The "Reform" Plan

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

After going through the results, I first recorded everything quantitatively. Please note this was subject to my own interpretation if your comment was sort of ambiguous.
* "In Favor" indicates clear support
* "Open To" indicates agreement with the general idea, but uncertainty based on the details or preference for a slightly different method.
* Neutral (obvious)
* "Skeptical" is best typified by Luc claiming to "vaguely preferring" keeping the Senats in favor of the proposed unicameralism
* Firmly Against (obvious)

Proposal	In Favor	Open To	Neutral	Skeptical	Firmly Against
Royal "power swap"	Autofil, Schiva				Breneir, AD, Luc, Ian
Unicameralism	Autofil, Breneir	Schiva, GV		Ian, Luc	AD
Biproportional	Autofil, Luc			Schiva, AD
Nationwide single district	Luc		Autofil	AD
MMP (not proposed but discussed)	Schiva	Autofil, GV
Fixed election schedule	Autofil, Breneir	AD		Schiva
Year-long term	Autofil, Breneir, Luc				Schiva, AD, Ian
Constructive VoC	Autofil, Breneir	Schiva, AD, Luc
Mid-term party registration	Autofil, Breneir		Luc
Provincial reductions	Autofil

If we assign these categories integer values from +2 to -2, preference is as follows:
* Constructive VoC (+7)
* MMP (+4)
* Fixed elections (+4)
* Mid-term party registration (+4)
* Unicameralism (+2,)
* Biproportional (+2)
* Provincial reductions (+2)
* Nationwide single district (+1)
* Year-long Cosa term (0)
* Royal "power swap" (-4)

I'll be paring down the proposal based on this feedback over the coming days as we seek to arrive at a consensus.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Thanks @Miestră Schivă, UrN for reviving this.
As a part of moving to a year-long term I would support also moving toward a first, second, etc. reading of bills.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Thanks @Miestră Schivă, UrN for reviving this.
As a part of moving to a year-long term I would support also moving toward a first, second, etc. reading of bills.

You don't think that's feasible with the current 8-month term?

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Thanks @Miestră Schivă, UrN for reviving this.
As a part of moving to a year-long term I would support also moving toward a first, second, etc. reading of bills.

You don't think that's feasible with the current 8-month term?

I can imagine a slower, more considered, and formalized process of reviewing bills fitting better with a longer term.

[Tierçéu Rôibeardescù]

I personally quite like the "Proportional Provincial voting" cosa idea, a lot more of a parliament style of a "big pants" nation. It would be interesting to work out the right balance so that more and less active provinces are indeed fairly proportioned. I would force party's to actually have better accountability to the provinces too than the current system, how that will manifest is yet to be determined.
I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections. I do think there should be enough time in each cosa to enact somthing big, say, sending a cube sat to space, or a key reform, but then also the challenge of doing it quickly and in time for an election, as if you run out of things to do it gives chance for apathy. Running out of time is better then running out of things to do, and can be built on after the fact if necessary, outside of party leanings.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections.

Not everyone finds our election seasons fun, Tierçéu. A few more months between elections hurts no one but opens up more space for cooperation on big projects and for apolitical activity.

Can you please elaborate on what would make our elections ungainly with them being conducted annually?

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

Not everyone finds our election seasons fun, Tierçéu.

Most people do tho

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

With yearlong Cosas there could be no more TMT20 special editions, which would be a great loss

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections.

Can you please elaborate on what would make our elections ungainly with them being conducted annually?

@Tierçéu Rôibeardescù

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections.

Can you please elaborate on what would make our elections ungainly with them being conducted annually?

@Tierçéu Rôibeardescù

Patience young grasshopper

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections.

Can you please elaborate on what would make our elections ungainly with them being conducted annually?

@Tierçéu Rôibeardescù

Tierciu, I look forward to your response as I am genuinely curious what is ungainly about a longer term. Feel free to respond in private if that is better for you but I want to understand the opposition beyond "elections are fun for some."

[King Txec]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

[King Txec]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

- Txec R

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

- Txec R

I'm open to that but it does not lengthen the political cycle in Talossa which is my main interest. I'd love to see a bill that combines the MMP, multi-staged readings to replace the hopper or adapt it, and fixed annual elections.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

I crave a royal opinion on how we might go about this. Honestly I don't think the current setup of the ministries is the problem with burnout of Ministers. I support a move of many functions to the Civil Service on general principle. The real problem is lack of warm bodies. If there were only two Cabinet Ministries there would be an equal amount of work and an equal number of people willing to do it.

The fundamental problem is not how the work is divvied up, but that there is too much of it in terms of who wants to do it. Talossa's state structures are much bigger and require more upkeep than at any time in history. For example, there was an old comment from KR1, sometime in the 90s, saying that Talossa would be boring if it had to have a budget and financial accounts etc, but that's exactly what we have now. And I think we need it, because the alternative is for Talossa to run on someone's private dime, which is feudalism. But it's work and people don't want to do it.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I'm reading your response and it looks like you agree that Talossa's government is expected to do too much. We need to reduce the amount of work by a combination of eliminating some ministries entirely (Defence, please) and repurposing some toward the Civil Service. The distinction between the Civil Service and Ministries is that some Talossans might be willing to serve if it means not participating in our politics. Three or four ministries focusing on essential government duties but allow the rest to be filled by an apolitical standing Royal Civil Service.  I think Immigration is a good place to start on that note.

[King Txec]

I'll give it some thought. I have some ideas but in the mean time while I formulate a more formal response, I'd like to refer back to my Independence Day Speech.

Therefore, I am declaring 2025 as L'Anneu D'Comunità, or in English, The Year of Community. Throughout this year, beginning with the newest holiday in our calendar, Flip Molinar Day, I urge each and every one of you to spend as much time as possible seeing, hearing, listening, and communicating with other Talossans.

-Txec R

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

We need to reduce the amount of work by a combination of eliminating some ministries entirely (Defence, please)

I'm old enough to remember when a certain Baron pummeled the FreeDems-led government about not doing more with the Zouaves.

and repurposing some toward the Civil Service.

You miss the point. Whether a Minister or a civil servant, someone has to do the job, and the reason why we haven't parceled out more jobs to the civil service yet is a lack of enthusiastic civil servants, not Ministers wanting to hold on to this stuff.

I think Immigration is a good place to start on that note.

I would *dearly love* to shove the squalid technical details of the job off to a Civil Servant. If someone were willing to do the thankless job. Which there isn't.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

We don't have enough active people in Government because we don't have enough active people overall.

Because of that, we don't have enough people interested in serving in Government.  Required tasks are fairly minimal, but finding more than three or four seriously responsible people is a challenge.  Whether or not they are in Government or the Civil Service doesn't change that fact.  And this same problem is the cause of many of our other ills... for example, we have so few interested citizens that there's less reason to make art or literature.  No one will see it.

To the extent that we need to dismantle our institutions to continue to function and free up space for priorities, this makes sense.  Do we need a unicameral legislature?  Do we need to eliminate a bunch of Cabinet positions?  Okay, fine, maybe we need to do that since those things aren't a priority -- but if we're burning the furniture to keep warm, we need to make the most of it.

The next Government should focus overwhelmingly and exclusively on increasing the immigration rate.  Success or failure will be revealed by that single measurement.