Estimat Secretar, please Clark the Upper House of Review Amendment.

@Sir Lüc, please move this to the CRL.

Quote from: King Txec on January 28, 2026, 02:21:15 PMI may not be grasping the entirety of the proposal here, but I fail to see how the Senate is less democratic than the Cosa, as senators are actually elected by the people, whereas MC's are on a party list but don't actually run for election in their own right. Perhaps if we want to fix an imbalance, MC's should run for their seats instead.

Funnily enough, I believe we've all actually had a discussion on that bolded bit recently, though that's more Sir @Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP area of enthusiasm so I'll not steal his thunder.

One of the more straightforward reasons for the "less democratic" argument is that it weights the votes of citizens unequally. We had four Senate elections this last time (three regular, one special). In each of those, more votes were cast than the entire citizenry of Vuode. Even if every Vuodean vuoted (and last time they had a Senate election, only about half did), their vuotes would still mathematically be worth more than the votes of any of the Senatorial voters from these other provinces. You see this problem appear (and receive similar criticism) in other similarly-structured institutions, most notably for most of us of course being the US Senate. The Cosa, of course, weights every vote equally, as it is a pure proportional representation.

QuoteIs the intent of MC Autofil to eventually convert the Senate into more of a UK style House of Lords? Why is our current setup a problem?

The answer to your first question is a bit of a "yes and no" situation, depending on how exactly you mean it. "Upper house of review, much like the House of Lords?" Yes. "Unelected upper chamber, appointed by the Crown or the Government?" No.

As to your second question, I would say that, if we must have bicameralism (which it appears we do, for the foreseeable future anyway), the conflict between responsible government and mis-applied federalist governmental structure will require one to come out on top, and in Talossa's case, I choose responsible government.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 27, 2026, 07:20:14 AMCould you give an example of legislation that's truly vital that we've been unable to pass thanks to the Senäts?

Admittedly, since the Government usually controls the Senäts, it usually does not come up.

I suppose then that as we live in unusual times, we will see if something does.

QuoteIf half the country's provincial representatives don't want to pass something, then it probably shouldn't pass until it's in a form they can tolerate, or until an election has shown the will of the electorate.

A point the Seneschal may come to regret making.

QuoteI don't find the aesthetic argument very persuasive.  We shouldn't change something that serves an important purpose just so we can mimic other countries, unless there's good practical reasoning to do so.

I know you don't, this was an argument addressed to the open-minded.

QuoteWhy would it do this?

Because it removes the Senate from the "political" side of the legislative process, much the same way as most other upper houses -- even elected ones -- are not seen as being as politically-charged as their lower partners.

QuoteThis is an important point... subordinating the Senäts to the Cosa does seem like a prelude to getting rid of the Senäts itself.

This amendment would make it no easier to abolish the Senäts than it is right now. Compared to unicameralism, this amendment is by far the moderate position.

Assuming Sir Judge Plätschisch (it is "Sir Judge", yes?) still needs assistance with this matter, I would be happy to provide it if he finds me agreeable.

- Foxmouth

Native English speaker, took several years of French in high school (still got it to an extent, even if I'm very rusty) and minored in Russian Language & Culture in undergrad.

Other than that, some dabbling in conlangs such as Talossan (of course), Esperanto, and Finnish. Recently begun trying to pick up basic Catalan as well.

• For this one I would have suggested something with a quill, but since it would use the quartered gules/vert background found in Civil Service positions, it would be too similar to the Scribery (which uses...a quill).
  
  
• I'm not opposed to retaining the bridge emblem for the Directorate of STUFF, though we may choose to again update the background to the quartered Civil Service version. Open to what others think here.
  
  
• My first thought here was some kind of megaphone as a charge, but actually -- and by happy accident aligning with the arms of the incumbent -- what about a trumpet or horn?
  
  
• I actually have two concepts for this one drawn up some time ago:
  
  
       
  
  The first is, depending on how you choose to look at it, a form, document, or a bookshelf. The latter is clearly documents.
  
  
• My question here is what would we replace it with? Not opposed to replacing something insensitive in the slightest, but if we're going to change something, let's make it a good one so people don't have second thoughts down the line. (First thought was some interlocking rings, a stylized chain of sorts? Shared culture is ultimately what binds any group like Talossa together, after all.
  
