Political shenanigans
Leo Balzac
Fellow citizens,
Most of you will not be aware, but I and another congress member have received a temporary 72 hour ban from congress for proposing an in game measure. I have read all kinds of arguments as to why this ban should be upheld, most of them ending with something like, “at the end of the day, the speaker gets to interpret the rules of order.” Fine. This is how it is written in our congressional rules of order, and therefore I accept my ban and will move on.
Before I move on, however, I must express my displeasure with the Speaker's decision in this matter. The heart of the issue here is a vote to make income taxes equal across all industries. While last term, the income tax on Raw material workers was raised to 6%, finished products remained at 3%. The discussion in congress was to level out the rates of income taxation across all four sectors of employment. This is where things got sticky.
A discussion was started in Open Doors Congress for all to see, it lasted more than 24 hours (again, which is the right of the speaker to extend debate time if he/she so chooses). Finally, Treian called for a vote. This motion to vote was never seconded, and if you read the rules of order, a motion for a vote must be seconded before it can actually be put to a vote. This, again, is merely a small technicality and I’m sure the Speaker had no intention of breaking the rules when he then started a vote on the forums.
Upon seeing the forum vote, I thought there must have been some mistake, as generally a motion involving an in-game vote would be voted on, in-game. Seeing as how the motion had been put to a vote in the forums, I took that as express permission to start a vote in-game, thinking the Speaker had made a simple mistake. Apparently this was not the case.
In defense of his actions the speaker says this:
“I knew there were people that didn't support changing the income tax levels but for whatever reason didn't post in the debate thread. You can see evidence of that in the voting thread where a majority of the votes are no.
The second factor was that I knew if we went to an in game vote immediately it would pass because a majority of congress people don't bother with the forums. They'd see a flood of proposals and just assume that they should vote yes on them. Once again this is exactly what happened.
The problem here isn't that these changes to Income Tax were proposed without authorization. The problem is that ANY proposals were started. It's a very slippery slope and it needs to be nipped in the bud.”
You see, it turns out that it isn’t so much a rules of order issue here. It’s the fact that the Speaker decided he didn’t think Congress was capable of making a proper decision if the vote was posted in-game, and therefore, decided to have a pre-vote vote on the forums. I used to wonder why it took congress so long to get anything done, well folks, I wonder no longer.
As I said in the beginning, according to the Congressional Rules of Order, the Speaker has final say when it comes to interpreting the rules. The Speaker feels that I broke the rules and has temp banned me from congress. Once again I do not take issue with this. My real issue is that there is room for the Speaker to interpret the rules in a way that makes it possible for the Speaker to influence the outcome of any vote. This I do not agree with and I will work to limit the ability of the Speaker to interpret rules of order on a broad level. The fact that I must now write up more legislation, to make the rules of order more cumbersome is something that I do not look forward to, but I simply can’t sit back and let someone with a personal agenda become Speaker, then try and influence the outcome of vote.
TL😉
R
I accept my punishment
The Speaker is being a bit of a douche
I will try to limit the ability of future Speakers to be douchey.
Comments
here here
Please, no more. Much can be done with just properly wording what's already there.
well, I wasn't thinking adding in whole new clauses Kronos...just tweaking the wording so we have some concrete guidelines less open to interpretation.
really? this is pretty basic stuff. congress always votes on the forums first because there are a limited number of in game proposals and it would be unfortunate if they were all used up on votes that didnt pass and we needed to pass something at the last minute and were left proposal-less. (thats also why you see a flood of shenanigan proposals at the end of every congress session so that congress men can get the xp for proposing/voting)
i've never even been in congress and i understand this.
screamingslave:
There aren't shenanigan proposals at the end of term any more, nor do Congressmen get experience for proposals.
Old mechanics are old.
very old, they were gotten rid of at least back as far as new years.
This is inbeleivable.
More Role-Play Forum BS
Make a proposal in-game
If you're a congressman and you like it - Vote Yes
If you don't like it - Vote No
Talk about over complicating the most basic game function for the sake of over complicating it
Man, you'd almost need to consult a lawyer before anything is done in Congress. You guys make it way too legal.
o7 Leo! I am honored to proxy vote for you, hopefully to drive the Speaker to new levels of insanity !!
And, exactly Rolo - this is one large pile of BS
For the record. The measure failed on the forums, it should of never been started in game.
Also on a personal level I completely supported normalizing income tax so that they're even across the board. Having different income tax levels for different segments of the economy made no sense at all.
What I don't support is members of congress abusing their ability to make proposals in game without the consent of the speaker which is a fundamental reason for us having a congress on the forums at all.
For your records, the in-game proposal to change an in-game mechanic passed, by a vast majority. If you feel it's better to disenfranchise the majority of congress by having a pre-vote vote; well, I guess that's your choice as speaker.
Good thing is, I now know when I've got the snake by the tail, not the head.
So, a set of complex forum procedures seems to be running contradictory to the rather up-front in-game mechanics. Someone disagrees with the validity of said forum procedure and breaks protocol, incurs punishment due to the fact that these rules must be upheld to maintain proper order.
oh Muglack, the shoe is so on the other foot that the lols hurt, but I do feel for ya, since some of us were in the same place as you are now.
The shoe isn't really on the other foot. I know from past experience that tax change laws tend to pass by HUGE majorities in game. I was contacted by people via IRC asking if there would be forum votes for these as well as the proposed import tax changes. Given the history I said there would be so everything would be on the up and up.
But really, none of that matters. Whether there was a forum vote or not can be completely removed from the equation.
Leo Balzac and Aeriala started votes in game without the speaker's consent. That's not allowed and is punishable. To be honest the punishment here should of been MORE severe not less. The motions they started illegally actually passed (while failing on the forum), where as the one that Ali Al Baghdadi initiated failed and he was still given a 48 hour ban.
I can be blamed for being the bad guy till the cows come home, it doesn't bother me one bit. I'm the eCanadian equivalent of a Constitutionalist. We agreed to have rules, we agreed to have punishments for breaking those rules. You need to remember that I'm the guy who took a 5 week ban for "contempt of court" and didn't complain once. Maybe I'm just made of sterner stuff.
I'll get your cookie for you Muglack. You seem to think you deserve it.