An amendment for at-large election of Senators

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

So I've been passing around a model amendment on this subject privately. I've got cautious welcome among some, criticism among others, and insistence that we need to throw a whole bunch of other Senäts amendments in there as well, which seem to me just as prone to leading to complete failure as with the Fixed Term amendment.

So what I am suggesting basically is for three Senators to be elected by the whole nation at every Cosa election, with each voter getting 1 vote. This would allow either a simple first-past-the-post vote (top three wins) or an STV election. I would much prefer the latter, with the caveat that counting ranked-choice voting for multiple vacancies is a pain in the neck which generally requires automation.

The eagle eyed will have spotted that this means 6 Senators rather than 8. Although I personally just prefer a smaller Upper House, I don't expect that to convince anyone. My main argument for this is basically that, since 3 Senators are elected each time anyway, this would be by far the easiest transition procedure.

A few other little things:
- I think we should restore the former provision that a CpI justice can't sit in the Senäts, for separation of powers reasons (having them in the Cosa is less of a big deal).
- mid-term vacancies can be filled either by a provincial government nomination, or by nominating the runner up in the election. In the case of an STV election that's doable via countback, which is eminently fair but kind of annoying to do.
- do we really want to keep the OrgLaw IV.9 provision for impeachment?

Anyway, here would be my model amendments, which, as I say, are my idea of minimal changes.

OrgLaw III:

Article III: The Senäts
Section 1
The Senäts, or in English the Senate, is the national legislative council and the upper house of the Ziu, and shall be composed of six Senators elected by the nation as a whole. It may administer itself as it sees fit.
 
Section 2
Except as otherwise provided in this Organic Law, any Talossan eligible to vote may be elected or appointed to the Senäts. No Senator, even though elected or appointed to the Senäts, may vote on Senäts business until he has been a citizen for one year, or served for six months as Seneschál or Secretary of State, or received an order of knighthood from the King. No person may simultaneously hold more than one seat in the Senäts.

Section 3
Neither a reigning King, nor his Consort, nor a Regent during his regency, nor a Judge of the Cort pü Inalt shall under any circumstances be eligible to be elected or appointed to a place in the Senäts.

Section 4
The Senäts shall have equal powers with the Cosa in respect of all proposed laws, except that bills appropriating revenue or moneys shall not originate in the Senäts, and the Government shall require the confidence of the Cosa only to remain in office. In the event of the Senäts twice rejecting a bill appropriating revenue or moneys which is passed by the Cosa, upon it being passed a third time by the Cosa, it shall not require the consent of the Senäts to be given Royal Assent and take effect. Bills for the imposition or appropriation of fines or other monetary penalties, or for the demand or payment or appropriation of fees for licenses or services, shall not be taken to appropriate revenue or moneys.

Section 5
A Senator vacates their seat if, not being disqualified from voting by law, they do not vote on two consecutive Clarks; or if they resign from office, lose their citizenship or die.

Section 6
No senator shall ever be required to vacate his place during his term of service, due to a change in the qualifications of Senators.

Section 7
If a Senator vacates his or her seat before the end of the term, the executive of their home province shall appoint a Senator to sit for the remainder of their scheduled term. If the provincial executive fails to appoint a Senator within a fortnight of the vacancy, the King or his Cunstavál shall appoint the Senator.

Section 8
Senators may be removed from office by the Uppermost Cort, for criminal activity or for mis-, mal-, or non-feasance.

Section 9
The Senate may impeach any of its members from the Chamber with a two-thirds majority vote. Following a failed expulsion, the accused Senator may not again be tried for the same offence, pursuant to the Seventh Covenant of the Covenant of Rights and Freedoms. The former Senator is not barred from running for office in future elections as long as the former Senator maintains citizenship.

Section 10
The Senäts shall, after every general election, choose one of its members to be the President of the Senäts to be called the Mençéi, or in English the Lord President; and as often as the office of Mençéi becomes vacant the Senäts shall again choose a senator to be the Mençéi. The Mençéi shall cease to hold office if he ceases to be a senator. The Mençéi may be removed from office by a vote of the Senäts, or he may resign his office or seat by writing addressed to the King, or by public declaration.

Section 11
The 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.

OrgLaw V.6-7:

Section 6
Elections for the filling of places in the Senäts shall be conducted simultaneously with general elections to the Cosa. Each time the Cosa shall be dissolved, there shall be an election for three Senate seats.

Section 7: Transitional Provisions
If the amendment establishing this section is ratified by a referendum concurrent with a Cosa election, then the Senators elected concurrently with that election shall serve a term lasting two Cosa terms; otherwise, the Senators elected concurrently with the previous Cosa election shall serve a term lasting two Cosa terms. The terms of all other Senators shall end at the time scheduled before this section was amended.

Section 8
The Chancery shall conduct all elections to the Senäts, according to the provisions given in Sections 2-5, above. Each voter in a Senäts election shall cast a vote for one Senator, which may be a ranked-choice vote if so established by law. In the absence of ranked choice voting, the three candidates with the most votes shall be declared the winners, with any tie to be broken by random lot by the Secretary of State. An election by ranked-choice vote shall be held under principles of proportional representation as established by law.

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NOTE: in accordance with the Confidence and Supply agreement made between the Government and @Munditenens Tresplet , no Amendment of this nature will be Clarked without co-sponsorship from either s:reu Tresplet or a Progressive Alliance legislator.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Posting my feedback on the proposed changes as well.

One of the key changes is a mild reduction in the powers of the Senäts; namely allowing the Cosa to override the rejection of a bill by the Senäts by a 3/5 supermajority on regular legislation only (i.e. not OrgLaw amendments).

