Apart from Secretary of State (me), the provincial Government is completely empty.

Every Fiovan citizen is a member of our General Assembly (legislature) as of right.

Who's keen to do something?

WHEREAS Article III of the Organic Law as amended by 54RZ16 now states, in part:

QuoteThe Secretary of State may request from all successful candidates in a Senäts election a registration fee, to be set by law, to cover the cost of the election. This fee shall be uniform for all successful candidates.

AND WHEREAS the noble Senator from Maricopa has characterised this as "fleecing":

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts in Ziu assembled that Section B.9 of El Lexhatx is replaced in its entirety as follows:

Quote9. The Secretary of State, or his appointed agent, shall charge a registration fee of 6¤40 (six louise and forty bence, equivalent to $10 USD) to each political party, and a registration fee of 3¤20 (three louise and twenty bence, equivalent to $5 USD) to each successful candidate in a Senäts election. in forthcoming elections. Any Party or Parties which fail or refuse to pay the fee shall be deemed not registered, and no successful candidate in a Senäts election shall be declared elected until they pay the fee. (53RZ22) (48PD02) (42RZ14)

    9.1. The fee may only be paid by:

        9.1.1. Sending a Money Order, Cash or Cheque by snail mail to the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue: Only fees which have been received in full, by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue will be deemed paid. Fees that are in transit, delayed, lost in the mail or not received by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue for any reason, shall not count as paid fees, even if accompanied with proof of postage. Payments made by Money Order or Cheque shall not be deemed as paid until they have been cleared, the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue, will notify the nation when such fees have cleared or if said payments have bounced. If a party's or successful candidate's cheque or money order bounces, they shall be liable to pay costs incurred by the Kingdom for their payment bouncing and shall not be registered until their fee plus these costs have been paid.

        9.1.2. PayPal: Fees may be paid by electronically transferring the appropriate funds into the Kingdom of Talossa's PayPal account managed by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue. The Burgermeister of Inland Revenue is to notify all Political Parties in advance of the Election of details regarding the PayPal account into which they may deposit their fee. Once a fee has been received by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue from a party or successful candidate, he shall notify the Nation publicly that said fee has been received and arrange for said fee to be deposited in the Kingdom's Account.

        9.1.3. Payment directly to the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue: Payment may be made directly in person to the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue, by cash, cheque or money order. The Burgermeister of Inland Revenue shall notify the nation which such payments have been received. The policy of Cheque and Money orders in 9.2.1. applies equally in this instance.

    9.2. Once a fee has been received by the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue and/or their appointed agents, it is not refundable for any reason. If, however, a party or successful candidate overpays or pays more than once for any given election period, excess fees may be credited to the party or successful candidate against their next payment of fees or refunded, at the discretion of the Burgermeister of Inland Revenue, minus any fees or costs incurred.

9.3. A Senator who was not elected, but appointed under the provisions of Organic Law III.7, will not be liable for any fee.

Estimats cüncitaxhiens, I've been playing football all day, I just got home and I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this very brief.

Most importantly of all, we have moved heaven and earth and Talossa is now changed irrevocably. Talossa's monarchy is non-hereditary; the next King will be chosen by the people and their representatives, as almost all Kings have been chosen in the past. The next Seneschál will be elected by the Cosă; that too is a triumph for democracy. The ideological long game which the Free Democrats - and our predecessor parties, the ZRT and the Liberal Congress - have played for most of a decade has paid off. We win.

Still, I am gutted that if I had managed to get one more ex-Republican to vote for us, the Free Democrats would have had the first absolute majority since the glory days of the RUMP hegemony. Still, 99, I love you.

Extremely well done to the League of Centre Conservatives and their leader, Senator Plätschisch. Welcome back to conservative voters who have seen fit, under Senator Plätschisch's leadership, to end their political strike and take up their rightful place in Talossa.

Due to the return of the ex-RUMP (and the Ventrútxh clan!) there is clearly no majority in the Cosă for further unilateral constitutional reforms. But the Free Democrats have 49.5% of the Cosă and 50% of the Senäts (by my count). There is a big plurality for the remainder of the Free Democrat legislative agenda. We have reached out to the New Peculiar Way to see whether we can form a joint programme for Government which will have truly broad support.

As it stands, I most kindly thank the outgoing cabinet ministers, Senator Plätschisch and Dame Litz, for their hard work in the 54th Cosa. I intend to run a caretaker cabinet comprising myself and the other Free Democrat ministers - Senators Grischün and dal Val, and T. Davinescù MC - until an agreement which will provide us with a Cosă majority is made.

We should also know that the passage of the Judiciary amendment and the Uniform Seneschál amendment are very major changes to our legal framework, and it will take a while to work through them all properly and let the results digest somewhat.

Lastly of all, I thank Glüc da Dhi for his service as Secretary of State, and wish him a well earned retirement. A successor has already applied to the Government, and we will be discussing this application and making an announcement in a few days, schi Allà volt.

