.
PA	43.62	9	45.00	-1.38	1.90440
URL	32.98	7	35.00	-2.02	4.08040
Green	13.83	3	15.00	-1.17	1.36890
IDT	7.45	1	5.00	2.45	6.00250
IG/A-S	2.13	0	0.00	2.13	4.53690
				TOTAL	17.89310
				TOTAL/2	8.94655
				GI	2.99108

2.99 is still very low -- that would put Talossa between New Zealand (2.63) and Austria (3.21). Using the same method, a 40-seat Cosa, while lacking historical precedent, would have an index of 1.22. All of these would be perfectly acceptable numbers with respect to proportionality! Any of them are in line with some of the nations considered to have extremely healthy democracies. (For reference, nations like the US, UK, Canada, etc are regularly above 5 or even 10, with the UK's 2024 election delivering a Gallagher Index of 23.73!)

As an example, let's look at the results from our most recent election:

Party	% Vote	Seats	% Seats	Diff.	Sq. Diff.
PA	43.62	87	43.50	0.12	0.01440
URL	32.98	66	33.00	-0.02	0.00040
Green	13.83	28	14.00	-0.17	0.02890
IDT	7.45	15	7.50	-0.05	0.00250
IG/A-S	2.13	2	2.00	0.13	0.01690
				TOTAL	0.06310
				TOTAL/2	0.03155
				GI	0.17762

That's pretty low! For reference, the lowest one we can find for macronations is Guyana, which as of 2020 had a Gallagher Index of 0.52.

Mic'haglh Autofil and Sir Marcel Tafial are proud to announce l'Institüt del Agroïcismeu Political (the Institute for Political Nerdery). What we want to do here is basically "nerd out" about a subject we enjoy -- the various ways to analyze elections, look at different systems of voting, etc. More serious atmospheres might call this psephology, but we're pretty sure the Talossan name is actually easier to pronounce!

To start us off, I wanted to talk about a relatively basic measurement: something called the Gallagher index. The Gallagher Index is a measurement of how disproportionate an election's results are: the greater the difference between parties' share of the vote and their share of seats, the higher the index will be.

How do you calculate it? It's pretty simple, really:

• For each party in an election, take the difference between their percent of the vote, and their percent of seats in the legislature -- in other words, (V - S).
• For each of those differences, square them.
• For all of the squared difference, add them together.
• Take that sum and divide by two.
• Find the square root of that last step's result. That square root is the Gallagher Index.

Hearing no other nominations, in the interest of keeping things moving, I shall second my own nomination, bringing the election to a close.

The URL condemns in strongest terms yet another disastrous policy decision by the incoming Government. As one citizen has put it, the new Seneschal, not content with dismantling parliamentary democracy over the ages, now wants to abolish ministries as a concept altogether.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on December 20, 2025, 02:40:31 PMHonestly, I almost think that we might want to make things more fluid intentionally, so that responsibilities can be assigned as better suits the staff available.  It might be time to revamp the whole system.

Let's be clear: ministries exist in any country, large or small, to divide responsibilities cleanly and clearly. You know that Task A goes with Job A, and Task B goes with Job B. There are several obvious benefits of this method:

• There is no confusion on who may act on a given matter, because the lines of authority are clearly-defined. If you do not hold a given position, you do not have legal authority over its subject matter. (This in turn minimizes the possibility for conflicting directives.)
• Knowing with certainty the individual who holds a given responsibility makes it easy to hold them accountable. Blurred lines of authority make it easier for people to pass the buck, avoiding accountability for their failures and needlessly confusing the situation.
• Knowing with certainty where responsibilities lie is also important for the very people who hold them. If the situation is "more fluid intentionally", the members of Cabinet (if it can still be called a Cabinet) are left with only vague guidelines about what they should be doing, as opposed to clearly-defined roles.

The Seneschal has argued that his obliteration of the cabinet model of government is necessary because the current system encourages "stacking" jobs and roles for individual members of Cabinet. Unfortunately, his argument ignores the obvious truth, namely that the work still must be done. Whether you have one ministry with five areas of responsibility or five ministries with one responsibility each, the responsibilities still exist. The advantage of the latter approach is that it allows for responsibilities to be divided in a more manageable fashion, permitting the work to be divided in line with the abilities and availabilities of each minister. In turn, this helps each minister avoid overwork and burnout. While "stacking" has been performed in multiple governments in the past (including during the 58th Cosa, where the current Seneschal himself held three portfolios), he has chosen to criticize the previous Government for their stacking. In doing so, he ignores that because he has chosen to leave the Public Records and Defense Ministries vacant, he holds both of those by default, as well as the Seneschalsqab and the Immigration portfolio -- bringing him to four Cabinet posts, level with the same people he criticizes.

Equally curious is that the Progressive Alliance explicitly stated their support for "stacking" in their campaign material in the last election:

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 23, 2025, 11:39:47 AMWhere possible, preference should be given to someone active and letting them serve multiple positions, as opposed to picking less active people to round out the numbers.

In other words, the Seneschal is currently arguing against doing something he himself campaigned on ... while doing it anyway.

It is unclear how much of the current regime's decisions are being driven by a lack of understanding of how Talossa's systems work, and how much are being driven by a desire to create chaos and avoid accountability, but the URL has a few important ways we can prevent too much damage from being done:

• The most obvious, in the immediate term, is what we're doing right now: informing you, the public! You have a right to be informed about what your government is trying to get away with.
• We will continue to argue in defense of a government model that promotes responsibility and accountability, both because it is the right thing to do, and because the alternative that has been presented is deeply concerning.
• More important in the long term is the ability of URL-affiliated Senators to prevent misguided changes to our laws. Any changes not thoroughly debated and broadly agreed-upon are unlikely to be adopted by the Ziu.

Talossa deserves government, not chaos.

I would say I agree with most of this analysis. I would disagree on this, I think:

QuoteAnd I'm afraid I have to go back further as to why we lacked the positive flipside. That is: we did not have the stomach to defend our record as Government, and explain why we should get a third term.

In part, you and I actually had a conversation about this in mid-October about running on the Government's record.

I think the problem is that when we did focus on the positives, we only focused on one (immigration successes), because a lot of the campaigning from both sides kept orbiting the immigration issue. Effectively, we let them dictate the argument, and when we let them drag us down to their level of rhetoric, we got stuck trying to play their game against the pros, so to speak. A better job staying on-message going forward will be helpful.

Inadequate communications is also a big factor. I'm one of those people that expect facts to speak for themselves -- maybe it's an engineering mindset, not sure, but unfortunately facts are unlikely to be heard speaking for themselves over a lot of very loudly-spewed BS.

I do agree that the identity the party is building is a good omen for the future -- it is better to seek what is right as its own reward than doing it for titles or pretense.

Quote

• Build better political communications.
• Build an Executive Programme to go with the Democracy Agenda.
• Build a strong Shadow Cabinet as the nucleus of the next Government.

Absolute support on this.

Should be pointed out that your math is backwards. Our "threshold", such as it exists, is not 2%, it's 0.5% (1/200). Realistically it's probably even less than that, as anything above 0.25% would be "rounded up" to one seat.

Given our current electorate's size, even one vote puts you well over either.

I second the nomination of Sir Marcel Tafial.