RZ17 - Per
RZ18 - Con

I'm not entirely sure from the whereas clauses why this bill is needed? What would be the issue if someone else released these 'transmittals' after seven years?

I would also perhaps rephrase it like this:

QuoteThese transmittals shall only be released to the public by the Royal Archives seven (7) years after the conclusion of that Government's term of office.

That feels clearer to me.

Other than that I have no recommendation

I think the Túischac'h has a good point. Under the current law it looks as if there is already nothing preventing the archivist from enlisting the scribe to help. I also agree that if the point is to have a stopgap it shouldn't depend on the archivist appointing someone.

My recommendation would be to merge this proposal with "The Second Talossan Government Transparency (Repair) Act" and alter it to make sure a stopgap is always in place.

Looks good. I would recommend acceptance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament 8-)

Quote from: Breneir Tzaracomprada on September 14, 2024, 02:07:09 PM1.2.3 of el Lexhatx

This should presumably read C.1.2.3 of el Lexhatx.

I have no further recommendations. To be honest the implication of this change isn't entirely clear to me. If office of the Secretary of State were to become vacant the appointment of a succesor would still have to go through the regular procedure. It's not clear to me how this would change things.

The current government submitted a budget allocating 50 dollars for expenditure by the Bureau of Humanitarian Aid and International Development. I would be interested to hear from the minister of finance how the government envisions this money be spent. Is it first come, first serve with the money going to whichever charity the Ziu passes a bill for first? Does the government itself have a project in mind? Does it support this particular bill and if it passes does that mean the government won't support any further BHAID donations this term? Basically, how do ad-hoc BHAID bills like this relate to the budget? @Sir Lüc

I have no recommendation on this bill.

Quotebe amended by addition of the bolded text and deletion of struck-through text as follows:

Structuring the bill like this makes the meaning of the text dependent on the formatting. It might be preferable to structure it as "Lex x, which currently reads: [...] be amended to read [...]"

QuoteIf the Immigration Minister considers that this essay shows an insufficient understanding of or interest in Talossa and what Talossan citizenship entails

.

"Insufficient" here is undefined and very open to interpretation. Insufficient for what? What bar needs to be cleared here? I would recommend somehow making this a bit more specific or at least define for what purpose the understanding needs to be sufficient.

QuoteThe Ministry of Immigration shall [...]put them in touch with Talossan citizens who are identified by the Ministry as being able and willing to help them pursue those interests.

One of the interests listed (and which will be selected quite frequently I suspect) is politics. To help a prospective citizen pursue a political career seems dangerously close to broosking and this clause to me reads like an open invitation to do so.

My recommendation would be to address these points before passing the bill.

Fun fact; in TCAT terminology a poursuivant (someone who pursues, i.e. a chaser) is a rider ahead of the peloton but behind the front rider/group. Often, someone who attacked from the peloton in an attempt to get to the front of the race.

Anyway, congratulations Carlüs!

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on September 29, 2024, 03:21:24 PMAside from the AFL, all these leagues are kind of obscure, and if anyone has better suggestions please let me know.

Premier league, Bundesliga and Serie A all end final weekend of week 21. It'd be one week shorter, but any of these probably has more big name players than MLS.

I'm in. I don't think it'd be wise for me to participate in the live draft though, so I will count on the wisdom of the computer.

RZ3-Contra - I Like the idea of citizen terpelaziuns, but not for civil servants. Also requiring an MZ to sponsor sort of removes the potential effectiveness.
RZ4-Per (as mentioned above)
RZ5-Per
RZ6-Per
RZ7-Per
RZ8-Per
RZ9-Per
RZ10-Per - Simultaneously excited and hesitant. Does this really need to be in the law? Can't we make a nice wiki page/thread? Also won't this go out of date very quickly? Are we gonna change the law everytime a new song is added? All those reasonable thoughts are somewhat overruled by pride at tmt having become such a major institution in Talossa. Eh, it doesn't do any harm I suppose.
RZ11-Per
RZ12-Per, with congratulations to our Belacostan compatriots.
RZ13-Per

On RZ4 - The Nonpartisan Chancery Act, I vote PER

The main argument is kinda obvious: the referee of our democracy shouldn't also be a player.

I have some additional thoughts based on my own experience as sos. When I became SoS I resigned my party membership including all access to member-only forums/chatgroups. It was occasionally difficult staying out of partisan politics, but I never regretted this decision. Some examples:

- Moderating witt. The SoS is also the main moderator of witt and the one who enforces wittiquette. Thankfully there mostly hasnt been much need for moderating political debate, but there have been times where things got rather heated on witt. Invariably when that happens people on one side believe that their side is making valid arguments whereas the other side is trolling and breaking wittiquette. I remember at one point a citizen sued me for editing their frequent posting of someones non-Talossan name. How do you judge what is acceptable and what is crossing the line or decide which posts are on-topic and which aren't without letting your own biases influence your thinking? That is hard enough even without a partisan affiliation. Clearly being a party member isn't going to help. And if you do intervene, are people gonna respect your decision if they might suspect it is motivated by partisanship (regardless of whether it actually is or not). We need a neutral arbiter for enforcing wittiquette.

- Certification of the election. In my time as SoS more often than Id hoped the electoral commission had to make decisions on the validity of certain votes. This has potentially major political consequences. The electoral commission members are frequently partisans as well, sometimes all three from the same party. Nearly all of the time they try to judge as fairly as possible, but there have been occasions where I suspected a members arguments to be influenced by their politics. There should be absolutely no doubt in the fairness of the election. Even the appearance of the SoS putting their thumb on the scale would be harmful for democracy.

- Seeing ballots. There have been occasions where I had to check a ballot that wasn't public. (Most obviously when someone votes my mail or post and indicates their vote as secret). Before I was SoS I was a pretty savvy political campaigner and I know how useful this kind of information can be. As SoS you have more access than most. This information can absolutely not be used in any way for campaigning later or it would give an unfair advantage.

And there are loads of smaller things I could mention: judging whether a bill is eligible for the clark (remember this discussion?), whether to work to implement government policies, how to deal with various lawsuits (surprisingly often about provincial elections), etc, etc. Many of these decisions have political consequences and the mere appearance of partisan favour can result in discussion.

Yes I know the argument that we have too few people to neatly separate everything. However, I'd argue if any position (perhaps other than King) should be non-partisan, it is the secretary of state. We should be able to do two non-partisan officeholders surely? And it's not like judges who don't get to do much most of the time. The SoS is always busy, and can easily be actively involved without also having to do politics, let alone hold a party office.

Yes I realise this bill doesn't actually ban the SoS from joining a party. Clearly however, being the chair of a party comes with more partisan pressure than simply being a member. (Personally I wouldn't mind having a completely non-partisan sos.)

I also realise there has been a lot of arguing about the motivation behind this bill. I'm don't particularly feel like picking a side there. I am simply judging it on its merit.

I'd advise my colleagues in the senate to do the same.

(I will add my votes on the other bills later, when Ive read all of them more carefully)

Recommendations:

-Adding a section on expected income, as was common practice until the 57th cosa.
-Scrapping or further clarifying the appropriation for "general spending".

Regardless of whether such changes are made, I recommend acceptance. (We need a budget after all)

RZ1 - Per
RZ2 - Per