¡Så vivadra Talossa! ¡Så vivadra Talossa liveradă!

Citizen B. Higgs had a devil of a time getting his ballot, because, as we found out, his main email addresses were blocking the Database emails altogether - and even a Gmail account was throwing it into spam. Here is his explanation

Quotethe script that builds the mailout includes references to php scripts in both full url and local path, which looks like something a hack would do. My server is setup as promiscuous and it managed to completely blackhole it. gmail probably thought about doing that but instead just spammed it after enumerating the source.  So fix the template.
so in the html template check where it links to things and make sure they always link to https://URL  rather than just URL like bills.php or cit.php
https://talossa.com/blah.php etc
done, online.
you know you could just link the vote page repopulated with a UUID that links to the citizen ID etc. easier than cutting and pasting, since it's in the email anyway.

I don't understand half of the above, but it looks like the Database is currently not fit for purpose and needs to be fixed (or replaced) post election. Add another reason why election turnout is falling (which, sorry to disappoint some fibbers out there, is not my personal fault)

interesting to note that the RUMP still exists (as a mailing list, at least), and that #2 on the "LCC" list for this election is doing his best to motivate a big turnout from them.

Double interesting to note that he is also trying to motivate them to vote down all of the outgoing Government's constitutional reforms for this election - including Non-Hereditary Monarchy, the pride and joy of the LCC founder/leader.

Given the incredibly loose nature of the LCC, in both programme and structure, moderates who might be tempted to vote for Senator Plätschisch as a steady moderate hand might think twice given that the most die-hard reactionaries in Talossa are not only backing him, but will most likely make up most of his cabinet.

It's also distressing to note C. M. Sierviciúl making some cogent arguments against Non-Hereditary Monarchy in his email, which were never made in public. The "political strike" of the RUMP and other conservatives only seems to entail refusing to participate in public politics, to make the Government look bad; it certainly doesn't mean pulling out of politics altogether. I think we need to know if the LCC is a big wooden horse full of RUMP.

Finally, Cresti should check in with AD. If your hammer to hit the Government with is "you're driving down voter turnout", then encouraging a big voter turnout just makes the Free Democrats look god!

WHEREAS it has been Talossan tradition since time immemorial - that is, at least the late 1980s - that the legislative journal The Clark is issued by the Secretary of State;

AND WHEREAS the role of Secretary of State is a high-pressure job as it is which burns out a lot of people;

AND WHEREAS it is important for responsibilities to be decentralised in Talossa, so that a tiny amount of active citizens don't become responsible for every single job, like Miss Rabbit in "Peppa Pig", thus risking chaos or disaster should they disappear for whatever reason;

AND WHEREAS it behooves the dignity of the Ziu that it be responsible for its own legislative schedule;

AND WHEREAS the Mençéi in recent years has taken on a far more active role in organising debate and voting in the Senäts, and this should be encouraged and formalised;

AND WHEREAS the Túischac'h (chair of the Cosa) is not an Organic office, but should nevertheless share this role with the Mençéi should one exist;

AND WHEREAS should this be adopted, the Secretary of State's remaining Organic functions will be to conduct elections and maintain the list of citizens;

BE IT ENACTED etc. as follows:

1. Organic Law VII.4 shall be replaced in its entirety as follows:

QuoteThe Mençéi shall supervise, and shall organise the legislative business of the Ziu. He or she shall do this by administering a public venue for the inspection of legislative proposals before they become bills, "The Hopper" and by compiling and publishing the monthly legislative journal, "The Clark". All the duties of the Mençéi in this Article shall be exercised jointly with the Chair of the Cosa, should one exist, and may be delegated to the Secretary of State.

3. Organic Law VII.5-7 shall be amended as follows:

QuoteSection 5 Any Member of the Cosa, or a Senator, or the King, or the Secretary of State, shall have the right to submit legislative proposals, and bills to the Secretary of State Mençéi for consideration by the Ziu according to the procedures specified in this article, and specified by law. Within the bounds and rules imposed by law, tradition, and reason, the Secretary of State Mençéi shall ensure that all legislators be allowed to submit their bills for consideration.

Section 6 At his discretion, the Prime Minister shall have the right to withdraw any legislative proposal from "The Hopper", and instruct the Secretary of State Mençéi to treat it as a properly submitted bill.

Section 7 All bills received by the Secretary of State Mençéi during one calendar month shall be compiled into a published legislative journal, to be called "The Clark". The Clark shall be compiled prior to the first day of the following month, and shall be published publicly on that day. The Clark shall be made available to all MCs and Senators.