* This balances an increase in the power of individual Senators (because of the decrease in their number) with a reduction in their power as a body.
* It brings the Senäts more in line with the "postponement" model of upper house legislative consideration seen in most other parliamentary systems.
* It does not affect the power of a royal veto, which the King is still completely entitled to use on bills for which the Cosa has overridden Senäts rejection.
* As I mentioned earlier, the consent of the Senäts is still mandatory under this model for amendments to the Organic Law.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

* It brings the Senäts more in line with the "postponement" model of upper house legislative consideration seen in most other parliamentary systems.

I very much like this.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Have @Munditenens Tresplet or the Progs got anything to say about this? Either in principle or in detail?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Several major bills were posted in pretty quick succession, at a time when I was working on the language thing, so I haven't had a chance to review them. Only so much Talossa time in any given week.

Please forgive the delay, but I will of course give my feedback on these and the other issues as soon as I can.

[Sir Lüc]

I like the basic idea; I proposed it first, of course, and would have much preferred to be the one working on it.

I really don't like the reduction in the number of Senators without much thought to the massively increased power a single Senator would have - akin to a MC who could hold 33 seats. I don't buy that "making transition easier" is a valid reason for this either, and I'll demonstrate that by amending V.7 from Mic'haglh's draft:

Section 7: Transitional Provisions
Upon the ratification of this provision, incumbent Senators shall be divided into two classes, based upon the provincial rotation established in law, with the first class of Senators to be comprised of half the number of Senators, beginning with the Senators whose terms were to expire at the general election following this provision's ratification, together with one of the Senators whose term was to expire at the next general election after that, as chosen by the Chancery by lot. The remainder of Senators shall compose the second class. The Senäts term of the first class shall expire upon the dissolution of the Cosă following this provision's ratification, and alternating classes thereafter.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

I really don't like the reduction in the number of Senators without much thought to the massively increased power a single Senator would have - akin to a MC who could hold 33 seats.

A valid concern, though this is the main reason I sought a mild reduction in the power of the chamber as a whole to compensate.

[Sir Lüc]

I really don't like the reduction in the number of Senators without much thought to the massively increased power a single Senator would have - akin to a MC who could hold 33 seats.

A valid concern, though this is the main reason I sought a mild reduction in the power of the chamber as a whole to compensate.

But again, you reduce the number of senators because the transition would be simpler, which is a consequential change for a small, solvable issue, only to then rebalance it in a way that could be understandable for other reasons*, but has nothing to do with the starting issue to begin with. That to me is amputating an arm instead of putting a band-aid on a papercut, and then getting a prosthesis for the wrong body part.

Reducing the number of senators for an easily solvable transitional issue is indefensible. Let's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.




*: such as if the Senate continued to be skewed by provincial imbalance - hopefully not anymore - or if the Cosă needed to explicitly be the foremost nationally elected house of the Ziu.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Let's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.

The change in question is also present in Miestra's original text.

[Sir Lüc]

Let's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.

The change in question is also present in Miestra's original text.

Oh yes, sorry, I should specify:

1. I am criticising both proposals and I only amended your Section 7 because I liked its wording more;

2. By "reverting back" I mean to the current eight-member Senate, and overall, to focusing the bill on the basic idea of a single nationwide constituency, which was my original idea some others are now developing.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Let's revert back the change and keep this amendment focused on what this was supposed to do to begin with.

The change in question is also present in Miestra's original text.

Oh yes, sorry, I should specify:

1. I am criticising both proposals and I only amended your Section 7 because I liked its wording more;

2. By "reverting back" I mean to the current eight-member Senate, and overall, to focusing the bill on the basic idea of a single nationwide constituency, which was my original idea some others are now developing.

Ah, ok that is fair then. I had a feeling we weren't quite responding to each other's direct concerns.

I still believe a reduction in Senators is important given the previously-discussed "warm bodies problem", but at least we now understand each other.

[Sir Lüc]

Ah, ok that is fair then. I had a feeling we weren't quite responding to each other's direct concerns.

I still believe a reduction in Senators is important given the previously-discussed "warm bodies problem", but at least we now understand each other.

Sure, and I definitely initially misread your initial response.

I don't buy the "warm bodies problem" either for the following reasons:

1. As bad as the situation was in the last election, we had four candidates for three spots;

2. People avoid running for the Senate because of partisan or personal affiliation with the incumbent - I definitely passed up on running for my old seat because Iason announced he would run for reelection - and this wouldn't be an issue anymore if we ditch single winner races;

3. I disagree with the current ban on UC justices in the Senate while allowing them to serve on the Cosa and firmly think the reverse makes way more sense. I made the same point to V way back when this was enacted and his stance was to me quite baffling - how is it defensible for a justice to be a partisan politician elected in a party list just because they're towing the party line instead of voting their own conscience (and/or technically representing their province, currently) as independent legislators? Litz Cjantscheir was party leader of a party that (at least when it was founded in 2013, I'd need to check) explicitly had no platform, so how would that, or an explicitly single person party, be any different from being a senator?

4. Likewise, I would probably run for Senate if I wasn't forbidden to hold seats in the Ziu - which all Secretaries up to Iustì Canun were not, and in an era where senators actually still had overt partisan affiliations. I do recognise it's bad optics to have someone conduct their own election, so I'm not actually asking for this, but for the sake of playing devil's advocate 1. we have a quite effective Electoral Commission with comprehensive tools to identify fraud, and 2. again, it wouldn't be a single winner race anymore.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I support prohibiting members of the judiciary from serving in the legislature. Got into a bit of trouble around the issue during the 58th Cosa. I wish we could just pass a ban on the SOS being in political positions too or remove it from elections from the purview of the Chancery. Gluc, was the exemplar of this tradition, and Lord knows it's a hill for dying I know very well.