Based on my summary of feedback to the initial PdR reform plan, I submit for public review the "Reform" Plan, Reformed.

Key Points:

Ziu Reform:

• Unicameralism: The Senäts is abolished with the general election following ratification of the relevant Organic amendment.
  
  • Senators are still "grandfathered" into a "merged" Cosa as previously proposed, in slightly different ways depending on the electoral method below.
• Cosa Option 1: Biproportional Representation
  
  • One of the two proposed methods of Cosa election is the "biproportional representation" method previously proposed.
  • Seats are apportioned among each province based on how many votes were cast from that province in the previous election, and parties are awarded seats within a given province based on their proportion of votes within that province.
  • Any seats that cannot be assigned to a single party are awarded at the national level via a "topping-off" once all provincial seats possible are awarded.
  • The apportionment of seats to provinces and the awarding of seats to parties (both at the provincial level and the nationwide "topping-off" stage) is all accomplished via the Webster method.
  • Incumbent Senators at the time of the Senäts' dissolution (of which there would be five) are automatically assigned half of their respective province's seats for each election during the remainder of what would have been their current Senatorial term. Should any of these ex-Senators appear on a party's list (with their consent) during such an election, their automatic seat assignment will count towards that party's seats in that province instead.
• Cosa Option 2: Mixed-Member Proportional Representation
  
  • The Cosa is split between "provincial seats" and "list seats".
  • Each province is assigned an equal number of seats, such that the total number of provincial seats does not exceed one-half of the whole Cosa.
  • Provincial MCs are elected by Instant-Runoff Vote and hold all of their province's seats.
  • The remaining seats are apportioned between parties, taking the provincial seats into account in order to arrive at a proportional amount.
  • Incumbent Senators are considered their province's "provincial MC" for the remainder of their Senatorial term.

[Note: It may not be an awful idea to submit these two options, along with "Status Quo", to Ranked-Choice Referendum 2]

A Fixed Legislative Schedule:

• Elections now occur three times over a biannual schedule (every eight months).
• The Seneschal may still issue a single month of recess per Cosa term, but this no longer pushes back subsequent Clarks (in other words, this Cosa will instead have five Clarks instead of six).
• Because elections are now fixed, a Vote of Confidence is no longer capable of calling a new election. As a result, the current-style VoC is removed from the Clark.
• It is replaced by a "Constructive Motion of No Confidence" -- this bill, which can be moved through the Hopper quickly as it may be an emergency, names a specific candidate to take over as Seneschal. If it does not pass, the current Government remains in office.
• As an alternative, we could simply extend the ability to submit a "majority petition to name a Seneschal" throughout the term, since as the law is currently written it may only be usable upon the seating of a new Cosa.
  
  • This could potentially be harder to use, since the petition requires a majority of the whole Cosa, and not just a majority of seats currently held. As a result, an "absentee Government" could still be active enough to avoid losing their seats, blocking the usage of the petition.
  • On the other hand, this could also prevent a poorly-timed absence from a given Clark from allowing a minority government to take office based on little more than luck.

Other Reforms:

• The ability of MCs to petition the Chancery for official recognition / "parliamentary status" for a new party in the middle of a Cosa term is retained in this proposal, along with the same limitations on doing so.
• A convention to coordinate provincial mergers is also retained.

Removed:

• The "power-swapping" arrangement between the Crown and Ziu regarding Seneschal appointments and vetos. (This was the only plank to get a negative score when I summarized the feedback.)
• Retaining the entire country as a single electoral district when moving to a unicameral Ziu. This proposal, one of two for the method of electing the Cosa, was replaced with MMP in this new proposal.
• The move to a yearly Cosa schedule had quite a bit of support from the people who supported it, and quite a bit of opposition from the people who opposed it. (It actually registered a perfectly even 0 in my summary tally.) So while I believe we should continue to push for it, I also recognize that sometimes you need to walk before you can run. The point is establishing consensus, after all.

After going through the results, I first recorded everything quantitatively. Please note this was subject to my own interpretation if your comment was sort of ambiguous.
* "In Favor" indicates clear support
* "Open To" indicates agreement with the general idea, but uncertainty based on the details or preference for a slightly different method.
* Neutral (obvious)
* "Skeptical" is best typified by Luc claiming to "vaguely preferring" keeping the Senats in favor of the proposed unicameralism
* Firmly Against (obvious)

Proposal	In Favor	Open To	Neutral	Skeptical	Firmly Against
Royal "power swap"	Autofil, Schiva				Breneir, AD, Luc, Ian
Unicameralism	Autofil, Breneir	Schiva, GV		Ian, Luc	AD
Biproportional	Autofil, Luc			Schiva, AD
Nationwide single district	Luc		Autofil	AD
MMP (not proposed but discussed)	Schiva	Autofil, GV
Fixed election schedule	Autofil, Breneir	AD		Schiva
Year-long term	Autofil, Breneir, Luc				Schiva, AD, Ian
Constructive VoC	Autofil, Breneir	Schiva, AD, Luc
Mid-term party registration	Autofil, Breneir		Luc
Provincial reductions	Autofil

