Head Executive(s)

@GROSS:

My plan would not take long, and certainly not a week.  Again, most of the time a proposal would end with the Consuls, and that could take less than a day to decide. Yes, it could potentially take a little longer on the extremely rare case that it has to go all the way up, but for the vast majority of time the Consuls will be the main judges. Besides, if we don't give the executive branch some influence, they will be powerless like before. The reason the IWU fell into crisis before was because we had too much direct democracy. Every proposal had to be decided by the people, and when they became dormant, so did the government. It left us unable to deal with the problem.

Also, I believe that referendum votes will take longer than two days. Not only does the topic have to be debated for a period of time, but also there are many people who would not be able to vote in the two day period. As I recall, region wide votes typically took longer to be done properly.

@Kialga: My plan does not go against democracy, it only stops direct democracy. Even if referendum proposals are few in number, which is by no means guaranteed, it still keeps the RMB clear for RP's and other fun instead of debate.

The officials are elected by the people for a reason, why not use them?

Well, with my idea, finding all of the percentages and stuff wouldn't matter. I will set up an example here.
Say a random nation, ex. TestNation, decides to bring forth a proposal he/she made. 
First, they would send their proposal to the consuls. Why is this? With GROSS' proposal, consuls would only be allowed to vote on proposals created among other consuls. What would be the point of that; that consuls would be forced to come up with their own proposals all the time just to keep themselves busy with assignments.
So then, with my plan, the consuls will review the proposal to see if it is worthy to be taken for public vote. That meaning if it well-written, well-intending, or whatever the criteria may be.
If the consuls decide it isn't eligible, then it's simply removed from existence. If they think it is eligible, then it will be sent off to Kialga, the chairman, to be sent out as a mass telegram to all nations in the region.
The votes received from the nations will simply be viewed as this: if it's above a 50%, the proposal passes, and will become active. If it's below a 50%, the proposal will be taken to the Justices to meet its fate, which will be totally up to them.

It honestly seems like the most simple thing to me. With a direct democracy, we'll have to deal with nations that make terrible, random, and every little proposal off the top of their heads, and we will have to vote on them no matter what. Either way, mass telegram or RMB, will take forever to review by everyone, and if it is used on the RMB, it will get all clogged up and impossible to work with.

@Rachara: I have read over your proposal and have a few comments. First, what if the Consuls got power hungry and zapped a good proposal out, just because it hurt them or they simply did not like it?

Next, I would like to say that I like the idea of sending out referendum votes via telegram. Not only does it keep the RMB clear, but it provides a direct line for voters to respond to the Chairman, Kialga. Also, I like your idea of above 50% it passes, though if goes below 50%, to me that means it should fail.

I do believe it still involves too much referendum, something that I believe a lot of people really could care less about. To me it seems that we should allow our elected officials to take a greater part in the decision making process.

That is a good question. Well, to alter or tweak my idea just a little bit, I will add in that if the proposal is voted down by the consuls, it should be taken to the justices. If it is an obviously bad one, then of course the justices shouldn't do anything about it but reject it. But if the consuls had gotten power hungry (and let's just assume that that will hopefully never happen) the justices will have the power to put it up for vote if they feel the proposal should be considered. Or in any case, all the proposals should be run by Kialga so that he can be a power-check.

This is my idea:

The Delusional Dictatorship of Bobby Joe wants to write a bill mandating x. He drafts it, and sends it to the executive who will like it the most. The executive will edit it, and send it back to Bobby Joe. If Bobby Joe still likes it, he will approve for it to be sent to the other executives on a ballot. If not, then he will do the edits himself.
I like Rachara's idea about sending it to the Justices (mostly because a referendum is out of the question by now ).

@Vizindolf: The Consuls already have an extra job concerning the proposals: they can make their own and vote amongst themselves. That alone gives them a tremendous jump in the frequency of their work. If they have the authority over their own proposals, why would we allow them to have authority over the people's proposals as well? They don't happen often, and they aren't difficult to handle.