4. Organic Law VII.9 shall be amended as follows:

Quote
Section 9 Every MC and Senator may vote on every bill in every Clark through reasonable means determined by the Secretary of State Mençéi, and MCs and senators will have until the end of business on the twenty-first day of the calendar month to submit their votes to the Secretary of State Mençéi. An MC or senator may vote "për" (to a bill he approves), "contrâ" (to a bill he disapproves), or "austanéu" (for an abstention) on every bill. Except where otherwise provided in this Organic Law, when determining the outcome of a vote in either house of the Ziu, "austanéu" votes will not be counted.

5. A new section shall be added to Organic Law Article V, following V.2:

QuoteThe Secretary of State shall be appointed and dismissed as specified by law. The Secretary of State has the right to appoint deputies. Responsibilities, appointment, and dismissal of deputies shall be governed by law.

WHEREAS various problems in the conduct of the 55th Cosă elections have shown that the list of emails and contact details held by the Chancery's Bureau of the Census under El Lexhatx C.1.2.2. are faulty;

AND WHEREAS the Electoral Database (Lexh D.8.5) and the Contact Database (Lexh D.8.8 ) are subsets of the above list of all citizen and suffer from the same problems;

AND WHEREAS, if we want a properly up-to-date database of contact details for all Talossans, we should remove the Organic loophole whereby a citizen can avoid keeping their contact details updated by regularly voting:

BE IT ENACTED that Organic Law X.5 be amended as follows:

QuoteSection 5 Any citizen who neither votes in any general election nor responds fails to respond to any national census established by law for a period of two years, as calculated at any Election Deadline, shall be deemed to have renounced his or her citizenship.

This is something that, to my discredit, I hadn't worked out until yesterday, when I realised why it was so vitally important that Ián Tamorán get on the ballot for the Cézembre Senäts seat.

The answer for that is: given the seats up for election this time - if the incumbent Senators win in Cézembre and Maritiimi-Maxhestic, conservative or at least anti-reform forces will have a blocking majority.

Let's look at the current makeup:
- the four Senäts seats not up for re-election are two Free Democrats, and two Senators who, in the 54th Cosa, voted CONTRA on everything the Government proposed, no exaggeration. One is acting out of personal bitterness because the Government tried (unsucessfully) to hold him to account for lying on his immigration form. The other is an embodiment of extreme Monarchist reaction, a former UC justice who resigned under threat of impeachment, who holds the current Seneschál personally responsible for driving Talossans away, due to my repellent personality or skill in voodoo hexes or something.
- it seems safe to predict that the Free Democrats will win this time in Vuode, and the NPW in Benito.

That's FreeDems 3, NPW 1, Absolutely Negative Forces Of Obstruction 2 so far.

What about Cézembre and M-M? Sir X. Pol Briga is a Talossan with a long-standing record of achievement who has earned great respect. Nevertheless, he was a reliable support of monarchist conservatism for most of that time, and he was parachuted into the Cézembre seat at the last minute by royal appointment - after the elected Free Democrat senator was disqualified due to a muck-up in the framing of the OrgLaw. With no disrespect, I think we can safely predict how Sir Pol would vote on any further democratic reforms.

As to Ián Plätschisch, I don't have much bad to say about the incumbent Distáin. But he has clearly set out his shingle as a voice of (centrist?) conservatism this time. He has already indicated that he will vote against even letting the people have a say in referendum the future of royal powers, never mind any actual changes to those power. (It's also important to note that, should he be defeated in the Senäts, he will no doubt take up Cosa seats and continue to contribute very well.)

In summary, then: If X. Pôl Briga and Ián Plätschisch are re-elected to the Senäts, that's 4 out of 8 Senators committed to blocking any OrgLaw reforms, and in some cases to blocking everything we do at all. Even if Free Democrats and Peculiarists get a thumping supermajority, this "Gang of Four" could ensure the status quo for a whole Cosa term.

Please don't let them.

Vote for Ián Tamorán in Cézembre.
Vote for Cresti dal Nouacastra in Maritiimi-Maxhestic.

Grült méirçi.

WHEREAS El Lexhatx C.1.2.2.5.4 currently provides that citizens may "opt out" from Government emails;

AND WHEREAS anecdotal evidence suggests that citizens who have opted out from the Electorate Database (for political advertising) or the Contact Database (for contact from other citizens) are also not getting the emails that have been sent out by the Government, that is, that the Chancery have assumed that they have "opted out";

AND WHEREAS initiatives like La C'hronica and the National Survey are supposed to reach out to all citizens, not just those who read Wittenberg or social media regularly;

AND WHEREAS it must be possible for the Government to contact all citizens, every single one, for such initiatives to be effective;

AND WHEREAS the other provisions contained in El Lexhatx C.1.2.2.5.1-3 are sufficient to stop the Government "spamming" citizens except about important things;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senats in Ziu assembled that El Lexhatx C.1.2.2.5 be amended as below:

QuoteC.1.2.2.5 The Seneschál may request on behalf of the Government that a given communication shall be sent out by the Chancery to the email address of every citizen who has not "opted out" as provided in section 1.2.2.5.4 below. The Chancery shall grant this request if, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, the following provisions are met:

1.2.2.5.1 Such communication shall pertain wholly to official Government business.

1.2.2.5.2 Such communication may not include publicity for, or any other business pertaining to, any political party or candidate for election, nor advocate for or against any ideology, political position, or legislation.