If we assign these categories integer values from +2 to -2, preference is as follows:
* Constructive VoC (+7)
* MMP (+4)
* Fixed elections (+4)
* Mid-term party registration (+4)
* Unicameralism (+2,)
* Biproportional (+2)
* Provincial reductions (+2)
* Nationwide single district (+1)
* Year-long Cosa term (0)
* Royal "power swap" (-4)

I'll be paring down the proposal based on this feedback over the coming days as we seek to arrive at a consensus.

Quote from: Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB on October 21, 2024, 03:18:27 PMI'm really curious, as the current elections administrator, what actual reasons there are for making the period between elections longer? (sorry I've had trouble following this so forgive me for inane questions).

I do see the allure of running elections less frequently, as that is probably the busiest time in the life of the Chancery. What practical reasons would there be though? Too long and we risk losing the government to inaction.

The two main reasons are:
- Increase space for "apolitical" activity; if elections are less frequent, that's more time people can spend on doing things that aren't inherently related to elections. (As a knock-on benefit, spacing out "political" activity should help to lower the political temperature somewhat)

- Allow governments more time to actually focus on getting through their agenda outlined at the beginning of a term.

As for your second point, this is why the VoC would be retooled as a "constructive" vote of confidence -- this is something that allows the government to change hands in between an election.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on October 21, 2024, 02:35:26 AMAwww man, I hope you don't think I was liking "marital dissolution", look after yourself

Nah, I knew what you meant, lol. The hard part is in the past, now it's just paperwork.

Quote from: Sir Lüc on October 01, 2024, 04:48:17 PM- I am absolutely in favour of having provinces play no part at all as constituencies for national elections (or if they must, only with proper weighting)

I wanted to touch on this point specifically -- do I understand you correctly that you prefer either of my proposed options to an MMP electoral system?

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 02, 2024, 05:32:37 PMThis may be outside of the overall reform scope but I wanted to re-surface this as it didn't get much attention but I think it is a good idea. Especially as a part of more face-to-face interaction.

Even if it is not something placed into law shouldn't we make an informal effort to have at least one live Cosa session each term? Maybe right in the middle to allow time for government preparation and have terpelaziuns submitted a few days in advance to allow for the same.

I think it would be a boon for social connections and public interest.

This was something I considered outside the scope of these reforms -- since it's not necessarily a proposed change to law so much as custom -- but for what it may be worth, I would also like to see us utilize Living Cosas more regularly.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on October 06, 2024, 05:42:06 PMCan I just reiterate my hobby horse - there *has* to be explicit provisions to choose a Seneschal between elections, if the incumbent quits/vanishes and the Distain isn't available

I mean, given that the "power-swapping" arrangement appears to be more unpopular than popular, it would be expected that the Cosa retains the sole power in nominating a Seneschal. In that case, I imagine the current petition method is acceptable to use mid-term, no?

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on October 06, 2024, 05:01:01 PM@Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP This was a question that got lost in the mix from the complimentary terpelaziun I posted. Do you foresee a bill coming from this discussion for consideration this term?

That would be preferred, once we can arrive at a broader consensus. As it stands, the sixth Clark is tentatively scheduled for January, though if the Seneschal declares a month of recess for December that pushes it out to February. I'd like to think we can arrive at something by then. (I may actually go back through the thread and tabulate people's responses to individual items in the proposal, that way we know which parts are more likely to achieve broader support.)

Finally, I do want to apologize for the delayed response -- the past few weeks most of my energy has been devoted to a higher-than-usual workload at work and the process of beginning legal proceedings for marital dissolution. La vidă martscha.

Për

Quote from: GV on October 06, 2024, 03:00:59 PMI've a family member who works for Visa.  Even Visa "only" has a 99.99999% reliability goal.  All is well.

"Visa - it's almost everywhere you want to be."

RZ14: Aus

RZ15: Con - I believe the intended recipient a worthwhile place to be donating money to, but I think it makes the most sense to spend the money already allocated for foreign aid before we go allocating something else.

RZ16: Për

VoC: Üc

Estimat Túischac'h,

I thank the Member for his question.

On the first step of the process, I can report that my adapted-FMEA process with the Secretary of State produced useful results; in accordance with the findings, Ministry personnel will be paying particular attention to how easy the new database makes it for the Chancery to add MZ's to a new Ziu term, as well as the processes by which Clarks are populated with bills and published for the Ziu to vote on. Apart from the occasional follow-up question with the Chancery which may arise, it would be appropriate to consider this step complete.

