Plans and beliefs

[Sir Lüc]

Hi. Last summer, I toyed with founding a proper provincial party, but ultimately decided I had too much on my plate already. Regardless, I'm going to vote PT for my provincial vote, which means I will probably hold at least a seat in the Assembly.

In the off-chance anyone else felt like voting PT at the provincial level, I figured I'd announce my current positions, priorities and beliefs re. provincial affairs.

1) The province needs renaming. "Benito" doesn't mean "Little Ben" and it never did. It's high time we stopped commemorating a fascist dictator.

2) We need a nonpartisan, voluntary, unicameral legislature.
- As its chief proponent and former President, the Senate of Benito was a nice toy experiment that attempted to preserve the (partisan) Assembly while incorporating independents in our political system. At best, it's inefficient, at worst, it completely breaks down when the Senate doesn't even assemble.
- Moreover, it has happened time and time again that national parties win seats in the Assembly but simply does not have members to fill them (just like last term).
- Solution: abolish the Senate, turn the Assembly into a nonpartisan body that any citizen can claim a seat into.

2b) The Maestro should, likewise, not be a partisan official (by virtue of being restricted by law to be a member of the Assembly).

^{2c) The Arvitieir Prima should really be renamed to something grammatically correct}

3) New catchment area reform is needed. Ohio is not Vuodean.
- The Catchment Area Reform Act was passed at a time where, perhaps at a fault, we believed we could give provinces even more unique identities if only their catchment areas were more geographically and culturally cohesive. I think we even wanted to make provincial real life meet-ups more likely. This, clearly, failed on multiple fronts.
- Not only it failed -- it opened a rift in our province and alienated people. I will mince no words in saying, as I've said before, that this is on me.
- On the national level, by the magic powers given to me by my upcoming Cosa seats (ie, being able to Hopper stuff), I'd really like to work towards a 2023 Catchment Area Reform Act that brings Ohio back into the Benitian fold, and makes wider adjustments as a final attempt to salvage our current subdivision in eight provinces.

[Sir Lüc]

The elephant in the room is, of course, the fact that eight provinces are too many for our current activity levels. My feelings on this are quite mixed.

For the moment, I think provincial unions (mergers of provincial governments, with the actual provinces remaining distinct) are the best bet, so that each province retains a national Senator, but the widely dormant provincial governments get a spark of activity.

Incidentally, this also ties in neatly with adopting an unicameral Ziu elected with Mixed-Member Proportional, which dampens the effect of population discrepancies between provinces.

I am very much opposed to bottom-up reform where provinces randomly merge with each other with no general orchestration, no geographic coherence, no thought at where that leaves the other unmerged provinces or the balance of the national Senate.

On the other hand, I recognise that top-down mergers will probably spell the death of the tiny amount of provincial culture we have left.

[esbornatfiglheu]

I'm in agreement with you on a lot of this stuff.  If I recall, the Ohio contingent screamed blue murder about the catchment changes, but it largely fell on deaf ears.  You can say "that's on me."  But what does that mean, in this context?  What does taking responsibility for that mean?

I might consider tying Maestro or Arvitier Prima with the Senator, just to reduce the necessary personnel.

"Benito" MIGHT sit ok, if the province hadn't previously been named Mussolini.  How about:  Lançacuratx-Utulfaçeir.  Stays with the "named it twice" idea.

[Flip Molinar]

I agree with all of Sir Luc's points and in addition to the renaming and the political reforms, what about creating a new flag go with all the other changes that are happening and could potentially happen? I was thinking something like the current flag but a design that incorporates water to showcase the coastal geography of the province.

Edit: I saw the new designs for the flag and I prefer the yellow design but the white one is nice too.