1.2.2.5.3 Such communications are not sufficiently frequent or repetitive enough to qualify as "spam".

1.2.2.5.4 Citizens may "opt out" of receiving such communications by making a request to the Chancery.

WHEREAS Organic Law III.7 currently reads:

QuoteSection 7 Unless a province explicitly requests that Chancery conduct the election to the Senate seat for that province, the province shall be responsible for doing so, and shall certify to the Chancery that the result represents the will of the people. (53RZ18)

AND WHEREAS this includes a ridiculous Catch-22, in that a province without a functioning Government cannot make such a request, and will thus be given the responsibility to conduct an election which by that very fact it cannot conduct;

AND WHEREAS precisely this occurred in the elections for Senator from Cézembre and Maritiimi-Maxhestic accompanying the 55th Cosa election;

AND WHEREAS I honestly can't believe whoever wrote this section didn't anticipate this problem;

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosa and Senäts in Ziu assembled that Organic Law III.7 be amended to read as follows:

QuoteEvery province's government shall be responsible for conducting the election to the Senate seat for that province. Such a government may delegate this responsibility to the Chancery by making a request to this effect. In case of a breakdown of provincial Government so that it can neither conduct the election nor make a request to the Chancery to do so, the Chancery shall conduct the election.

As I was just saying in the Chat Room, in the old days, a new citizen of Talossa would be required to get a copy of King Robert I's "cheap history of Talossa", Ár Päts, and pass a test on it. Of course AP was incredibly biased to the King's political point of view and slanderous against his political enemies; but it at least enabled new citizens to learn how Talossa worked right from the get-go, and thus was an aid to immigration (in the sense of "getting new people involved").

We need a new Ár Päts, hopefully without the extreme political bias.

As a "cheap history", we are talking about - at most - maybe 1 page for the events of each Cosa term, which would mean 18 more pages to bring it up to date from KR1's last, self-pitying edition of AP. The basic source material for this would of course be Old Wittenberg - once a basic historical narrative is built from that, people who're interested in an "expanded version" could add their own comments. We could make "Ár Noveu Päts" a subsection of TalossaWiki.

(A parallel history of the Republic would be more difficult because the RepublicWitts aren't online anywhere, although I think they may be archived. Still, I could still write a one-page history of the Republic from memory to fit into Ár Noveu Päts, with the help of @GV, @MPF and others. That would be enough for new Kingdom citizens, methinks.)

Who agrees with me that this is vital?

Who actually wants to do something about it?

Esteemed Mençéi and Túischac'h and all the Senators and Members of the Cosă:

Votes on the last Clark have now been tallied, and soon the 54^th Cosâ will be dissolved. I stand before you today to give what I hope to be as balanced an account of the outgoing Government – a coalition between the Free Democrats, "Awakening and Magnifiying Passion", and the Peculiar Nationalists - which I have led in this term.

While the last Clark results have not yet been formally announced by the Secretary of State, the good news is that the Non-Hereditary Monarchy Amendment has achieved the necessary 3/4 of the Cosă, and absolute majority of the Senäts, to override the Royal veto, and will thus go before the people in referendum at the upcoming general election. With this, the outgoing Government have achieved a milestone in the ongoing project of a Talossa which belongs to the people; notwithstanding, of course, that (with the brief and embarrassing "reign" of the Boy King Louis) Talossa's monarchy has always been elective. Thus, this amendment should be seen as enshrining the status quo rather than bringing in a dangerous novelty – which should surely make it appeal to Talossan conservatives.

Alongside this, the Talossan people will also vote in referendum on two other major reforms: the Seneschál to be nominated by a majority of the Cosă, and the King to be given specific cultural rather than political duties. In this, the outgoing Government has achieved 3 out of 3 of the goals it set itself in its Coalition Agreement – and here are some of the other successes that we are proud of.

   
• Most importantly, the successful move to New Wittenberg.
• The end of 13 years of bickering about the shape of the Talossan language with the adoption of unified rules of spelling by SIGN, the new language authority, and the consequent updating of our online dictionary, l'Överstéir.

These are things that – to reuse the expression I used in my valedictory address to the last Cosă, about the nationalisation of the national webspace - "other governments talked about it endlessly, but our government did it". In the words of our party slogan, Free Democrats in power get things done.

Other more minor successes include the amendment allowing for a fee for succesful Senäts candidates; and the convocation of the Council of Governors. But, as I said in my last valedictory speech, I prize intellectual honesty as among the highest of virtues. So I would like to briefly discuss things that we agreed to do, but failed to.