On the second step, we are nearing a few options in internal deliberations that I believe will be worth bringing to the public, keeping in mind this Government's other goals (for example, keeping as much of Talossa's digital infrastructure as possible on nationally-administered server space, and using "tailor-fit" solutions where possible). I would look for this discussion within a week or two, following the wrapping up of a few loose ends in our internal discussion.

The third step, of course, is contingent on completion of the second, but is also somewhat reliant on the Ministry's other main goal of re-nationalizing our web server presence. On that note, I am pleased to report that we should also be announcing a major development there in the near future (on a similar timeframe to the database-solution discussion).

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 30, 2024, 10:30:44 PMName the last rejected referendum.

Based on a little light digging, it would appear to be the referendum on an unknown amendment during the October 2005 general election. The Digest is pretty unclear on exactly what this bill was, as is the relevant ProBoards thread.

Frankly speaking, if support for the monarchy were so low that it could not even survive a referendum, then it probably shouldn't continue to exist anyway. "The people might vote in a way I don't like" is not reason to gatekeep referenda with a unilateral veto.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 30, 2024, 08:20:51 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP on September 30, 2024, 08:02:11 PM

QuoteAll right, on the fixed schedule issue: I'm coming down as against it, solely on the basis that being able to declare a month of recess has been invaluable in the past. For example, if a Government hasn't got their act together to get a budget on the Second Clark, as it were.

My proposal keeps the Month of Recess. Declaring such simply eliminates the last Clark of the Cosa term, pushing every remaining Clark of the term back a month instead.

Cool, in favor of that. But again, removing the possibility of an early dissolution means a possible situation where the Government has lost the confidence of the majority, but the majority can't agree on a new candidate, thus meaning nothing can happen until the next election.

[...]

Now, the reason I'm amenable to the "power swap" idea is that right now, there's not a mechanism for replacing the Seneschal should they quit/"vanish" and there's not a Distain for whatever reason. It might be good at least to let the King nominate an acting Seneschal until the Cosa gets its act together. There is also a weird ambiguity in the existing OrgLaw VI.2 which could be argued by troublemakers to forbid choosing a new Seneschal outside newly elected Cosas. I think we should fix that one way or the other.

I don't see any reason why these two can't be joined together. Frankly, closing the loopholes you've mentioned -- including making the royal nomination that of an "acting Seneschal" -- would cover "a possible situation where the Government has lost the confidence of the majority, but the majority can't agree on a new candidate", would it not?

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 30, 2024, 07:05:40 PMOkay, I can see the edge case where (a) the Government falls, (b) there's no successor who can themselves convince people to support them, and (c) the king is persuasive enough to convince the Cosa to support someone anyway.  That seems very unlikely to me.  Under your proposals, would this circumstance be more common than I might expect, or would you agree with me that this is an unlikely scenario?

Yes and no; keep in mind this reform does not distinguish between "failed votes of confidence" and "any other time we need a new Seneschal". It's just less likely to present an issue in the aftermath of a regularly-scheduled election (though, of course, as the 59th Cosa shows, not that much less likely).

QuoteI am not sure that I agree that it'd be better to have the monarch arrange a fill-in rather than call a new election if the Government fails a Vote of Confidence.  There might be some scenarios where that's hypothetically preferable, but isn't it more likely that the Government just had precarious support?

Would you not agree that "precarious support" is preferable to endless electioneering?

QuoteI guess it seems to me like a lot of this is planning for marginal circumstances out of convenience's sake, and not enough thought has been given to the long-term robustness of the arrangement.  I mean, for example, absent a royal veto of some kind, the monarchy will be eliminated as soon as it's slightly inconvenient to a future strong Government.  It seems like this plan is just pointing towards fairly quick abnegation of itself.

That would of course require the amendment be put to referendum; even without a royal veto, the Cosa would not suddenly be able to amend the Organic Law at whim. Nowhere have I suggested we should do away with referenda.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on September 30, 2024, 07:52:47 PMAll right, on the fixed schedule issue: I'm coming down as against it, solely on the basis that being able to declare a month of recess has been invaluable in the past. For example, if a Government hasn't got their act together to get a budget on the Second Clark, as it were.

My proposal keeps the Month of Recess. Declaring such simply eliminates the last Clark of the Cosa term, pushing every remaining Clark of the term back a month instead.

Quotea "constructive VoC" which takes the form of a regular Cosa-only bill naming a specific candidate for Seneschal. This would follow the current rule whereby you can't submit the same bill multiple times, thus preventing the same person trying to bring down the government every month. Should it fail, we're at status quo.

Now this idea I actually think could dovetail in well. Instead of the regularly-scheduled VoC, make it a specific bill to prevent overuse/abuse?