Concerning the time your system will take, how do you intend to gather the percentages WITHOUT taking that much time? Because, in fact, the only way to determine percentages for support is by taking a poll. That, of course, requires a referendum. So why would we waste time doing three separate referenda and take 5 or 6 days when we could only conduct one and take only two days? That is both more efficient and more fair to the people. Proposals, again, can be edited by the chairman before the referendum--that means that proposals will retain the same effectiveness they would if they were run through the Consuls and Justices.

However, given the current sway of opinion, I believe it would be wise to accept a compromising position on the issue. This, then, would be an efficient and effective way to complete such proposals, combining my own, Rachara's, and Vizindolf's ideas:

A resident would write a proposal, and send it to the Consuls for review. The Consuls wouldn't vote to actually pass it, they would simply decide whether it was written well enough and was a worthy idea. (this features Rachara's idea of grammatical checking, as well as Vizindolf's idea of running the proposal through the government). If the Consuls decide the proposal is good, then it will be set up for a referendum, as would occur in all three ideas anyway. If the Consuls decide it is a bad proposal, they are required to point out the errors of the writing and/or the idea. If the author of the proposal feels that the Consuls have abused their power to prevent the proposal's passing, then the author may send the proposal to the founder, Kialga. Given that Kialga has allowed such democratic processes to take place and has been a trustworthy leader since the IWU's founding, I believe he would be a fair authority to turn to. Kialga also has ultimate authority over the region, so we already place a lot of trust in his hands; several of us, including myself and Rachara, know Kialga personally, so we could ensure that he is fair, just in case.

The benefits of this compromise are the following:
--Resident proposals still retain their separate authority from the executives.
--The proposal will still be reviewed by the government authorities.
--The proposal will still be checked and edited to ensure it is a worthwhile and a well-organized idea.


What are your opinions on this compromise?

Meh. I guess it's okay.

I could go with that. So let me get this straight, after it is run through the consuls and/or Kialga, it is going to be directed to the people to be voted upon, right? In that case, can we agree that a more than 50% sway FOR passes it, and less than 50% fails it?

Correct. Referenda always employ a simple majority. The only votes that might use a different fraction would be those in the potential regional congress and/or in the Consuls, which I am indifferent about. That issue will come later.

Including my vote, we now have three in favor of the compromise.

@GROSS: If you admit that the people themselves are not creating a great deal of Proposals, then why should we assume that Consuls will create enough to keep themselves busy. Also, what if the Consuls got power hungry? If they decide upon their own proposals, who is the balance? Would it go straight to referendum?

Also, I hate to prolong this, but I must make my disagreement with the compromise known. To me, it looks a great deal like Rachara's plan. It goes to the Consuls for only grammatical review, and then is made referendum. This still gives absolutely no power to the officials, besides that of creating their own proposals, which to me is not much.

In the United States, we elect representatives to Congress in order to pass laws. We know that it would be extremely difficult to have referendum for every issue. That is why we do not have a direct democracy. Instead, we have representative democracy, which my plan contains. It allows the officials to take most of the issues, though still allows for referendum in case the officials get power hungry.

With this in mind, I would like to make some minor adjustments to my plan. Instead of doing percentages, perhaps we can simply use a set number. Say, if ten people decided to support the issue, it moves on to the Justices. If 15 support it, then it moves to referendum. These numbers can be adjusted as the population grows. This way, Bobby Joe would simply have to ask for support. If the required number of people agree, then it will move on. If not, then it dies. I say that this take no longer than 1 day to complete.

Also, regarding your proposal, while I do place great trust into Kialga, not all Official Chairman's may be trustworthy. If they are the only set of eyes that can grace a proposal before it is voted on, then corruption can ensue.

@Vizindolf- But with GROSS' compromise, there would be no way for the consuls to get power hungry. They wouldn't actually vote on the proposal's passage or failing, they would only review it and see if it is simply worthy enough to be made referendum.

@Rachara: But the Consuls have the power to vote on their own proposals. What if, say, the Consuls decided amongst themselves to dissolve all of the other government positions. As they can both create and vote on their own proposals, it is possible.

I don't agree with that, either. If the consuls want to create their own proposals, I believe they need to bring them to the people, as well.
@GROSS, maybe you should consider this and alter your compromise.