   
• Most upsettingly for myself personally, we failed to "promote competitions, games and other cultural events for citizens".
• We failed to "use social media creatively to get Talossa "noticed". Market coins and stamps as outreach; investigate stylish presentation frames for them."
• We have not yet released a New Citizens' Information Packet or found "other ways to get new citizens quickly involved in Talossan society and state."
• We failed to enact a drive for "voluntary taxation" (donations from citizens, perhaps a Patreon).
• In contrast, our suggestion of creating a voter's roll to replace the Three Strikes law was developed and introduced; but rejected by the Ziu.
• Finally, we failed to examine taking Wisconsin law out of Talossan law; while absolutely nothing happened in the Foreign Affairs and Defence portfolios.

The only real excuse I can make for these failures is that the members of the Government only have a certain amount of time and space to "do Talossa"; thus, some things got prioritised and others fell by the wayside. In many cases, some preliminary steps were taken to enact these promises, behind the scenes – even some things that the incoming government might be able to build on - but nothing the general public ever got to see.

But "the buck stops here". In some cases, Cabinet Ministers just did not do what they should have done – what their parties promised to do in the Coalition Agreement - and deserve to be held accountable for that. One issue is simply the one of "manpower" - the ongoing crisis of activity in Talossa, which I will return to below – meant that an ill-performing minister could simply not be replaced, and "nothing" was the best available option. In other cases, manpower decisions were influenced by considerations of keeping political balance in a three-party governing Coalition.

For example, in my own portfolio, certain very valuable cultural events did take place – such as the Mixtape Project or the Chess Championship – but without any Government help. As Culture Minister, I take personal responsibility for this. I prioritised setting up SIGN and making the new spelling effective, and hived off responsibilities for competitions and games to a Permanent Secretary, who in turn was unable to do anything.

In this regard, I realise that those critics who have accused me of "squatting" in the Culture Ministry for several terms, on and off, have a point. I have been interested in the language above all, and let other things slide. Therefore, I foreshadow that – assuming Free Democrats are returned to government – I will leave the office of Minister of Culture, although (assuming my successor approves) I would like to retain the office of Ladintsch Naziunal, as chief State promoter of the use of Talossan language, and head of a renewed project of translation of important State documents into ár glheþ naziunal.

I also foreshadow that – assuming that I lead the next Government – I will lead a zero-tolerance regime for "slacking" in the Cabinet. If a Minister fails to do what they've promised, I will require them to explain themselves to the Ziu, or request their resignation, even if there's no obvious replacement. An "empty" chair at the Cabinet is more honest than someone squatting on a portfolio.

But of course, inactivity in Government is only a special case of citizen inactivity in general. Looking back on my valedictory speech to the 53rd Cosă, I realise that I pretty much said everything I needed to so on that subject back then. So here are just some edited highlights:

QuoteTalossa can only have those things which Talossans are happy to put time and effort in to working on. I don't spend stupid amounts of time on Talossa – maybe 30 minutes to an hour a day, on average, and I'm the head of the Government...

What is in my opinion even more shameful – even unpatriotic – is to simultaneously do nothing, and to complain that nothing is being done or, even worse, attempt to obstruct and derail attempts at doing something...

If you want a buzzing, vibrant Talossa which attracts new citizens so that old ones can have a rest, and yet continues to build upon its political and cultural achievement, you all have to work for it – not to just elect a Government which promises to do everything for you.... Nothing will happen, nothing will fundamentally change in Talossa, unless existing Talossans get of their ciúls and make it happen. I don't know what I can do to make that happen except for making vaguely threatening speeches.

On this subject, I would like to briefly address issues raised by Sir Alexandreu Davinescù in his recent criticism of the Government's record, which (in both what we have done, and what we have failed to do) he holds responsible for the current crisis of activity.

The first thing to say about Sir Alexandreu's analysis of our current decline in activity and participation, that the democratic reforms enacted post-Reunision have made Talossa less quirky and fun, is perhaps a shocking one: he may be correct. Perhaps he is right that an essential part of Talossa's appeal of was the pomp and grandeur of a jocular but politically active monarchy, and republicanism (or even constitutional monarchy, as understood in many European countries today) is poison. I don't believe so, but other strong contributors to Talossa do, as is their right.

Some respondents to the first National Survey specifically said that things were much better before Reunision, in the era when Lord Hooligan was the primary figure in Talossa's politics and culture. Certainly Manus Hand has done a lot for Talossa, but this is the same gentleman who said last year – in rejecting the Fiova-Florencia provincial merger, even though he and most other Florencian citizens were not active in their province - "Is inactivity bad? I think not!" (A position that Sir Alexandreu, with his consistent lamentations about the decline in activity, has never to my knowledge seen fit to respond to.)

