Join the new world

Welcome!

First of all, thank you for all of your support and continued teamwork through the transition period of determining a new Speaker of the House, and, second, thank you for selecting me for that role. I am honored to have the opportunity. While I have no illusions regarding the mountain of work ahead of me over the next couple of months, I am truly thankful for the efforts of my predecessors as they provide a foundation of excellence in the role that provides me with the opportunity to focus on build on the solid foundation of organizational integrity that they created.

We should all be profoundly thankful for the outstanding work accomplished by ProggyPop, Kyle321n, Claire Littleton and Cromstar to build the foundation and structure for our current legislative process.

I am thrilled to introduce Congressman Zcia as Deputy Speaker of the House, the respected and highly effective congressman from the District of Columbia. I fully trust his judgment and dedication to the nation, our citizens and the priorities of the 19th eUS Congress; if I am ever absent for any extended period, Congressman Zcia is authorized to act on my behalf whether on the forums, in-game or in #congress.

I believe it is critical on this, the first full day in the office of Speaker, that I clearly state that the focus of our agenda, and therefore our efforts, will be process efficiency through better organization and the development of a simplified archiving process which enhances both our ability to prioritize legislative action and provide more robust communication and transparency to our constituents.

I do not believe in “change-for-change-sake”, and I do not have any desire to contrive reform for the sheer purpose of somehow creating something that wholly identified as having my “signature”. To do so only sets a precedent for progress stalling reforms with each succeeding Speaker. I believe it is critical that, instead, our efforts as a legislative body are focused on using the great tools that we hve more efficiently out of a respect for our constituents, for our nation, for our congressional colleagues, and for our partners in the administration and the military.

In order to accomplish our mandate as a legislative assembly, we must put aside any personal motivation for the accumulation of power and influence, we must put aside the ideological vitriol of the campaigns, we must put aside the destructiveness of personal, ad hominem attacks which further alienate us from our central purpose and mandate…to unite as a team and, together, focus our efforts toward driving eUS success in eRepublik.

While reviewing the sign-in thread for the 19th Congress, I was staggered by the level of engagement and quality of the team we have. As our more tenured representatives can attest, the mere thought that we would ever be in a position in which more than 40 congressional representatives would be signed in, much less 50, in the first 72 hours of a new congress, would have been a pipe dream…but that is where we are; and we arrived there by virtue of prioritizing participation and engagement by members of Congress in the process of governing. Looking over the names alone of the delegation that the nation has sent to represent them is a testimony to the quality of this class of representatives, and a testimony to the efforts of the previous congresses, congressional whips, party leaders, presidential administrations, and most importantly, citizens and voters that have invested time in participating and engaging in the process.

It is those citizens that we are here for. They do not serve us as stepping stones to greater status and functions, they do not serve us as sounding boards for perceived inequities in the system and they do serve us to further the interests of our political organizations…we serve them.

And we will serve their interests with respect.

Respect for the nation.
Respect for each other.
Respect for our mandate as elected officials.

While there are many process refinements that I hope to implement in the coming days, and while there are many organizational initiative (especially as they pertain to archiving and transparency) that I hope to drive, and while there are many communication protocols that I hope to implement in the coming days…the critical improvement that must be taken in the coming days for all of our efforts to yield fruit is attitudinal:

During this session, and all succeeding sessions, we must strive to be one team for one nation that is comprised of the diverse multitude of citizens that we, as a unified body, are here to serve. We must never forget that we are not here to exercise our own agenda, we are simply public servants exercising the temporary authority vested in us by the will of the citizens for this term.

Here is to the 19th Congress leaving a legacy of production and progress by being a team characterized for our embrace of respect for one another and commitment to efficient and effective service to the true governing body of the eUnited States of America, the citizens.

I am honored to serve as Speaker of the House.

Lets get to work, together.

Ananias – Congressman for Florida
Speaker of the House for the 19th eUS Congress