@Vizindolf: I will list things out in order of your arguments:

First, allowing the Consuls to make their own proposals is a considerable amount of power. That in itself gives the Consuls authority over the rest of the government and the people, which is far more authority alone that the President of the US has.

Second, not every issue would be decided by referenda. As I have already said several times, we have resident proposals extremely rarely, amounting to only four in 11 months. That means we would seldom be dealing with referenda outside elections. Most proposals would be dealt with by the Consuls or the legislature.

Third, our government does have representation, is is based off it entirely. Now, instead of having a president, we have several, which means they are a form of representation. If we add the legislature, that too comprises the representation in this government. Furthermore, I would hardly say that four referenda in 11 months makes our government a direct democracy.

Fourth, you still need to conduct a vote to find the numbers of people supporting something; whether you address them by percentage or by direct number makes no difference; there still must be a system to count them, and that system would end up in one way or another some form of a vote. That is obviously going to take time.

Fifth, I didn't mean the chairman, actually, I meant Kialga himself would indefinitely be the one to review them, whether he be the chairman or not. If Kialga is inactive or something happens, we could place, say, the delegate in responsibility of doing backup reviews.

Finally, about the Consuls becoming abusive, THAT is the reason that I suggested earlier that the Justices be a secondary vote on Consul proposals BEFORE they pass. If you recall, that was one of the first ideas I presented in this discussion. That way there is a power check. So, for example, say the Consuls decide to dissolve the other positions. Well, the Justices will have to agree with it before that goes into effect. Even if the Justices did agree to that for whatever terrible reason, then there would be the referenda, which, as I emphasized, should be separate from direct authority of the Consuls; as the referenda are the ultimate authority, then, the proposal would be stopped. (Kialga would also have to comply with removing the other positions, and so I very highly doubt he would allow anything like that to happen).

Vote Status:

The current score is as follows:
For Vizindolf's original plan: 3 (Qora, Akhalan, Vizindolf)
GROSS Independency's original plan: 1 (Kialga)
The compromise plan: 3 (Rachara, Gatito, GROSS Independency)

We will extend this vote through tonight/tomorrow morning, depending on progress.

I guess it's too late to change my vote because when I voted there was no compromise.

@Vizindolf, Technically the United States of America is a Republic as Democracy was never stated during its' founding.

I just read on the RMB that it is possible to change my vote so I would like to switch mine to the Compromise.

@Viz: I would step in in order to prevent the Counsels from abolishing all positions. They may have the theoretical power, but I have the power of the Region. Not to hold this there, but I do.

I, however, move to promote compromise.

Current Vote Score:

The compromise: 5 (GROSS Independency, Rachara, Gatito, Kialga, Qora)
Vizindolf's plan: 2 (Akhalan, Vizindolf)

I am wondering if it may be possible to extend this deadline until tomorrow night. I just got in from work and will not be able to formulate a response to all of these developments until tomorrow. I am thinking about posting a second compromise plan in addition to my plan.

Can you get it in by tomorrow afternoon, say, by around four or five? That would be a little easier. If that's not enough time, we can wait until tomorrow night. Do try to hurry, though, because we need to move on to the next subjects so we can finish this topic.

Yes, I can have it in by around 5pm EST.

Okay. Should I wait to end the voting until tomorrow evening, or in the afternoon?

Tomorrow evening would probably be better so that there is ample time for discussion.

Will someone TG me the compromise? Work has been kicking my ass the past few days and I havent been able to keep up with this.

@Vizindolf: All right. That will work. Then we're going to make tomorrow evening the end of this subject; we've got to wrap this one up and move on to the next one.

@Abacathea: I will send it to you if nobody else has by now.

Current Vote Score:

The compromise: 6 (GROSS Independency, Abacathea, Rachara, Gatito, Kialga, Qora)

Vizindolf's original plan: 2 (Vizindolf, Akhalan)

The vote is scheduled to end tomorrow evening, at Vizindolf's request.

I'm liking the sound of the compromise. That's what I'm voting for.

That makes 7 in favor of the compromise, 2 in favor if Vizindolf's original plan.