I must put it plainly: when Lord Hooligan and Sir Cresti Sierviciul decided they were less interested in a Talossa leaning away from the RUMP brand of jocular conservative monarchism, they let not only our language organisation, the CÚG, but the national website wind down and stop functioning. This led to the last two Governments to have to not only rebuild our national website, but our national language community, from the ground up. If Talossan patriotism means ensuring Talossa continues – either through activity, or through "handing off" to those who are still interested, allowing the CÚG and kingdomoftalossa.net to grind to a halt was an act of mammoth unpatriotism, even a kind of vandalism-by-inaction.

Which leads me to the second point: it is reasonable, I believe, to see the decline in activity and voter turnout as a kind of political strike, or boycott, on behalf of Talossans who preferred the 2005-2011 Kingdom. Such citizens don't like how Talossa has changed in the years of coalition government between centrist and progressive parties, so they don't participate. Their only interest in Talossa as it is is to occasionally check into see if this has happened yet. I name this the Atlas Shrugged approach to Talossa. See you in Hool's Gulch, I suppose.

Of course, no-one owes Talossa their activity if they don't like how it is. But let us also be clear that inactivity for any Talossan, of whatever political persuasion, is a personal decision. Conversely, if some people decide not to "do Talossa" for whatever reason, it is our right to try to continue to do Talossa without their active input.

I say to Talossan conservatives: I am happy to accept that my personal style, and the constant pressure for reforms of the monarchy, alienates you, even that it makes you feel like you have nothing to contribute to contemporary Talossa, that it's no fun anymore. I will even humbly accept that – this term – this Government has failed in our objectives of increasing cultural activity and the integration of new citizens into Talossan activity. We have at least tried, and failed – hence my renunciation of the Culture portfolio.

But even admitting all that, the future of Talossa belongs to its active citizens. If Talossa's conservatives would prefer Talossa to shrink rather than thrive with its current institutions, that's their decision. To such people, we say: we encourage you to come back to activity; to try to win political victories against the current majority, and failing that, to work within the system for the good of the whole ImagiNation.

When Reunision happened, we citizens of the Talossan Republic didn't much like how things were in the Kingdom. But – given that the continued existence of the Kingdom meant the eclipse of immigration to the Republic – we had no choice but to swallow that, and to prepare ourselves for what Senator Ian Plätschisch has called "the ideological long game". We swallowed what we didn't like about the Kingdom, because we were granted the political liberty to fight to change it – if we could. And guess what? Turns out, we could.  If you are truly Talossan patriots – not just fair-weather citizens, who only love Talossa when it's Talossa the way they want it – I urge you to follow our example and get back into the political and cultural game.

I can only add, to be fair, that I sometimes get disgruntled about the inactivity of many of my political co-thinkers, especially former citizens of the Republic. I can only wonder, when I think of Sir Tamorán dal Navă, Ián Anglatzară or Ceváglh Scurzniol: what would it take to get those guys interested again?

This is why it will be one of the top priorities of Free Democrats, if we participate in the next Government, to find and enact ways of getting new citizens involved, and reactivating old citizens. Our top three priorities in that regard will be:

   
• A new National Survey, following up from that of June last year, which will offer another chance for Talossans both active and inactive to anonymously let the Government know what we can do for them.
• A Talossan Labour Exchange to match citizens to possible jobs. This will combine a list of all Government and/or private sector jobs which are unfilled, with a place for citizens to register their interests so that those responsible for filling jobs can get leads on people who might be keen to fill themselves.
• Improving communication between government and citizenry looking at things like the National Website; the in-development "Immigration Mini-site", including information for new citzens; the La C'hronică newsletter; social media; and the existing mail-out lists held by the Chancery.

When I first applied for Talossan citizenship in 1997, there were two things that appealed to me above all: ár glhe‏‏tg naziunál, and the promise of "a freewheeling multi-party democracy". The latter turned out, at the time, to be a smokescreen for arbitrary royal power. But I've worked for 23 years to make it true. And we're 90% of the way there.

The question arises then: why isn't 90% of our programme enough? Why can't we be satisfied with what we have accomplished, politically speaking? If stopping the constitutional reform process – or even rolling it back - would make Talossan conservatives feel safe, more welcomed, and thus encourage them to give up their boycott, wouldn't it help us all?

The first answer is that a Talossan political party is like a bicycle. If it doesn't keep going forward, it falls over. What would be the point of the Free Democrats of Talossa if we didn't keep pushing towards the final goal – that of a non-political monarchy or an elected Head of State, whichever gets more popular support? We could of course go to the voters and say "So... we're the party in power. Do you like it? Well, vote for us and get more of the same." But that's squatting in power. That's what the RUMP – and before them, King Robert's PC and MN parties – used to do, which we condemned.

The second answer, in fact, relates to something that Sir Alexandreu Davinescù mentioned – that there has been a collapse in political diversity in the current Cosă. But as many responses have pointed out, that's not the fault of the governing parties.

