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Good evening eUK, it’s time for my second proper update as Speaker, on what has been going on in Congress .



So, on Tuesday night Congress held its first IRC meeting, it was well attended and we discussed a variety of different topics. You can read the full report from the meeting here.

Coming out of this meeting there were a number of questions that Congressmen asked, directed at the CP and his Cabinet. I have spoken to the outgoing CP Count Drakula, and bring answers.

Firstly, there was an issue raised about our current war with Moldova, and whether the CP had been in contact with the USA about possibly helping us deal with Moldova, as the US’s recent invasion of France had brought them close to us. Count Drakula confirmed that he had spoken with the US CP.

As Count Drakula has also been the Military Commander of Sirius during these events, he said that the focus of the alliance was on defeating Serbia, consequently support against Moldova had not been forthcoming.

Secondly, I asked him about the apparent change in policy over the war in Norway. Congress had been informed that the war was being closed, but then it remained open. CD said that Norway had reversed policy on a potential NAP when Moldova had arrived in the eUK, and had pressed ahead with the war; continuing the war was not a decision made by our Government.





So as you’ll know if you have been following my updates, this month’s Congress is one of reforming, and at the start of my term I outlined three problems with Congress that I was hoping to address this term. The first problem was poor communication between Congress, with the current PM system not fit for purpose. Following a full discussion with members of Congress on IRC on Tuesday, I PM’d the PPs of the top seven parties to ask for their views. I am yet to hear back from a few, but the feedback so far is that a combination of PMs, IRC meetings and use of the existing eUK Forums would be the best way for Congress to communicate with each other.

In my opinion, in order to make things like IRC meetings permanent fixtures in the eUK for months to come, it requires legislation to give it staying power. I have decided the best way to do this is to amend the Speaker Act, which has become virtually irrelevant in recent months. Below is my proposed amended version of the Speaker Act, the current version can be seen here.

Proposed Amended Speaker Act

Aims: To establish procedures surrounding the election of a Congressional speaker to manage legislative and Congressional affairs.

Procedure:

1a. Citizens running for Congress may nominate themselves to take on the role of speaker, by contacting the outgoing Speaker with their intention to run.

b. Congressmen/women will then vote to decide the new Speaker. The Outgoing speaker must oversee the process and run the vote.

2a. The speaker will process proposed legislation and legislative changes.

b. Any amendment or proposed bill will have a minimum 24 hour discussion -period with members of Congress followed by a vote.

c. Any bill must receive a majority vote of Congress’ vote to become legislation.

3a. The Speaker is responsible for opening Mass-PM messages for Congress at the start of his term, and after the CP Elections. These messages will also include the CP and his Cabinet.

b. The Speaker will chair two weekly meetings of Congress to be conducted on IRC, one of which will be private and conducted on #eukhoc, the other will be publicly viewable, on #HoC.Public.

c. Members of the public will be able to send in questions for Congress before and during the public debate, on each of the topics that the meeting as well as any other inquiries or issues they’d like to raise. This will be done by PM’ing the Speaker, either in-game or on IRC.

d. The speaker is to track attendance of Congress members at IRC Meetings, information recorded is to be made publicly accessible

4. Speakers may rerun for the position provided they are re-elected to Congress.

5. If the Speaker needs to be replaced whomever came 2nd in the vote on the vote at the start of the term will take up the role. Speakers may stand down at any point.

6. Congress may vote to impeach their Speaker should they feel that they are not fulfilling their responsibilities set out above, with a majority vote needed to depose them. Any Congressman may begin an impeachment vote.


This amendment serves two purposes:

1. Firstly to make the Speaker Act simpler and more practical; it removes pointless red-tape over the election process which has been ignored anyway.

2. Secondly, it introduces an obligation to hold IRC meetings regularly, designed to improve Congress’s communication

This amendment will now go through a 24-hour debate period starting from the publication of this article, and will then be voted on by Congress. There may be a further amendment to the Speaker Act proposed later in the month, should further reforms require it.




Thanks for reading,

Adrastos
Speaker