  
• Adding an item to the list (sorry not sorry) to merge in this discussion and point out that I do have a few other SVGs (Seneschal, Finance, Foreign) I've made to tie everything together with the ARD's recommended shades of green and red. Haven't done the entire Cabinet yet though.

- Foxmouth

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 17, 2026, 04:48:21 PMI note that this bill would make the first sentence of the modified clause a lie.  "The Senäts shall have equal powers with the Cosa in respect of all proposed laws" will no longer be true.  There will only be two categories of bills for which the Senäts will be equal to the Cosa.  That might be something you want to fix.

Under your interpretation, the first sentence of the modified clause is already a lie -- the clause goes on to describe a class of bills in which the Senäts is already unequal to the Cosă. I'm interested in hearing what others think about the wording, though.

Quote

Quote from: M:sr Pôl dal Nordselvă, D.Div, M.Ed on June 23, 2025, 05:47:21 AMCan you explain to me why having an upper house that has the authority to reject bills or send them back down is a bad thing? I can perhaps understand the ability of the Cosa to override but do we need to strip them of power in order to accomplish the same purpose?

I thought this was still a good question that didn't actually quite get answered.  The explanation went into the nature of the change in detail, but without saying why it was desirable.  Why would we want to do this?

There are a few reasons:
- One, it does not allow truly vital legislation to be hung up forever on the Senäts. Since, of course, bills addressing a given issue can only be considered once per term, this allows the Senäts to effectively kick the can down the road on any issue they wish to obstruct the government on.
- The more overarching, "philosophical" reason is that Talossa is not a federal nation. I know we've compared our constitutional structure to Australia before -- and in fact I believe @Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC has stated that similarities are intentional -- but the reality is that we are more like Spain than Australia: a unitary state, divided into provinces that may legislate on certain areas on their own. A "strong" upper house (or at least one as strong as the Senäts) is incompatible with the concept of responsible government in a unitary state. To return to the Australian comparison, they are federal in nature, and this juxtaposition between responsible government and federalism precipitated what is likely their most dire constitutional crisis:

QuoteAs in most Westminster system parliaments, Australia's government is ordinarily formed by the party enjoying the confidence of the lower house of parliament, the House of Representatives. Australia's Parliament also has a powerful upper house, the Senate, which must pass any bill initiated by the House of Representatives if it is to become law. The composition of the Senate, in which each state has an equal number of senators regardless of that state's population, was originally designed to attract the Australian colonies into one Federation. Some at the time of Federation saw the contradiction in the Constitution between responsible government, in which the executive owes its existence to the legislature or one dominant house of the legislature, and, federations with the houses of bicameral legislatures operating independently and possibly deadlocking. Certain delegates predicted that either responsible government would result in the federation becoming a unitary state or federalism would result in an executive closer to federal theory. For instance, delegate Winthrop Hackett stated at the 1891 Convention that as a result of the combination of a strong Senate with responsible government, "there will be one of two alternatives—either responsible government will kill federation, or federation in the form in which we shall, I hope, be prepared to accept it, will kill responsible government".

A few things I would ask sceptics to keep in mind:
- A "house of sober second thought" is the usual role for the upper house in parliamentary legislatures (House of Lords, Canadian Senate, the German and Austrian Bundesrats, the House of Councillors in Japan, etc.)
- This change will also likely lead to a "de-politicization" of Senäts elections, which is healthy if we're trying to make Talossa a more tolerable place for people to spend their time.
- I know you personally have expressed several points of opposition to unicameralism before, chief among those being a safeguard on excessive Organic amendments. Please note that the requirement of the Senäts' consent is not affected in cases of Organic amendment.

Quote from: Mximo Malt on January 25, 2026, 03:27:08 PM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on January 25, 2026, 01:43:07 PM

Quote from: Mximo Malt on January 24, 2026, 07:08:40 PMÉu fostadréu tir zirat acest avant...


86 47.

Aßei vala aßei.

Acest isch toct.

MM

Quand q'eu sint à pünt d'acurd, c'è non tréi basat es schovan

Éu veleveu acürat à satisfiar el scrütì del S:reu Autófil. ;)

Så, c'esteva toct ünă representaziun unsinçar? Explicta. 🤨

I use Windows 10, but unfortunately my desktop build is pushing 9 years, which means some of my components aren't Windows 11 compatible.