Last election, former Senator Ieremiac'h Ventrútx cheated the people of Talossa – and the monarchist/conservative section of it, in particular – by running his ZPT party and then never claiming his seats. If he'd announced he was going to do so – running on an abstentionist platform like Sinn Féin used to in Ireland and still do for the UK Parliament – then no-one would complain. But 10 Talossans gave the former Senator their votes, and he flushed them down the toilet. He couldn't even be bothered voting for himself. This is only an extreme example of how tactics of weaponized apathy (the "political strike" mentioned above) are not only self-defeating, but corrosive to Talossa's institutions.

When the RUMP were in power, we oppositionists used to preach that alternance (regular changes in the composition of the government) was a good thing. And so it is. But to get that you need an opposition which offers a political alternative. And by setting out the Free Democrats clearly as the party of more fundamental reforms – as opposed to the status quo – we leave plenty of room for parties who defend the status quo to offer an alternative; and to defeat us, if they can.

This is why the Free Democrats are putting at the top of our programme for the upcoming elections the Ranked Choice Constitutional Referendum offering two options for fundamental changes to the monarchy, versus the status quo. If you vote Free Democrat at the upcoming election, you are voting for two things above all: 1) this referendum, as well as examination of other fundamental constitutional reforms; 2) Miestră Schivă as Seneschál for a third term. This clearly leaves space for parties of the constitutional status quo, and "anyone else but Miestră in charge".

I wish to give a tip of the hat to the current Distáin, Senator Plätschisch, who has given up the pleasures of another term of Coalition, making the first move to set up a centre-right party which will offer a clear alternative to both more reforms and more Miestră. There is a truckload of room for more political diversity – assuming that the conservative opposition doesn't want to rally around this new party. Put up, fellow citizens, or stop whining.

I therefore have good reason to hope that centrist and conservative Talossans will have better options to vote for at the coming election, and the 55^th Cosa will have both a government with a clear agenda, and a strong opposition holding them to account. Whichever side of the aisle the Free Democrats end up on, I will be happy if that is the result. But of course, I urge the voters to give a majority to both the Free Democrats; and to all the Organic Law amendments which will be put to referendum.

Sa vivadra Talossa! 40 års pü!

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts of Talossa in Ziu assembled as followed, under the authority of Organic Law VII.13:

1. During the same month as the 3rd Clark of the 55th Cosa, the Chancery shall submit the following referendum question to the people:

What is your preference for Talossa's constitutional future?

2. This referendum shall be conducted as a Ranked Choice vote between the following four options, which shall appear on the ballot in a randomized order:

- the King of Talossa shall continue to have the political powers granted by the current Organic Law.
- the King of Talossa shall have no political powers except in cases of emergency or constitutional crisis.
- the king of Talossa shall share power with a periodically elected co-prince.
- the King of Talossa shall be replaced by an elected head of state.

3. The votes for this referendum shall be counted as follows:

   3.1. At the conclusion of the election, each option is assigned all ballots which express it as first preference. The option with the fewest ballots assigned to it is eliminated. Each ballot cast for the eliminated option is reassigned to the next expressed preference on the ballot.

    3.2 Once the ballots are reassigned, the option with the fewest ballots assigned to it is eliminated and the ballots cast for it reassigned as above. This process is repeated until one option wins by having a majority of non-abstention ballots assigned to it.

    3.3. If, after any iteration, there are two or more options with the fewest ballots assigned to them, the option with the fewest first preferences assigned to it shall be eliminated. If these options all have the same number of first preferences assigned to them, the option with the fewest second preferences assigned to it shall be eliminated, and so forth.

        3.3.1 If no such distinction can be made between these options because all have the same number of votes on every level of preference, the remaining iterations shall be conducted under multiple scenarios. Each scenario shall eliminate one of the tied options.

            3.3.1.1 If the different scenarios described above result in the same winner of the election overall, the winning option shall be declared successful.

            3.3.1.2 If the different scenarios described above result in different winners of the election overall, the result will be considered a tie between the two or three leading options.

    3.4. If any ballot assigned to an eliminated option does not express a next preference, the ballot is treated in the same way as an abstention.

    3.5 A option may not be assigned ballots after it has been eliminated. A ballot that would otherwise be reassigned to an eliminated option is instead assigned to the highest-ranked option that has not been eliminated, or treated as an abstention as above.

FURTHERMORE,

4. If an option involving a change in the Organic Law wins this referendum, the Government shall introduce an Organic Law amendment to that effect within the lifetime of the 55th Cosă.

(counting rules cut and pasted mutatis mutandis from El Lexhatx B.14)

TalossaWiki is currently non-functional due to some kind of error with its extensions which I cannot make head nor tail of, and neither can the rest of the Government. We hope @our national webmonkey will be able to pop in sometime soon.

The Free Democrats will be going into the next election on a platform of having a Senäts Committee agree on a compromise proposal for reform of the Ziu and the electoral systems of its two houses. Notwithstanding this, we would like to suggest for consideration a new format for a "Real Cosa", as existed in Talossa 1997-2002. I have @MPF to thank for the inspiration here.

