Senate Disscussion

BTW, mathematically speaking, Kendra's proposal is precisely the same as having seats distributed according to votes, with the following advantages:

1. No votes are "lost" or "rounded up".
   
2. The number of seats can be fixed "forever" and the system will deal reasonably well with growth, while still keeping the assembly on a manageable size
   

Actually, this is similar to what happens on most company boards, where people vote according to the shares they hold

I for one can't disagree with that system. Makes perfect sense to me.

That is NOT what I said ..My statement meant that your way would only represent SOME of the people where I believe my way would represent ALL of the people.
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yup-- and it has the added advantage of being simple.

How does my way only represent some of the people?

you give each party a vote then say that vote needs to be weighted by population correct?

Maybe I misunderstood...It seemed to me that the weight would be in the larger parties. Is this weight distributed amongst higher votes to certain parties giving them more seats?

Which greater number are you advocating...people? or people in parties?

PEOPLE. Obviously you would also need to have people vote along party lines for this to work --but they need not be a member of that party.

For example --I'm a Green Party member in RL --but I voted for Kerry under the Independant label. I don't know how it works in other states --but we get to do that in NY.

Talen, your way certainly will represent all the people, just not in accordance to their expressed preferences (ie. weighted according to their votes).

If I understand you correctly, the number of votes one party gets should be irrelevant to the number of seats that party holds in legislature. Is that correct?

I could understand that system, but, uh, then again, it wouldn't make much sense having "general elections", would it? We could simply restrict the parties to fullfill some criterium (say, at least 5, or 10 members), and each party would just get one seat at the assembly. 1 party, 1 seat. Simple!

New parties could be formed if they met the criterium (and the population grows), and then we would enlarge the number of seats to have each party represented.

But there would be no need to "vote" or have "elections" or call the Representative Assembly a "democratic body". It would represent people, sure, but would not represent voters. There are several examples of this kind of "ruling body".

I think that's a possible scenario. I personally would prefer elections, of course, and a way that the seats are filled with people representing the citizen's preferences (expressed with a bote).

AAAH I think I finally understood the source of so many confusions lately!!! LOL!!!

Talen, when proposing a party-based election systems, the winner is not the party with the most members... but the party with the most VOTES!

So if I have the All-Gwyneth-Friends Party with 150 or so people, that isn't worth anything at all. What counts is, how many Neualtenburger Citizens will vote for my party! Regardless on how many members the party has!

You could certainly have a 5-member-only party (assuming 5 members is the minimum) win systematically all elections just because they are the ones representing the citizen's overall views on how Neualtenburg should be run.

I'm sure nobody proposed memberships in parties to be the relevant to the election at all (except for putting a lower limit on the number of parties, ie. parties have to get at least a minimum of 5 members to be able to run for elections...)

Glad we straightened that out! I guess that my previous post is worthless now!

I understand what you and Kendra are saying. I must concede that the voters voice should count...I would be agreeable to this way.

So we would have every party accounted for and the voters would determine the representation of each party. We just need to know how many parties there will be and how we get the number of representitives of ech party then.

exactly! Sorry for not making myself more clear.

I think you were clear I just couldn't see it through my thoughts..

If we can get everyones thoughts on this we can adopt this method and move on to how the votes determine the number of party seats and clear up some of the other structure that needs to be addressed. I do agree also that whoever has the highest amount of votes should be the leader of the representitive branch.

Ha ha. Boy, we are having trouble communicating. I guess that's the downside to working in a forum.

I am applying the Sainte Laguë method to elect seats. After doing that to fill a hypothetical Representative Assembly, I then create a hypothetical bill to vote on and assume vote discipline in the representative vote. I then repeat the vote using a party vote. Am I making any sense?

Yes. Let's say nine minimum right now. I also would like to cap the city size at 150 or so which would put the maximum at about 15 or so.

This is exactly what it is meant to do. It is meant to subvert the will of the majority by forcing it to give concessions to minority groups. This is exactly why the Legislative branch in the U.S. is bicameral. It provides a way for tiny states like North Dakota to stand on equal footing with giant states like California. It is well proven with hundreds of millions of people living under such a system right now. Frankly, I cannot agree to a system which does not have a method to check mob rule (democracy).

Deadlocking the legislature is not a bad thing, it is a part of politics. (In the U.S. there exists a delay tactic called a "fillibuster" which can bring the congress to a grinding halt until concessions are made.) If those in the RA don't like a deadlocked assembly and hate making concessions, they shouldn't be politicians, should they?

This has already been addressed in the constitution thread. The Philosophic branch will approve or deny a party's admittance to the electoral process (much like the Representative branch can approve or deny the admittance of a member to the Philosophic branch). Parties which are openly hostile or have frivolous platforms will not be admitted. Additionally, groups which reveal themselves as hostile can be removed from the RA by the Philosophic branch by calling for a hearing (with the head of the Artisanal branch leading the hearing). The problem is solved with checks and balances, which is why they are so sweet.

These are brilliant! I love them and support them. *Ulrika rolls around on the ideas like a piggy in the mud.*

~Ulrika~

I just caught up with the rest of the thread. I'm hearing people who want equal representation for all parties (1 party 1 vote) and people who want seats which are apportioned according to vote (1 seat 1 vote). The U.S. Congress achieves both of these by being bicameral. It has the Senate (1 state gets 2 votes) and the House of Representatives (each state divides 435 seats by percent of population).