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 30, 2024, 06:04:04 PMOkay, so currently the Seneschal is the person who can put together a majority.  Is there some reason to think that the king's pick would be able to put together a majority, under this proposal?  Or would the king's pick need special immunity to the end of the term?  Ordinarily, I'd assume that eliminating the king's only point of leverage against the legislature would weaken his ability to spur them into supporting his pick.  Walk me through this and why this change would be not only a good thing, but better than the current system.

As noted in the original proposal, MCs voting Non are asked to nominate a replacement Seneschal, which would certainly help a great deal towards forming a new majority. Of course, it is certainly possible that even if the VoC fails, not everyone will nominate the same replacement, and that is where the discretion becomes important. The King will be able to review the nominations and work out a successor in conjunction with the party leaders in the Cosa. Maybe everyone who votes Non votes for their own party's leader as a matter of simple partisanship, but ultimately in discussions with the Crown, arrive at one of the leaders overall. Maybe someone misses a VoC due to some emergency, but is able to return, and the incumbent Government is actually able to continue overall. In both of these examples, under our current system, the entire Cosa dissolves and then we spend a whole two months on an early election, which, if you agree that a fixed system is preferable, would be time we agree is better spent on running the country.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 27, 2024, 09:14:00 AMOkay, I guess I see what you're getting at.  So you're envisioning a situation where the Government collapses in such a way that they can't pick a new leader, and so the king decides who will be the next Seneschal until the election?

Correct -- these changes are intended to work in concert with each other, as I had thought out the pros and cons of my proposal pretty thoroughly. This may come as a surprise, but I'm not just sitting over here, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. :P

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 30, 2024, 01:07:50 PM

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP on September 26, 2024, 10:58:32 PMThe former is effectively what we're on now. Are you ok with making that a fixed schedule? Because if so then we at least have a starting point to work from.

@Mic'haglh Autófil, SMC EiP Would you be willing to elaborate on this? We would have a fixed schedule but still have elections every eight months or so?

I am still of the opinion that more time is needed between elections. If that extra space creates a multitude of fantasy leagues then so the better for the additional Talossanity.

Correct, if we are to simply fix the current election schedule (which is what I believe to be the Baron's preference), that would be equivalent to removing the dissolution of the Cosa on a failed VoC.

Obviously, from my original proposal, you and I are aligned on this, but this is the whole point of the process, building consensus.

I would be interested in hearing more from other MZs who have yet to express much of an opinion. @Dame Litz Cjantscheir, UrN and @Sir Lüc come to mind, though the latter will likely be a bit more taciturn given his potential to become SoS in the near future. S:reu Tafial weighed in a bit, though only on the Cosa apportionment method. Senators are of course also important in the process here.

As one of the resident sports nerds, and the erstwhile commissioner of the AFT/TFA, you can count me in.

The schedule you have is ten weeks, which will be a crunch for scheduling:

• A three-round playoff with a seven-week regular season. This could allow for a single round-robin between eight teams, or four-team divisions doing double-RR with a week of randomly-matched cross-divisional play.
• A two-round playoff with an eight-week regular season. This could allow a ninth team, or two five-team divisions doing a double-RR within themselves.
• A single championship game allows a nine-week regular season, so eight teams on a single-RR, or the five-team divisions with a single cross-division week.
• No championship game at all -- league table only -- could support six teams on a double-round. Not awful, all things considered.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 25, 2024, 11:03:00 PMOr put them on a two year-cycle, where the 24 months are divided up into three terms of eight months each.

Or don't meddle with this at all, really.  That'd be fine, too.

The former is effectively what we're on now. Are you ok with making that a fixed schedule? Because if so then we at least have a starting point to work from.

QuoteCan you explain what benefit Talossa might derive from this change?  To me, it appears to be a power that is actually designed never to be used, which would make this just a severe new reduction in the few remaining royal powers and checks in our system.  But maybe there'd be a benefit here that I'm just not seeing.  Can you describe a scenario where you think it'd be good to have the king exercise this discretion?

Actually, if we move to fixed terms, that would be a primary reason to allow at least some degree of royal discretion in naming a Seneschal. Fixed terms would necessitate the ability of the Cosa to withdraw confidence somehow -- hence the constructive VoC's. The negotiations should one of those fail would be a reasonable place to allow the King to exercise some power, and as a result, this is one place I'd be willing to cede a little power to the Crown.

QuoteOh, you might need it politically as a sop for them, for sure.  But I just wanted to speak up against the idea that they own their seats.  They don't.  They belong to the citizens of Talossa, through and through.

Then I suppose it's a good thing I never claimed otherwise.

I wish we could have one ten-thousandth of the number of sweeping reforms we've apparently "had", lol.