The Economist ~ Reclaiming Congress

Day 946, 01:42 Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom by Spite313
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Dear friends,

Today I’d like to move the topic of conversation from the safety of our government to its legitimacy and powers. The power of the state in the UK is split roughly in two. There is the power of the Government, led by the CP, and the power of congress. The powers are often described as being ministerial and legislative. Ministerial power generally involves the allocation and control of funding, the leadership and direction of the armed forces and the oversight of citizen support and organisation. Congressional power generally involves passive powers- voting on tax proposals, declarations of war, MPPs and legislative proposals put forward by members of the public.

There is a huge gap in power between the two bodies. The Ministers, acting on behalf of the CP, decide all policy. As experts, they have access to massive experience and knowledge, and this makes their proposals almost ironclad and unchallengeable. There are very few clashes between Ministers and congress where congress comes out on top. Congresses power is nearly all concerned with accepting or rejecting proposals. Very few meaningful government proposals or ideas come from congress anymore. When I first became PP in March 2009, the forums were full of legislation. War had to be discussed for days before it went to vote, MPPs similarly. We had discussions about everything. Sensitive information (hidden congress forum) was massively active. Dozens of Acts of parliament were passed into the statute books, and old ones were constantly discussed. Basically, congress was King.




At some point in May 2009 the balance tipped. Congress became very confrontational, and the conflict peaked when a member of the government removed all the gold from the treasury in an attempt to block several acts of parliament, including one which would radically alter the function and structure of the military. From that point onwards, the power of congress waned. In the following Presidential elections, forum admin & UK hero Kumnaa was elected as Prime Minister. His platform focused on ridding the UK of legislation and various other congress-based powers. In many ways his position was a good one. Congress was overpowered, and had begun to take on control of issues which are traditionally outside the remit of congress, such as the military. Most of the UK got behind Kumnaa, and the whole basis of power shifted towards the Presidency.

In the following months this trend continued. At some point nearly all legislation was removed, and the ever-expanding Ministries began to do an increasing amount of the governing of the UK. When I joined the game most Ministers (me included) had one under-minister, and two apprentices. Apprentices did very little, with Under-Ministers basically acting as menial labour, doing the boring and repetitive stuff in a Ministry as a warm up before taking the Ministerial seat. However after Kumnaa’s term in office Ministries expanded, some of them containing dozens of members. Ministerial staff became more numerous than congress. With this manpower, many of the traditionally legislated areas became unnecessary. The mantra of the UK became “Why legislate?”




The legacy of this mantra is a congress with virtually no powers. In my opinion this may have gone too far. Congress is now seen by many as a burden, due to the sheer lack of any sort of power associated with the position. Many new congressmen get into the HoC discussion halls thinking they’re joining the government to find their congressional apartment empty except for two big rubber stamps. In my opinion we need to compromise, to accept the limitations of the old congressional system which was obsessed with legislating all sorts of minor things whilst at the same time accepting that an emasculated congress only reduces the talent the country has to draw upon.

To do this we need to take the best aspects of Ministry structures (which are good for governance) and try and include the members of congress. This was attempted (with little success) by a proposal to force congress members to contribute in Ministries. In a way this effectively solves the problem by making Ministries into congress-led organisations, which essentially indirectly empowers congress. However the power they would wield would not be congressional, it would be Presidential, and so the problem is extended.

A good start is to clearly define which powers belong to which body. I am not going to do this at length in this small article, but a quick look at the wiki lets you know what kind of things congress votes on. Tax, donations, issued money, MPPs, wars, constructing hospitals & defence systems, voting on citizen messages and trading embargoes. To me any empowering of congress must come from making these ingame powers pro-active rather than passive. In many cases this reflects the RL British parliament. Parliamentarians aren’t experts on say foreign policy. But experts do exist, and they present the arguments, with parliament making a decision based on evidence. The path here is obvious- Ministries preparing the argument, with pros and cons, and presenting it to congress. Congress voting one way or another based on debate with the Ministries acting as advisors, and sources of further information.




In some cases, such as donations, issued money and tax, these can be brought under the broad header of “budgeting”. The UK does have a budget (shock horror) as a rough guideline for the coming month. Like all budgets it’s based on a mix of the previous months events and predictions about the upcoming month. We usually make a little money each month, usually in time for a massive war to suck it all out of us again. However this budget is rarely presented to congress and it’s never shown to the general public. This is out of fear of leaks. Why this is a concern I don’t know, since at the end of the day it would take me about a week to discover the exact income of any country in eRep, and from that information I could work out the defence budget, alliance contributions and so on simply by following the money. It is possible to disguise these things using the monetary market, but virtually nobody bothers. Dishmcds, a Senior Advisor, proposed that the UK adopt a national budget, which would make government spending accountable to congress. As an idea, it had merit. However I think that at the time congress wasn’t ready to accept it, which is in a way a shame.

Other areas are similarly open to development with the intention of empowering congress, but none so clear cut as that of funding. On the 25th citizens of the UK will be voting on their congressmen for the coming month. Party Presidents will be struggling to try and win as many seats as possible for their respective parties. One question which probably won’t be raised is policy. Congressmen will promise activity, commitment, punctuality and so on. All of the things which make a good congressman. However once in they will be restrained so heavily that even the good congressmen won’t be able to utilise those qualities for good. The power to give congress back its backbone lies with the members of congress themselves. Let’s hope that during the next term they take that chance and try to reset the balance.