You could also vote for me as senator if you want to

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

If elected as Lord Warden, I will keep on voting for every clark, and will try to impersonate the famous wisdom of our beloved province on all nationwide decisions.

I will ensure that our Province is able to offer asylum to all our fellow Talossans if they feel the need to, and will propose to temporarily host the capital city of our Kingdom if the government decides so.

I will also have some geographical renaming claims


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[Barclamïu da Miéletz]

If elected as Lord Warden, I will keep on voting for every clark, and will try to impersonate the famous wisdom of our beloved province on all nationwide decisions.

I will ensure that our Province is able to offer asylum to all our fellow Talossans if they feel the need to, and will propose to temporarily host the capital city of our Kingdom if the government decides so.

I will also have some geographical renaming claims


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I say keep the Mexican part as "Gulf of Mexico", everything else as "Gulf of Cézembre".

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Ok just ask !

[Barclamïu da Miéletz]

We do not want to trigger Mexico, Mexico is chill.

[Glüc]

Don't think you'll need it, but good luck with your campaign! Let me know if you want to do a debate.

[Bråneu Excelsio, UrN]

Ok just ask !

Hahahaha
or should I say
jajajajaj

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Don't think you'll need it, but good luck with your campaign! Let me know if you want to do a debate.

Thanks Glüc, same with yours! May be some questions on my side to start debatting, what are your feelings about fixed term elections, bicameralism, and your ideas around the possibilities that our geographically remote Province could offer to the Kingdom ? Feel free also to ask in return.

[Glüc]

On bicameralism:

I think there are two closely related reasons for why bicameralism is a good thing. First of all MC's represent a political party while senators represent a province.

Now (perhaps somewhat controversially) I don't think it is representing a province per se that is important here. After all most provinces have citizens of diverse political orientation and different interests and how can one person really represent all those different interests.

The important thing is that the dynamic is different. Because senators don't represent a party that gives them a bit more independence to offer a different perspective. (Of course that effect might not be as strong if a senator also happens to be the leader of a party ;) ) Furthermore the senate has no influence on the composition of the government, which allows people to vote for senators who don't belong to the party they think is most capable of ruling. It is not a give that the party with the best ministers is also the party with the best ideas for legislation, but the cosa elections don;t allow voters to separate between the two.

Secondly, while the cosa is elected every eight months, senators have longer terms. This delay means that if a party suddenly gets a majority in the cosa it will still take a few elections to also get a majority in the senate. This is a good thing, because it could prevent major changes from being enacted in the hype of the moment. Of course, if the country wants to go in a certain direction eventually a majority in the senate will also be elected on that basis and that is great, because that is how democracy works, but it takes a bit longer which gives some more time to reflect if a certain political direction is really a good idea.

Combined this means the Cosa and the Senate provide different perspectives. That is important because if you look at legislation from just one perspective, you might miss something. Over the years we have seen plenty of bills being passed that were rushed and flawed and needed fixing as a result, but weve also seen cases were one house passed a bill but the other house stopped it. To be clear, I'm not opposed to changes, and if a consistent majority of Talossans want the country to move in a certain direction it should, but it is a good thing to have checks and balances first.


That said, I don't think the current system always works as intended. Many provinces are represented by senators who are barely active, elected without opposition or because of blind partisanship. Provincially conducted elections don't always live up to democractic standards. Filling the cosa with active MZs is clearly a problem for several parties as well. So I'm open to reform. MMP sounds very good in theory, but the devil is in the details and if we don't pay very close intention you might end up with a system that's easily exploitable. The idea of an at large senate is also interesting, but again it greatly matters how this senate would be elected.

Whatever the outcome, if there is to be a new system it needs to have these checks and balances that bicameralism provides. Anything else I would not consider voting for.

