Synechdoche, Erepublik

Congressional Elections took place on the 25th. Those who won the election were given Congressional access on the 26th. Since then, several debates have taken off in the public area of the off-site forums.

Sign in.



Every month, Congresspeople sign in on the offsite forums. These forums are where all policy discussions and debates within Congress take place. Sign ins are conducted every week, and are used to establish quorum (the amount of votes needed for a bill to pass) The following senators have not signed in (Many are first time senators and may not be aware of the thread, which can be found here):

Carolus Martellus
Citizen33
Colin Lantrip
Jamarcus
Lieutenant Scheisskopf
Nuriessa
NXNW
Pearlswine
Red Bull HM

Speaker of the House
Discussion here)



Every month in Congress begins with nominations of a Speaker of the House. If you don’t go on our forums much you may not know what the Speaker of the House is in Erepublik.

The position is elected every month to moderate discussions and lead Congress. The actual responsibilities and powers of the speaker are vague in our current constitution:

“The Speaker of the House shall have any powers Congress has granted, as well and any deemed needed for smooth congressional discussion.

The Speaker shall appoint at least one Deputy Speaker and any other positions (s)he deems needed (including another Deputy and Whip).”

The nomination thread is open for 48 hours. While it’s open, anyone can be nominated for Speaker of the House. Once a candidate reaches five nominations, they may accept or decline. Three candidates have accepted their nominations. Here are the candidates and summaries of their platforms (which can be read in full here):

Cromstar:

• Make the Library of Congress organized. On the old forums, it was a mess. The restart gives us the opportunity to do this.
• Run discussions on important issues
• Give access to congressional discussion areas to members of the cabinet who need it
• Work to fight the Congressional stigma

CRoy:

• Establish a media presence for the Speaker.
• Work to make Congress more assertive and less of a rubber stamp process
• Reestablish the committee system with Tax and Budget, Rules, and Community committees
• Provide leadership opportunities for congresspeople within those committees

Jasper Signa:

• Reestablish the Congressional paper
• Reduce ambiguity in the eUS code
• Reestablish resources for new congresspeople to allow them to better understand how the processes work
• Improve communication between branches of the government
• Make more of Congress’ discussions public
• Give Party Presidents a list of inactive congresspeople from their party

Two-Month Speaker of the House Terms
Discussion here.


Athanaric sparked a discussion on extending the term of the Speaker of the House from one month to two. The discussion has lasted a couple days with the pros and cons now fully defined:

Pro (Athanaric, Fionia, Kria Erikson)
• Two month terms promote continuity in leadership and keep things from becoming disjointed.
• Essentially the first week of Congress is spent deciding who leads it.
• New Congresspeople don’t know strengths and weaknesses of SoH candidates well enough to fairly evaluate them

Con (Jamarcus, Lt. Scheisskopf, George Armstrong Custer, Cromstar, Avruch, HobbitTon, ligtreb, David Landon, harflimon, Lord Krauser, Jasper Signa, animis, Inwegen, Speedcat McNasty, Pearcy333)
• Each term should have a fresh start
• If a speaker is doing a great job they can run again.
• Continuity in leadership will continue naturally because of our Congressional election process

Abstain (Pfeiffer)

Constitutional Amendment
Discussion here


If a bill is put through Congress to amend the constitution, it must have a 2/3 majority of Quorum. The amendment proposed by Leroy Combs would change that to a 2/3 majority of votes cast. The discussion is a lot more complicated than that of a black and white issue. Expect more on this as the discussion develops.

Editorial Aside to the People of Kansas

First of all, I want to thank you for electing me to represent you. Here I will outline my opinions on matters presented to Congress.

Speaker of the House

I believe Jasper Signa is the best candidate. He has ambition and drive, and seems to truly enjoy his time in Congress. His attitude and drive will help Congress overcome the stigma it has against it. He is also focused on fixing the code. Right now, the ambiguities contained within it are numerous. The sooner we can eliminate those, the better.

Two Month Terms

I don’t believe Speaker of the House should be a two-month position. If a speaker does a good job, they will be elected again. I believe the election process could be streamlined to have it take less time, but every month should start with an election of a speaker.

Constitutional Amendment

If it were proposed as written in the OP, I would abstain. The constitution has far more problems than that, and is in need of an overhaul. I believe a better solution to the issue will come from the discussion in the thread.

That’s all for today. I hope this helps raise awareness of what’s going on in Congress.

-David