Constitutional Discussion & Revision — Introducing the Referendum

At the last RA meeting, the proposed constitutional revision was sort of kicked off, by discussing measures to keep the relationship between the branches more balanced. I think this seems to be the foremost issue in the minds of most citizens, and thus, perhaps it's a good idea to start to tackle this question.

One request was made to the SC to launch the discussion on the current position held by the SC itself regarding the legislative functions. The original constitution tended to encourage thinking about the SC more as a "judiciary" body (and thus its reason for being mostly independent of the citizen-elected RA) and an advisory body. Tradition, however, "pushed" the SC towards an active participant of the legislative processes, by giving it a constitutionally-sanctioned "veto" on bills approved by the RA, and introducing an often misinterpreted sentence (the "power" to resubmit bills to the RA in case of a veto), that made the SC come much closer to a "bicameral" system, as Justice Soothsayer has suggested.

Now, on one side, every citizen has the "power" to submit (or resubmit) bills, not only the SC. The RA's "power" is to make those bills into law. The RA cannot fail to address submitted bills by any citizen; what it can do is set up proper procedures for bill submission, and, in case these are not followed, reject the bill. A properly-submitted bill, however, has to be addressed by the RA; what they can immediately do is vote "nay" on it and move on to the next item; thus, the suggestion was made that any citizen, wishing to submit a bill, should approach a member of the RA to "support" that bill. This is of course not a requirement, just a way to guarantee that the RA will, indeed, at least discuss the bill.

According to this view, naturally it follows that the sentence "The Philosophic branch may veto or rewrite and resubmit a bill or constitutional amendment if it is in violation of any of the founding documents." (Art. III, Sec. 8; also see Art. I, Sec. 6) is redundant. "Rewriting and resubmitting" a bill is a power given to any citizen, and there is not even a need to "support" that "rewriting and resubmitting" in case of "violation of any of the founding documents".

On the other hand, this very same section applies the SC's vetoing power to both bills and constitutional amendments. There was a reason for that: the original founders were afraid that an enthusiastic RA could change the constitution completely, disrespecting all ideas and principles upon which it was based. Extreme examples would be changing from a representative democracy towards a base democracy; introducing a 4th branch, an executive branch; moving from a three-branch structures without a Head of State towards a "monarchy" or "oligarchy"; change the way the inter-relations between the three branches worked in an unbalanced way, giving more power to some branches and less on others, without proper care. This means that just 5 people, agreeing together on a single day, could change forever the whole way of how Neualtenburg worked. There are no balances on constitutional amendments; they can happen any day, any time, and as soon as 2/3 of the RA agree upon a constitutional amendment, it enters in effect immediately.

To prevent this, it was thought that the SC should "validate" this procedure by tagging a constitutional amendment relatively to its conformity to the "founding documents".

The current RA, however, while agreeable to having the SC validate the bills, thinks that the SC shouldn't have anything to say on the matter of the Constitution. The major reasoning behind this is that the SC can effectively be a "blocker of change" (when change needs to occur for the best of Neualtenburg), by systematically rejecting all bills that move the city towards its future, and preventing any Constitutional changes that would relieve the SC's of most of it "blocking" power. Effectively, this model of government would be deemed ultra-conservative or even slightly corporativistic, where one of the branches (a non-elected one) is able to keep the "status quo", although the whole citizens may have voted for a change.

Now, obviously, removing the SC veto on the constitutional amendments is not a solution; the same arguments for "a tiny group being able to change the way Neualtenburg according to their wishes" would effectively apply again, but this time to the RA: in the current case, 4 people, agreeing together, could effectively wipe out all the other branches, get rid of the checks and controls, and change the requirements for elections.

Thus, a suggestion was made, which is a reasonable compromise: institute a referendum (instead of a vote of approval by the SC) for validation of Constitutional changes. That way, the RA would propose the changes, the SC would give their opinion, but it would be a citizen's vote to ratify the amendment.

There are naturally pros and cons of this approach, but, as suggested on the RA, an elected government should never fear the citizen's vote. However, the referendum, as an institution, does not exist on the constitution; it needs an amendment to introduce it (an amendment which obviously will be done using the current system); and, like any other things on the constitution, it also needs a degree of checks and balances to keep it from being abused.

I think it's needless to say that a governmental system that relies constantly upon the "public vote" to work is a base democracy, not a representative one; and that only works for the Swiss, for philosophical reasons I would certainly be glad to discuss and explain in-world (I've done one or two events on it ). Thus, all representative democracies tend to introduce the notion of a referendum only on extreme cases, and subject to several rules and limitations, so that it is employed really when needed, and not to sidestep legislative functions by having a "popular vote" when the system of bounds and checks is limiting the legislative functions in any way.

Thus, what I would suggest is that the RA approves a constitutional amendment that introduces the referendum, and rewrites the veto powers of SC and Guild, under terms eventually similar to the following:

1. The SC is not entitled to a veto on constitutional matters (it will only pronounce the validity of the proposed amendments, but will not be able to veto them)
   
2. For the sake of clarity, all references to "rewriting and resubmitting" bills should be deleted on the Constitution; the veto is just that, a veto (ie. "this bill shall not pass!", nothing else
   
3. Bills will be automatically approved after a certain time has elapsed, and a veto by either the Guild (budget issues) or the SC (all other issues) should be followed by a detailed explanation on why the veto was exercized (thus, the RA, or any other citizen really, is able to use that explanation to rewrite the wording of the bill and resubmit it as they see fit).
   1. Neualtenburg is not a "bicameral government" and the SC/Guild do not work as a legislative body, or "helpers" of the legislative process — the RA is fully autonomous in that respect, and does not require to consult either the SC or the Guild on bill-passing issues.
      