Compromise Plan #2


Bobby Joe has a proposal. He will first send it in to the IWURC. They will decide upon it. This works well for a compromise because it keeps power out of the hands of the Consuls, like GROSS wants. Rachara has also been in favor of giving the IWURC the power to decide upon proposals. Also, for me, it keeps proposals from immediately going to referendum. If Bobby Joe is not pleased with the result the IWURC gives him, he can ask for support from the region. If there are ten other nations who agree with Bobby Joe, then the proposal is immediately put out for a referendum vote.

 

The Consuls will have the power to create and vote upon their own proposals. Also, they can direct intelligence operations. Referendum will take precedence over any Consul made votes. Consuls will also have the power to veto acts of the IWURC. However, if the majority in favor of a proposal numbers at or greater than 2/3 of the body, then the veto is overturned.

 

If there are any questions or if I forgot to address anything in my haste to get this out, please leave a comment and I will make the necessary adjustments.

Sorry for poking at it but if your main concern is that the Consuls having too much power, what if the Consuls all go in Cahoots and veto every bill they don't like or threatens their power.

@Qora: Poking at it is the reason I have it here to begin with.

Now to your issue. There two things that guard against the Consuls veto. First, if the IWURC has a 2/3rds majority, then the Consuls veto is rendered useless. Also, referendum can always be created as long as a proposal has enough support from the region. Referendum will also trump any actions of the Consuls.

I guess the flaws I see in that are this:

Sure the IWURC is a great idea to have involved in this. But honestly, they wouldn't be doing anything different than what the consuls are doing in GROSS' compromise. So in your compromise, there is really no room for the consuls to have a say except for voting on their own proposals. And I never liked that idea in the first place, because it is giving them too much power. Say, if we were to use the IWURC, the consuls should have to bring their own proposals before them like everyone else, in my opinion. Seems as though everyone wants them to have "special privileges." 

The main thing I disagree with you on is that you want more steps involved so that it doesn't go immediately to referendum, where as I think this needs to get done as soon as possible. I don't like the whole "getting approval of at least 10 nations" stuff, as it makes things too complicated. I also do not want a direct democracy where it goes straight to referendum, so that is why I like the idea that GROSS' compromise lets the proposal pass through the consuls in order to be looked over.
 
I think if we were to use the IWURC in this, there would be no need for consuls during this process. And if we used the consuls, there would be no need for the IWURC.

One upside I see to it is that it reduces the amount of elections needed to fill the various seats, specifically being that the Justices aren't mentioned so that just leaves the IWURC and Consuls.

@Qora- Not necessarily. With GROSS', the IWURC doesn't have to be involved in this part of the process at all, so right now, all we'd have to worry about was the consuls and justices, so that is even fewer people.
@Vizindolf-- Yes, you are right that I agree the IWURC needs to have a part in our government. I just don't think they need to have a part in proposals. There would be too many of them to get feedback or votes from in a short amount of time, anyway. With the consuls, there would only be five to worry about.

@Rachara:

"A resident would write a proposal, and send it to the Consuls for review. The Consuls wouldn't vote to actually pass it, they would simply decide whether it was written well enough and was a worthy idea."

That is a direct quote from GROSS' compromise. In his, the Consuls are only there for grammatical review. In mine the IWURC will actually vote to pass it. In my opinion, this works better that directly sending it as referendum because that works too much like direct democracy. In my plan, the IWURC will both check it for grammar and vote for it. This process should take less time than for the whole region to vote on it.

Also, the special privileges that the Consuls have are not anti-democracy. I like to think of them more like emergency powers, so that if the IWURC is completely useless, as they were in the crisis, that the Consuls will be able to get us out. Basically, I do not want to put all of our eggs into one basket.

Regarding your last argument, GROSS' compromise is very close to direct democracy. The only difference is that it goes through the Consuls for a grammar check. To me, that is far too close to direct democracy. However, I understand if you believe that this compromise is not to your liking.

Also, I do believe that GROSS will have some role for the IWURC as well. Granted, it may not be a part of the proposal process, but most likely he will institute something like it. My does get rid of the Justices, as I see no use for them at this point. However, if someone else has an idea that involves the Justices, I would be happy to hear it.

So in the case if the IWURC becomes useless the consuls get all the powers that is reserved for the IWURC until they get themselves running properly again? Sounds good and proper for me there.