Considering just doing a motherboard/CPU swap, or building something new and setting up a Linux partition for everyday use and a Windows partition (or just Wine maybe) for things I need it for. My brother's a big Linux guy, I'd wager he'd be excited to help me out with an install. The catch is that the latter option is expensive...

Quote from: Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat on January 23, 2026, 11:50:43 AMSome ideas that immediately come to mind:
In the Cub/Boy Scouts we had pocket hangers with strands where beads could be added. Perhaps something like this:



Explorer Scouts also have a braided ribbon sort of thing that pins are added to:

Fellow Eagle checking in, and may I just thank the Green Town Pursuivant for blowing a thick layer of dust off some old memories with these images! (As long as we don't go the old Tiger Cub route of a t-shirt with iron-on patches...)

If we're going to make a logo, perhaps something related to the ship emblem of the Immigration Ministry would be appropriate? Could even be a hybrid design -- MinImm uses a ship, the Seneschal's emblem is a star. So why not a sextant? The recipient has helped the new citizen find their way to Talossa, much as a sextant helps ships navigate the seas using stars.

- Foxmouth

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on January 19, 2026, 04:42:48 PMI think it should also be viewed with an eye towards activity on Wittenberg and a holistic sense about how things are going.  I'm not quite sure how to quantify the latter, though.  It might just be impossible, unless we do regular surveys (which I still think would be a good idea, just maybe a little much right now).

One would think the de facto Minister of Public Records might recall the "Wittenberg Usage" tab on Infotecă? That seems a good a place as any to gauge activity, at least in terms of the nation overall. It would be a good first step.

It is interesting to see the Seneschal reverse his "low immigration = house on fire = Government's fault" stance from the previous term. One wonders what caused him to change his mind.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on January 19, 2026, 04:22:47 PMI am also of the opinion that the Seneschal's artificial carve-up of the immigration stats of my last Government because "it doesn't count because of external factors" is deeply politically dishonest. The Seneschal cannot be shaken from his belief that immigration rates are a function of Government policy; that if immigration is low it's because the Government doesn't care about immigration, and that when he's in power, he can make immigration flick up with his policy choices. But this is simply proven wrong, if he has to falsify the immigration stats from the previous government, to eliminate the impact of something out of the Government's control (without doing the same to all previous governments).

This smacks of the same sort of "just asking questions" rhetoric he has employed before ("I promise I'm not saying Miestră is abusing her authority -- I'm just bringing it up so I can insinuate really hard!") but if he wants to be honest and exclude all outlying months:

- Every term's immigration average sits between 0 and 2, so we'll exclude any month over 2 new citizens as outliers.
- In the time period we're examining, the other months we'd exclude are April 2022, October 2023, and March 2024.

In other words, the table above would look like this:

Seneschal	Cosa	Months	Nats	Nats/Mo
T. Davinescu	56th	10	6	0.60
T. Davinescu (excl. Apr. '22)	56th	9	3	0.33
Plätschisch	57th	9	4	0.44
Tzaracomprada	58th	8	11	1.38
Tzaracomprada (excl. Oct. '23)	58th	7	8	1.14
Excelsio/Sant-Enogat	59th	9	9	1.00
Excelsio/Sant-Enogat (excl. Mar. '24)	59th	8	5	0.63
Schivă	60th	9	6	0.67
Schivă	61st	8	13	1.62
Schivă 61st (excl. Oct-Nov)	61st	6	4	0.67
A. Davinescu	62nd	1	0	0.00

If we exclude "outlier" months, the first term of the Avant! coalition improved on the final term of TNC government, and held the line in their second term. While I still think it's dishonest to carve out any months, I find it a little amusing that doing either option honestly puts the Avant! terms in a good light.

The other metric that would be useful -- especially if we're looking at activity -- is the attrition rate. How many citizens from each term have already lost their citizenship?

- 56th Cosă: 1/6 (17 %)
- 57th Cosă: 1/4 (25 %)
- 58th Cosă: 7/11 (64 %)
- 59th Cosă: 1/9 (11 %)
- 60th Cosă onward: 0's all around, though no one here has been a citizen long enough to lapse anyway. Thankfully, no renunciations either.

