I wanted to touch a bit on some of the discussion from this thread (without commenting in a dead thread) and see if we as an Assembly can think of a few things we'd like to accomplish during the remainder of this Cosa.
- Agreed that the province needs renaming. I know I've proposed "Garibaldi" in the past but in light of the fact that it was intended to be a name of a merged province (as Garibaldi helped lead the Unification of Italy) -- and in light of the fact that we already have a Garibaldi Canton -- I would propose something else. Maybe something like Vittorio/Bitour? Taliulă (Little Italy)? Or, keeping with the "Be-" theme as discussed here, Belăcostă ("Beautiful Riverbank")
- Also agreed on a simplified legislative structure. I'm not necessarily opposed to an elected unicameral legislature but I think given activity levels it makes sense to consider the citizens as a whole the province's legislature and perhaps institute some sort of elected executive. I'll admit to admiring Fiova's model, though that's probably because I will carry the torch for the directorial model until my dying breath. Going this route could likely mean abolishing the Arviteir Prima office entirely, rendering the grammatical correctness of the title moot.
- The above point means we could likely just do with adopting an entirely new constitution. Ours isn't the worst ever but if we want to really overhaul things it might make sense to just start fresh.
- I'm glad that Luc mentioned the unicameral MMP Ziu as easing the pathway to provincial mergers, as that was one of the secondary reasons I think it's a good move. That said, I'm not sure the various proposals I've seen to have provinces share governments passes Organic muster. Org.IX.1 states "They are administered by constitutional governments elected democratically within the Province." If provinces share governments, that means the governments elected are not elected within the province in question. I think I've been pretty clear in my support of mergers, though -- I support bottom-up mergers, but I support well-considered bottom-up mergers.
- Hard agree on catchment reform (though the big issue has evidently been rectified since I originally wrote this up). I've actually attached a few maps to this post. The first shows the catchment areas as they currently stand -- and no, Maine being gray is not a mistake on my part. It is currently unassigned in El Lexhatx. (Ctrl-F "Maine" only returns one result, as part of the word "remained".) On top of that, Vuode -- though no longer controlling rightful Benitian clay in Ohio -- is assigned two of the three largest cities in the US (New York and Chicago), which just frankly feels a little stacked. So I've got two proposals to fix several catchment issues all at once:
- The "Split East" moves Maine and Connecticut to Ataturk, making that province's US catchment area coterminous with New England. Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey all are reassigned to Benito. Personally I'm in favor of this method, as it moves multiple states known for their Italian populations (NY, NJ, and to a lesser extent PA) to the province that was twice named for the Italian heritage of its Talossan neighborhood. It also results in a slightly cleaner map, as Michigan is not separated from the rest of the Vuode states. (Note: I see the "Florencia <3 Vuode Act" currently under a vote on this month's Clark, which very much would make this by far the more sensible of the two options.
- The "Split West" method still results in ME and CT going to Ataturk. It also results in Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa moving to Benito. However, it better reflects the arrangement of Benito and Vuode proper (BE to the west, VD to the east). It also results in a more sensible map should Florencia and Benito ever merge to create Garibaldi. (If Garibaldi results from a BE-VD merger, this is obviously less important...)
- I will admit that it also feels a little sad that neither Fiova nor Cezembre get any states whatsoever, but that's less of a Benito-centric issue and so I'll leave it to the Ziu to do what they want on that front. Frankly given some of the recent bills it seems like a large-scale catchment realignment (at least pertaining to state-level assignments) might be in order, but there's likely a good way to do that without in a coordinated manner it feeling too "top down".