@Qora: Exactly, so that we don't have a repeat crisis.

Also, this new compromise plan allows for a greater number of people to be a part of the proposal process than my old plan without implementing direct democracy.

@Vizindolf--I am not saying your compromise is bad and I totally do not agree with it, but there are more points I agree with on GROSS'. Yes, I thank you for stepping in during the crisis and setting up our current government, and I agree that we would need a backup plan if something like that were to ever happen again. But the simple fact is, in my opinion, there is hardly any democracy at all. 
Yes, I know, as you quoted from GROSS, that what the consuls would be doing was checking it for errors, but it all says "they would simply decide whether it was written well enough and was a worthy idea." That is mainly what I care about.
As far as voting goes, it would simply be against our regional values if we were not to let the people vote. That is what I am standing for. Everyone deserves the right to have a say.

@Rachara:

I do not take offense to your disagreement. It's actually a good thing to disagree. It creates better and better ideas. I hope that our disagreement has not put any strain on our friendship, as I have always admired you both as an ally and, in times such as now, a fierce defender for what you believe in.

No hard feelings. Yes, it is good to disagree in times like these just to finally get to the bottom of it all, and hopefully we can move on to the next topic pretty soon!

Ok, so I just thought of a proposal and because I suck like that it is quite late so you may just say "You're being silly Qora, go back to the RMB." I know it is a bit late to say this but I just thought of it just now.

Proposal:

I like spoilers for giant walls of texts.

*edited
I just realized I forgot to include Emergency Powers should the IWURC fail.

@Qora: I like it for the most part. However, I have one small problem. If a proposal fails at the Consul level, then just about everyone will want to appeal it, even if it is a terrible piece of legislation. Bottom line is that there is no means for stopping the appeal of stupid proposals. I do not wish to hijack your idea, but I would like to give you an idea to solve that problem (if you believe it is one). Perhaps if at least 2 of the 5 Consuls voted for it, it could go on. Something like that.

Overall though, I like this proposal.

@Vizindolf; In that case if it is truely a stupid idea then the referendum amongst the Justice, Counsel and IWURC would then most likely say that it is a stupid idea and the session will end with no bill being passed.

I will agree that it will be a long process to get it through in such a situation and your idea does sound much shorter. From how this is running in my mind is that then the Justices would not be needed for secondary review.

Perhaps it may go to Kialga and Kialga asks the Consuls and Justices to send in their opinions and if they both agree that it is stupid then referendum can be denied. Referendums can be denied, right?

Ie. Apologies, Ser Doe of... whats your land. But we see that your legislation does not pass the requirements for Referendum at this time.

The secondary review is in case the Consuls get power hungry and they simply don't bother looking at the legislation without properly reading and such hence the line " John Doe says that the bill was good and the Consuls were out of line or something, he sends it to the Justices for a second check " Now that I think of it maybe a 1/3 of agreement to passing is a requirement for referendum and 2/3 agreement is to send directly to the IWURC?

I would argue that referendum can be denied, however I am not sure that it is a universally accepted idea. It may need more debate.]

Also regarding your lastest post, I would personally switch around the amounts required. 1/3rd for IWURC and 2/3rd for Referendum. I do this because referendum would a much more difficult and involved process. Also, referendum trumps anything.

GROSS: I believe that because this is such an important issue for our government, we should give it all of the time it needs in order to discuss all of the possibilities.

1/3rd for IWURC and 2/3 for Referendum? (I am going to assume the IWURC, Consul, and Justice numbers combined). That sounds even better considering that Referendum trump everything.

In my view it could be but I am fascist so my views are a bit different from democracies but I do enjoy a properly run democracy. I think a referendum for everything would clog up the efficiency of the regional government with red tape and we all know what red tape does.

Sorry for using you as an example Gatito, but only one I can think of right now that might be plausible.

Gatito wants to make a legislation that everyone in the IWU is to have a cat. Most people agree with the disagreements being mainly in the IWURC mostly because of something silly like deadly cat allergies. As only say, 1/2 agree it doesn't quite meet the referendum requirements and declined.

@Qora: I agree entirely.