My suggestion is to have a single body which emulates a bicameral representative body by means of votes which are cast first by seat and then by party. I think it's a brilliant compromise which tries to balance the needs of the many with the needs of the few. I know that I've stated it a few times but I think I've failed to communicate clearly given the ongoing discussion, so I'm reposting it.

Provided that the Philosophic branch can admit and discharge rogue factions, it seems like it would satisfy everyone's requirements and be quite safe.

~Ulrika~

I disagree. There is already a party vote because each party is represented there is no need for a further party vote.

Wow! This is really hard to convey to people. I'll try again!

It's actually completely different. That's why the U.S. Congress is comprised of the House of Representatives and the Senate. If your statement were true, they would be redundant entities, which they are not.

The House has 435 seats which are apportioned according to population. That is, big states get more seats, little states get less seats. In the House the big states have the most sway as they have more seats. The Senate has 100 seats, with two seats given to every state equally. Here all states are equal regardless of size. For a law to pass, it has to pass both Senate and House.

That way there exists an internal compromise between large and small entities. I've posted different voting results above, which I'll skip here. Check them out if you want to see an example how each gives a different outcome.

~Ulrika~

Well shoot! I thought everyone had finally agreed to this proposal:



I must be missing something? Or most are saying the same thing just differently? I think my brain is frying now!

ahhhh yes that clears it up very well for me! Thanks for that --I could wholeheartedly back this.

Ha ha! My brain is frying too.

I didn't realize they were different. I see now that they are. I actually would not like to elect individuals directly to seats, so an election doesn't become a contest of individual personalities. Instead I would like to elect factions based on platforms. That way when debating, the arguments are over platform points and not the qualities of the individuals.

I suppose we should summarize all these and then rank which ones look the best to us.

~Ulrika~

Edited to put the word I meant to use in place of one of its homonyms.

Whew. This has been a hard thread

Ulrika, for the record, I got your idea the first time (ie. trying to replicate a bicameral legislature inside a single camera, by having two votes), but I think I'm a little prejudiced by "gridlocking legislatures" (by overpowerful minorities), and that's why I have been opposing the idea.

Again, just for the record, when we started this thread, people were afraid that there would be "too many parties" at the Assembly, and we proposed methods to limit the number of parties. This, in turn, led to the fear that minority parties would be unrepresented in the Assembly, so we refined the methods for allowing minority parties to get a fair representation at the Assembly. Since this could mean that the minority, more radical parties, would be able to gridlock the system by actually holding more seats than the parties with more votes (ie. becoming, in fact, a majority, while haven't been elected that way...), I proposed that there shouldn't be two votes, but a single one, to make sure this doesn't happen (and Kendra's proposal for voting with a "weight" was a great idea to keep the number of seats low). Wow! We have gone a long way!

Now you propose that the Philosophical Branch needs to accept a party for election (thus, in a way, acting as a sort of "election comittee" or so), as a means to try to supress the too-radical parties and keep the two-vote system.

All right! You've won me over on that I withdraw my previous proposal and second yours instead

The philisophical branch should have absolutely no say on factions. They are there to interpet the constitution and the viability of laws. This just brings us back to the arguement on freedom of speech.

Then I would propose we place in the Constitution that is is in The City's best interest never to allow a Party which is working for The City's destruction, and let the Philosophical Branch determine whether that Party is in fact a benefit or a detriment.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

That sounds good on its face but someone can easily start a real sounding party and have a real agenda and still have the same goal of destroying the city..

There are those out there that don't like what we are doing and they will come if they are affiliated or not. I also don't think the Philisophical branch is equiped to make that decision.

If they are trying to destrroy the project then let the law or laws that will be made take care of them and then ban them ....but they should commit a crime before we sentence them don't ya think?

Well, judging people based on what they can potentially do is certainly a questionable issue. I can agree with Talen on that.

On the other hand, I remember the old statue of Ulrika done by Eggy, saying things like "Neualtenburg will bring order to the world" or something to that effect. I think that there should be some things put into the Constitution to allow us to be able to deal with problems when they occur. This is like RL constitutions writing that "murder is not allowed" and stating that a police force will round up murderers and bring them before the justice. This does not mean that everybody is a murderer, or that the writers of the constitution were thinking that we are all potentially murderers and therefore we should spell it clearly on the constitution that "murder will not be allowed". It's just a way to tell potential murderers what they should expect.

Your argument still stands: one party may get formed and behave nicely for a while, to make sure they get "approval" by the Academy, get elected, and suddenly reverse politics, by adopting an attitude that will condemn the project to fail. We cannot do much more than have both the Academy and the Guild to try to block that party from going ahead with their destruction agenda - but as part of the regular system of checks. And certainly this will only last until the next elections.

BTW, has anyone already psted anything about how the Representative Assembly may be "dissolved"? Since we don't have the figure of "Head of State" there seems to be no way to dissolve the Assembly...

I remember you mentioning that it can happen in Europe but I know little about the subject. Do you have any ideas?

~Ulrika~