The essential points would be:

• A "circular" party list. Seats would now be allocated automatically by the SoS, one each to every candidate on the list, in order, and when the list comes to an end, it begins again from the beginning. Example: a party which has 5 members on the list but wins 8 seats would end up giving 2 seats to the first 3 people on the list, and 1 to everyone else.
• The current "1/3 allocations off list" would be changed to "a party may add 1/3 extra members, rounded up, to its list after the election". If your original list had 5 people on it you could add another 2 later. If you only had 1 person on your list, you could only add 1 later.
• Existing provisions barring MCs from individually holding more than x% of the Cosa would still exist, meaning there would be a limit to how many seats could be held by a 1-person party.
• Seats would be allocated by a rounding system known as Webster/Sainte-Laguë, which benefits smaller parties.
• The basic idea is for a 20 seat Cosa, which would mean that - based on the votes from the last election - a party would need at least 3 votes to win any Cosa seats. If this threshold is considered to stringent, the model would work well with more MCs. If one or more parties were "tied" for the last seat, they would all get a seat and thus the Cosa would be slightly expanded.

Based on this, the results of the last election would have been: FreeDems 8 seats, AMP 5, ZPT 3, PNP 3, NPW 1, MTGA 0. I can recalculate it for a larger Cosa if anyone's interested.

What do you think, sirs?

In an otherwise impressive display of the art known in our national language as nas-bråneu, the Senator from Maricopa made a shocking accusation:

QuoteHad it not been for a sudden busy life with work and 3 kids coupled with some very unfortunate incidents caused by some wily Talossan(s) who tried to invade his personal life and create havoc, we wouldn't have to see a situation when our great AD looked at the Witt once in a while. In fact there should be a ban on such individuals from joining Talossa later as 'returning citizens'.

To whom is the Senator referring here? I'm pretty sure I know the incident to which he is referring (which targeted Admiral Timoþeu Asmorescu as well as Sir AD), but who is the "Talossan(s)" he believes to be the culprit?

WHEREAS Organic Law VIII.1 states:

QuoteThe justices of the Cort pü Inalt and the judges of any inferior courts shall hold their offices for life (or until resignation), but may be removed by either a two-thirds vote in the Cosa with approval by the King and the Senäts or due to inactivity as defined by law.

(emphasis added);

and WHEREAS "inactivity" re: the CpI is nowhere defined by law at the moment:

BE IT ENACTED by the King, Cosă and Senäts in Ziu assembled that:

1. The following section shall be added to Title G of El Lexhatx:

QuoteA Justice of the Cort pü Inalt shall be declared inactive, and to have vacated their seat, within the meaning of Organic Law VIII.1 if the Clerk of Courts, contacting the members of the CpI to assign a case as described in El Lexhatx G.5.3, is unable to contact that Justice or does not receive any response to their enquiries, within 30 days.

2. The following amendment shall be made to El Lexhatx G.7.1:

QuoteJustices (or Judges) may be compelled to retire through organic removal from office through an act of the Ziu in accordance with Article XVI VIII Section 1 of the Organic Law. In such case, the Ziu shall stipulate whether the removal is punitive in nature or simply to compel retirement. In either case, such measure shall include a clear and objective narrative which highlights the misconduct or negligence which resulted in a punitive removal from office, or the merits and career highlights of a retired Jurist, respectively.

WHEREAS a novel strain of Coronavirus, known as Covid-19, has spread globally, resulting in an ongoing pandemic, and

WHEREAS the effects of this pandemic are impacting every living soul on the planet, and

WHEREAS governments around the world have taken measures to protect and to help their citizens including unprecedented measures to help them financially in as far as practicably possible, and

WHEREAS the government of Talossa recognizes that we, too, share that same responsibility to help our own citizens in times of peril, and

WHEREAS the government has analysed the state of the Treasury and has taken into account estimations of projected income and expenditure for the next two years, and

WHEREAS the government, in group conscience, has achieved achieved consensus on the following, so

THEREFORE be it resolved that:

A financial assistance fund of US$480 shall be made available for the benefit of Talossan citizens who may find themselves suffering from financial difficulty as a result of events related to the pandemic of Covid-19.

Talossan citizens may apply for financial grants and loans from this fund by making an application to the Ministry of Finance. Any loans awarded from this fund shall be zero interest. The Ministry of Finance shall, as far as practicable, obtain evidence or supporting documents when processing applications, such as proof of illness, proof of loss of income or evidence of financial hardship.

Payments from the fund shall be administered by the Burgermeister of the Inland Revenue. The Burgermeister shall release monies from the fund to citizens via whichever methods are most practicable. The Burgermeister shall release monies from the fund upon authorization from the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister. The Burgermeister shall not release any monies without authorization from the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister. Each individual release of monies requires the authorization of the Minister of Finance with the assent of the Prime Minister.

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His Majesty the King has already consented to this PD by email.