[Glüc]

On fixed term elections:

I'm not fundamentally opposed to this idea. I understand the concerns about holding the government to account if we remove the option of new elections, but the reality is that the time it takes for elections to be organised. If a coalition breaks down it still takes at least more than 2 months, potentially more than 3 before the VoC is failed, new elections are held and a cabinet is seated. Meanwhile, cosa terms itself aren't that long. We have multiple elections per year on average already, so even if a government does fail we dont need to wait that long for voters to have a chance to speak out again. Actually, I really like that under the proposed system the Ziu can basically replace the government midterm. This makes it more likely that we always have a functioning government, without holding additional elections that Talossa doesn't really need.

Again, however, the devil is in the details. The matter of who takes over when the VoC fails is a difficult question and I do see the concerns about just letting the leader of the opposition take over. (Although I also prefer the new definition of opposition over the one that depends entirely on the VoC.) Also as a general rule I dont like when an amendment is passed that requires additional legislation but without that additional legislation being presented yet. In this particular case I don't *think* the changes to the lexhatx will raise new issues, but I'm still not happy about the practice. This is why I abstained on the proposal.

Of course, the proposal has already passed the senate, so I'm not sure this discussion is gonna come up again next term.


Edit, in this thread: https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=3898.msg32756#msg32756, Dien also makes a good point about the implications for the EC.

[Glüc]

Gonna try to keep my answer a bit shorter on the third question. Cézembre isn't really being used by Talossa for it's natural resources. What we contribute to the Kingdom are the contributions of our citizens and it is up to each individual Cézembrean to fill that in to the best of their ability and make the most of their citizenship.

And of course, you don't need to be in politics to do so. Electing the best senator who casts the best votes and provides the best thoughts on legislation is just one small way to contribute.

[Glüc]

Thank you for your question. I'm interested to hear your view on these topics as well. I will also respond with some questions of my own in the other thread :)

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

Thank you for your question. I'm interested to hear your view on these topics as well. I will also respond with some questions of my own in the other thread :)

Thanks Glüc for the time and the consideration you put in these wise answers. I'll answer these questions tomorrow (after 6 Nations Rugby tournament celebrations) and welcome yours.

[þerxh Sant-Enogat]

I also support bicameralism. The difference in the time frames of the 2 assemblies plus the impossibility to veto a government with the VoC are elements of stabilization of our political life, avoiding brisk changes of direction without deep analysis and voice given to more independent politicians. Senator seats by Province also bring the opportunity to know and respect our Provinces, and better include all local constraints in our Nation-wide decisions.

On fixed term elections, I don't think that the benefit of a more predictable calendar offset the negative consequences, mostly around a temporary Seneschal not elected and at the helm for too short a time to build something. The roles of Party Leader / Leader of the opposition and candidate Seneschal should also be separated in my opinion. I don't think that failed VoCs have occurred often in the past, and I think that in this case our Nation should return to the voting process.

[Glüc]

One issue with the senate in its current form I forgot to mention earlier (although it has been mentioned many times before) and which is a big reason I'm open to reform is that provinces all have the same (1) number of senators, but different number of citizens. That means that citizens in smaller province are relatively better represented in the senate.

That is unfair in itself but it also has unfortunate side effects for the provinces, because we now are forced to design these so that they all have roughly similar immigration, or risk representation becoming even more skewed. In particular, there are good arguments to be made that certain provinces could become more vibrant if they merged, but this always causes an immediate problem because then the citizens of those provinces would give up half of their representation in the senate. Regardless of what direction we want to go with provinces, this debate is always gonna be overshadowed by 'what does this mean for national politics' and that's really not great.


But again, while I'm open to reform, any new system needs to find a way to include these checks and balances that having two house of parliament provides, so straight abolishing the senate with no replacement wouldn't be something I'd support.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Just butting in here, but since this is the only Senäts debate going on: what would your attitudes be to the proposal which I think the current SoS has previously championed, i.e. a "deprovincialised Senäts" with 4 (or 3?) Senators elected every Cosa term on a Kingdom-wide basis? That would surely deal with the terrible problem we have at the moment where the majority of Senäts elections are uncontested because both the parties, and active citizens, are very unevenly distributed between provinces