Simply padding the rolls does us no favors.

Polls are something I've been meaning to incorporate into TN for a while now. Figured we'd get divisive off the bat. :P

Quote from: Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir on July 21, 2025, 05:14:02 PMHonestly I don't mind the "send back" concept, however I do think that after this stage, the Senate should be able to amend the legislation as part of its role as a reviewing chamber before sending the legislation back to the Cosa. Or even just sending the reasons (both requiring a majority of senators to agree on what is send to the Cosa) it has been rejected. Although this is a more complicated system, but might be a sort of middle ground solution. And help with making the senate feeling more useful than it realistically is at the moment.

As Senators are already permitted to describe their reasons for voting against bills, I'm not sure any sort of official reconciliation process might be necessary, but I'm open to hearing what others think before sending this to the CRL.

During the recent Informal Session, MC Miestra Schiva posed a Terpelaziun to the Minister of Propaganda, which was answered in his absence by the Seneschal. "Does the Minister now believe that Breneir Tzaracomprada, condemned unanimously by the last Ziu for sexual harassment, is now a fit and proper person for the Ministry of Propaganda to collaborate with?" The Seneschal's response was genuine, but one that we feel reveals a difference of standards between this Government and the Opposition.

Essentially, the Government's position is that it is improper for the Government to refuse to work with any Talossan, regardless of their conduct. Certainly, it would be inappropriate for the Government to refuse to work with someone due to a simple difference of politics, but this is not a difference of politics, this is a rehabilitation that has not yet been earned. The Seneschal himself has agreed that S:reu Tzaracomprada has yet to offer any apology for his conduct that appears genuine. His response went so far as to liken a refusal to publicize S:reu Tzaracomprada's media channel to a refusal to publicize newspapers published by members of the Opposition. The latter would indeed be inappropriate, as it would represent a stifling of the free press. The former, however, is not tied to what S:reu Tzaracomprada believes, or what he says, but the things he has done. It is his actions that have earned him his current status as a pariah, not his views.

The issue comes back around to what the URL has repeatedly identified as the Progressive Alliance's flaw: an inability -- or a refusal -- to separate the personal from the political. This is an important skill to cultivate in politics, and it would be in the interest of the country if more parties were capable of doing so. Criticism of one's actions and views are taken as criticism of character, and this has led to the sort of political atmosphere that is now unfortunately common in Talossa.

This may surprise some, but we feel it would actually be a good thing for Talossa in the long run if S:reu Tzaracomprada were able to rehabilitate his public image. But the first step must come from him -- a genuine apology to his victim. Perhaps a period of "laying low", so to speak, following his apology. Letting time heal wounds. Unfortunately, the usual responses in times like these are blatantly passive-aggressive in tone, complete with smiley emoticons to really drive home that he does not care to redeem himself. Doubling down, as he does, gives us little confidence in his prospects. Continuing to shun him until he considers his actions would be significantly more effective when it extends to government action. Unfortunately, this Government seems content to give him what he wants anyway. The URL recognizes that doing so minimizes the discomfort he has caused his victim, sweeping everything under the rug for the sake of false positivity yet again.

Prior to the Informal Session on Sunday, the URL was approached by the Seneschal with a request. One of our colleagues in the Cosă is facing a dire situation that may prevent them from voting on the Clark entirely this month, and the Seneschal asked for an arrangement to avoid bringing the Government down on the first Clark. URL Secretary @Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC suggested pairing, a method where individual legislators, opposed on a given vote, agree to abstain when one of their pair cannot attend the session. In the interest of civility and out of our respect and well-wishes for our absent colleague, the Union of Free Reformists has agreed to offer the Government a pairing arrangement for the January Clark.

• In the short term, we agree that such a request from the Government is very reasonable, given the circumstances.
• Sir @Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP has already volunteered to switch his Vote of Confidence to Austaneu on the January Clark; and will be doing so shortly.
• This arrangement will preserve the margin by which this month's VoC would have been expected to pass.

The URL would like to send our best wishes to our absent colleague.

Mic'haglh Autófil
Tanáischteu del Regipäts

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.