The Speaker's Word - Toes/Feet/Thighs in the Water

Day 4,831, 00:40 Published in USA USA by eUSA Congress
The Speaker's Word - Toes/Feet/Thighs in the Water




Welcome to THE SPEAKER'S WORD - The Official Journal of the eUSA Congress.
Dateline:
Wednesday, February 10, 2021 (Day 4823)
Location: 158th eUS Congress
Editor: dmjohnston, Speaker of the House


There hasn’t been a ton of (interesting) activity in Congress since last week, but I wanted to talk about one particular thing that some of you may not be aware of, even now.

Putting Things in the Water

It’s been commented before by some citizens, but no explanation has been publicly offered, so here’s what this all means.

Back at the beginning of January, Congress passed the Test the Waters Act, which provided a test of a new approach to handling votes in Congress. Typically, after a Proposal reaches the required number of approvals (as described in the Code of the eUS), it is moved to a Vote, all on the eUSA forums. This process is well documented here and here.

In the Test the Waters Act, the budget vote for January was held in two places: members of Congress could vote either in the forum thread as usual, or in a group PM in-game, sent out by the Speaker team.

Following this test, the sequel, or The Slowly Put Our Thighs In The Water Act, was passed, which extended that same mechanism for all votes in the subsequent 30 days. Four votes were conducted in this manner per this bill.

The fourth bill that fell under this 30 day window was The Patiently Wait For Our Thighs To Get Used To The Water Act, which intended to extend this mechanism for another 30 days.


How did it go?

Well, it likely depends on who you ask.

We did have an uptick in participation in votes during the tests. People who will not come to the forum to participate were able to do so via the PM threads.

However, concerns expressed about the validity of this participation when people were not participating or even observing associated discussions as well as increasing the workload on the Speaker team when people failed to be meticulous in their voting ultimately led The Patiently Wait For Our Thighs To Get Used To The Water Act to fail to pass.

What now?

So as it stands, we are back to votes being held on the forum only. Continuing discussions have pointed to some potential changes that could bolster support, so that may change before the end of the term.

Divider Contest

I had ONE whole entry from an eUS citizen on this. Please comment with your submissions for the new section divider for the Speaker’s Word! The fill-in is serving well, but I’d love to see what you all can come up with!

Bonus points for a new banner image!