Congratulations and good luck!

I would like to nominate the incumbent, þerxh Sant-Enogat.

Sure, and that makes sense. It's a spectrum, though. That's why I was wondering if there were more duties than met the eye.

Ok, thank you!

According to OrgLaw Article III Section 10 :

QuoteThe Senäts shall, after every general election of a senator, choose one of its members to be the President of the Senäts to be called the Mençéi, or in English the Lord President (...)

According to Standing Rules of the Senate, Rule 2

QuoteThe Acting Mençei shall allow for nominations to be lodged for a period of at least a week from the beginning of a term.
Should a Senator receive nominations from a majority of Senators, the nomination period shall end and the Senator be considered duly elected; otherwise, a ballot shall be held using Instant Runoff Voting. Seniority shall resolve any ties that may occur during any stage of elimination.

Therefore I have the pleasure to welcome all nominations in this thread.
You have until Friday December 26th 11:59pm TST to declare your choice.

@Baron Alexandreu Davinescu , @Iason Taiwos , @Eðo Grischun , @Antaglha Xhenerös Somelieir , @þerxh Sant-Enogat , @mximo , @Béneditsch Ardpresteir , @GV

The idea behind breaking a massive position (such as the Ministry of STUFF) up into smaller pieces is that smaller workloads are more easily handled. This could be done by, say, dividing them between multiple people, or by lightening the "mental workload" if someone has more than one job -- something like executive dysfunction becomes easier to manage when you break things down into smaller tasks.

Combining the Public Records Ministry with some other office would undo that flexibility.

He lied to you, Françal. One day I hope you'll re-read what I wrote to you, and understand what I was trying to tell you.

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on Yesterday at 10:45:13 PMSince it's been mentioned more than once now, I should note that yes, I intend to pursue the Upper House of Review Amendment...

Glad to get confirmation you are moving forward with this.

Since it's been mentioned more than once now, I should note that yes, I intend to pursue the Upper House of Review Amendment as part of the Democracy Agenda.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on December 15, 2025, 08:04:41 PMHere's another one, which I just brought up in another thread: narrow down or eliminate the ability of parties to allocate seats off-list.

...

There's also a vague idea about adding requirements for parties to choose their lists in a democratic and open fashion, rather than the leader doling them out at whim, but I'm not sure how we'd work that.

At least in the vein of "narrowing down", I would argue that parties should only be able to allocate seats to off-list candidates if they are unable to legally assign any seats to candidates on-list. The 1/3 limit would (and in my opinion should) remain untouched, but also preference should be more clearly in favor of the listed candidates.

As to the latter idea, it's a fine one in spirit, but I would argue there's a right for parties as private organizations to conduct their internal affairs as they see fit within the broad confines of the law. This is more a point of principle than a legal issue; something on which to judge parties when in the polling booth.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on December 16, 2025, 04:57:01 PMIt is a big problem in my opinion that MCs are merely custodians of party power instead of being elected and acting on their own behalf. Even for a proportional system, the way that seats are literally portioned out like slices of a pie is really strange to me.

This circumstance might contribue to the way the Cosă functions on a day-to-day basis: bills are put forward mainly by party leadership, and most rhetorical mud fights are also between party leaders, while the rest of the Cosă silently spectates on the sidelines waiting for the monthly Chancery email reminding them to vote on the Clark arrives in their inbox, just to unquestioningly vote the way the party leadership commands them to. Every parliamentary system has backbenchers of course, but the ratio here seems to be way off.

In an ideal world, MCs would be empowered enough to act on their own. Maybe an electoral reform, or even a switch to a different voting system entirely, can effect this change.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on December 16, 2025, 07:12:29 PMI am *very* supportive of an electoral reform that would mean that individual MCs rather than just parties would be subject to accountability from voters. A minimal way of doing this might be "open party lists", where you can choose a party but give "yes" or "no" votes to individual candidates within that party. A maximal way might be Single Transferable Vote.

There could also be room for "parliamentary reform". Like, every MC can only speak in the Hopper or the Ziu a certain number of times a month. So party leaders would have to at least delegate.

While I've obviously gone on record as supporting a Mixed-Member Proportional Cosa, if we are to remain a bicameral legislature, it would seem there's a spectrum of "making individual MCs accountable to voters", along the lines of:

• Closed-list proportional representation (current method)
• Open-list proportional representation
• Panachage / free vote (I actually like panachage tbh)
• Something like proportional approval voting or single transferable vote

Realistically, any of the alternatives would be an improvement, though one of the dangers of the public ballot is that people likely feel pressured to avoid making any of the major political figures angry with them, so a more "personal" form of counting votes should likely be coupled with a more private method of casting them.

Fully on-board with Sir Marcel's arguments in favor of a smaller Cosa.

And we should probably look at formalizing and empowering the offices of Tuischac'h and Mençei, to let them maintain better order in their chambers.

I'm not sure it particularly matters whether or not Job A and Job B are done by the same person, versus Job A and Job B being merged into one position.  The key point is that we shouldn't be picking less active people to round out the numbers of the Cabinet, and I still want to avoid that.  Otherwise you end up in a situation where, at any given moment, only 2 out of 5 Ministers are actually doing anything.

As far as I can tell, the Public Records Minister doesn't have a lot to do, and so it seems like it doesn't make sense to have it as a whole Cabinet position.  But you just got done in the job, and I didn't want to reach any hasty conclusions -- maybe there's more than meets the eye, or additional responsibilities I haven't thought of.  Was there more to it?

To be clear, in this case you are arguing not in favor of keeping multiple roles in as few hands as possible -- something you campaigned on:

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 23, 2025, 11:39:47 AMConsolidate positions.  Where possible, preference should be given to someone active and letting them serve multiple positions, as opposed to picking less active people to round out the numbers.  If the active person encounters a crisis they're not equipped to handle, then they can ask for help from someone with more expertise but less attention.

But are instead arguing in favor of merging this position with another one outright. Do I understand correctly?