   
   
4. The referendum
   1. The referendum is called by suggestion of the RA or by a petition by 10% of the population
      
   2. It can be called only once per term of office, or six months, whatever is shorter
      
   3. The same issue cannot be validated through referendum twice in a row, ie. there must be an interval of at least one term of office, or six months, whatever is shorter, until the same issue can be subjected to a referendum again
      
   4. The SC will require that the referendum, to have enforcing power, has at least 50% (+ 1) people voting, and, of those, at least 50% (+1) people vote "aye" (basically, this means "simple majority". That's the minimum requirement at this point; the RA, however, is able to set more stricter voting requirements if they wish (see the latest transcript, many alternatives were suggested, all of them 'stronger' requirements than this one)
      
   5. Currently, a referendum will be introduced to validate constitutional amendments (called by the RA), with ultimate powers (ie. the people's decision cannot be overriden by any veto). Eventually the referendum could also be used as an 'advisory' on certain issues that the RA wish to clarify or give a strong emphasis before submitting a bill(examples: moving N'burg back into the mainland, institute a model of taxation, or other issues that do not require a constitutional amendment, but that the RA 'feels' the whole population should have something to say about it). This would also mean that a Guild's or SC's veto contrary to "the people's will" will, very likely, be used as a basis for a resignation notice, or, eventually, impeachment (ie. an SC/Guild working contrary to the people's will is almost certainly undesirable). This is also the reason for the limitations on the number of referendums that can/shall be held per term, and the number of times the same issue can be raised.
      
   
   

This is now officially open for discussion, although I should remind you that, at this moment, it only requires a simple constitutional amendment to introduce the referendum and the change to the "balance of powers" since we're still working under the assumptions of the current constitution.

Good work! Some of these changes would reduce the ability of the SC to act as an elite. That was the first thing I noticed when examining the source documents to offer my comments to the Law Society case study posted by Frank.



In my opinion this change could be beneficial for Neualt not only to improve the political process but also to increase activity on the sim. An involved citizenry is more likely to put time and enthusiasm into other aspects of life in Neualt, and that's important for preventing 'empty sim disease' : )



This is where the process gets interesting. Gwyn, I recall your discussion group event when we examined how mechanisms of direct democracy such as referenda actually played out in Switzerland. That was an eye-opener. Looking forward to seeing what happens here.



Hmmm...not sure what the referent is in A specific referendum document? All responses to a specific call for proposals, like 'we need to fix our policy on X'? An instance of the referendum mechanism being employed as legislative procedure by Neualt?

Thanks for your comments, Traxx!



A referendum is a simple question that is answered by the public as "yes" or "no". You shouldn't be able to pose the same question (or obvious variations on it) more than once in a time period; I proposed 6 months (or one term) as a reasonable interval.

Here is a thought-up example to clarify: "Should Neualtenburg change its theme from Bavarian medieval to steampunk?" This is the type of question the RA might want to make sure everybody agrees with; so, if the answer is "no", they can only ask it again in 6 months — and, in the mean time, the promoters of the cyberpunk theme would have 6 months to do "campaigning" for a cyberpunk theme.

So "It can be called only once per term of office, or six months, whatever is shorter" apparently means that any given question can only be put to referendum once every six months -- but that there might well be multiple referendums in that time period (on different questions).

For a purely hypothetical example, in three consecutive weeks there might be three referendums in (a) changing Neualtenburg's theme to steampunk, (b) moving back to the mainland, and (c) changing the form of government from representative democracy to constitutional monarchy with Queen Gwyneth I as monarch.

Is that right? Because I also thought that "It can be called only once" referred to the referendum process as a whole, rather than a referendum on a particular question. (Which would then imply, to me, that one could abuse that term by calling for a referendum on a comparatively inconsequential proposition to block the use of the referendum procedure for a more important question until six months have elapsed.)

Gwyn's proposal would allow the citizens to vote via referrendum on the validity of constititutional changes adopted by the RA, or as "advisory" to the RA on other issues.

The populist movement included an "initiative" (Californians, read "Proposition", where citizens could propose the adoption of a law or constitutional amendment, essentially bypassing the legislative process. In the current Neualternburg system, citizens can propose laws, but it is up to the RA to adopt them. If the RA doesn't adopt a proposal, the only recourse is to elect an new RA.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative :
The initiative may take the form of either the direct or indirect initiative. Under the direct initiative, a measure is put directly to a vote after being submitted by a petition. Under the indirect initiative, a measure is first referred to the legislature, and then only put to a popular vote if not enacted by the legislature. In United States usage, a popular vote on a specific measure is referred to as a referendum only when originating with the legislature. Such a vote is known, when originating in the initiative process, as an "initiative," "ballot measure" or "proposition."

I can't say I'm crazy about this idea. Given that:

1) Any citizen can introduce a bill into the RA

2) If the bill is properly formatted, the RA must do something with it

and 3) A citizen can argue for their own bill at the RA meeting (just not vote for it) even if they aren't "on" RA

it seems to me there's a lot of opportunity for anyone in the community to introduce legislation.

Second of all, RA terms are short (six months) so the elect a new RA option is viable.

Finally, there's a concern about direct democracy. Direct democracy works best, IMO, when those making decisions have ample opportunity to discuss issues before deciding them. In a RL direct democracy, you see everyone and chat with them in the community about all sorts of things, including politics. This doesn't work as well in Neualtenburg. Given individual schedules and time zones, we have yet to get all five members of the RA in the Rathaus at the same time. Trying to get the broad based, community wide discussion that an initiative system really needs to work well would be even harder to do in world.

The forums provide an interesting option in this regard, but there's the question of how many actually read them or post.