Contitutional Amendment Proposal, 1:2 and Article 4

Hello,

The SC was called apon (twice!) recently to interpret which of two seemingly contradictory passages in the Constitution held sway in situation where a Faction in the RA has to fill seats vacated by members who had left the Assembly.

In Art. 1 - Sec. 2, ("The Representative Assembly Body", the Constitution states that Factions may place members in the vacated seats "....as they see fit."

Whereas in Art. 4, Sec. 2, ("The Faction Body", it lays out a requirement for ranking the Faction members internaly "... used to select who will recieve seats in the RA. If a member retires from the RA, a member with the next highest ranking in the same Faction (is) takes a seat on the RA."

Since 4:2 sets out a specific method for ranking and replacing Faction members, if 1:2 also holds sway, then a method exists to circumvent the method laid out in 4:2. The current majority opinion of the SC then is that 4:2 is intended as a clarification of 1:2 and thus overules it's "... as they see fit," provision. Arguments could be made for other interpretations of course, but since my current personal belief is that 4:2 holds sway, I am proposing a Contistutional amendment to that effect.

What follows is my own prsonal proposal as a private citizen and the language changes are intended to resolve the conflict between the two sections while making as few and as minimal changes possible.

The original constitution is here and I am presenting only the changed wording in this thread. All alterations (ecept sentence order) are noted in colour. Green is for grammatical clarifications and slight rewordings that are not intended to alter the original meaning. Orange is for new wording or changes that *do* change the meaning of the document. The Red sectino at the end is completely new text and will be proposed as a seperate related Amendment but included here because I think its important to have.

In Article 1, Section 2, I propose that the sentence "Each Faction controls their seats and may replace members or fill seats due to vacancies as they see fit." be striken and the rest of the Section slightly reworded as below.




I further propse that Article 4 be re-written as follows:



As you can see, aside from the few green "clarifying" changes there are only two new things here. First, I renamed the first section to "Factions" in keeping with the other sections of the constitution where the first section is usually a "definition" kind of section of the same name as the article. I added a very basic declarative statement as to what a "Faction" is in that same spirit. I think I summed it up succinctly, but am not bound to the wording, merely that there should really be a statement of that type there.

The second change is in Section 4 and is the meat of the thing in that it lays out in detail what happens when a seat is vacant (our currrent dillema!). I try to stay very much in the same vein as the description of the internal ranking that already exists and hopefully havent changed the spirit of the thing.

The biggest complaint that the SC kept hearing from people (and from ourselves), was that it seemed terribly "wrong" that someone who had never stood for election could fill a seat in the house. To that end, a valid Faction candidate to place in an empty seat has been defined here as someone who has stood for election, recieved at least one vote, and was subsequently ranked by the internal ranking system already in existence in the Faction. This means that as long as the election rules are followed, there is guaranteed never to be a sitting member of the RA that was not duly elected in a recent general election.

The big change that is not as apparent is the original Section 4 ("Campaigning", from Article IV has been removed. This section dealt with Faction rules for Campaigning during an election and was added historically to deal with certain perceived election irregularities in the first NBurg election.

I did this because several people have brought up in the past the fact that certain provisions of Section 4 seem to violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which is one of our founding documents. It has also been pointed out that all of the things that the Section seeks to control are things that are already controlled under Neualtenburg City law or the LL TOS. Things like what kind of meetings you can have and when you can have them, and whether you can spam other people and what contitutes spam etc. are all effectively handled elsewhere. The wording and intent of Section 4 is IMO kind of Draconian and just not necessary.

Finally, the fact that there are no procedures to handle all the vacancies on the RA brings up the fact taht there are other scenarios to do with Factions and the seats they control that are similarly not dealt with yet so I tried to handle the two most likely other cases in a new Section 5 (red text).

It tries to deal with the results of someone leaving a Faction either by their own volition or in the case of ejection, and what happens to their seat. In this I have followed (to the best of my knowledge) the way things are done in RL legislatures around the world. For instance if someone is kicked out of their party or leaves it during a term or office, they generally do not have to give up their seat.

your proposal ignores two key issues.

1) Neualtenburg elections are based on Party platforms and not a popularity contest of individual candidates.

2) It fails to consider the very real possibilty of a faction running out of candidates that were even in the last election.

Your proposal weights RA seats to inviduals over factions (Hardly the intent of the Founding Documents) and cripples unfairly a party platform because of the very real possiblity of RL attrition.

Wow, your a fast reader! I was still editing an error when you posted.

To answer your first point, I agree (I think) with the general thrust of your statement.

I am personally of the opinion that individuals should also be allowed to run instead of just Factions, but in reading the Constitution as a whole it seems pretty clear that the intention was actually the opposite.

The intention seems to be that *Factions* fill out the RA, not individuals. There is no provision for an individual to run for office unless they are a part of a Faction for instance.

I tried to keep that meaning in the minimal changes I made, but the choice is between an open ended situation wherein the Faction leader can pick and chose who gets the seats, and the more detailed internal ranking procedure that was outlined in Section 4. I don't personally know who wrote which, but I would guess that 1:2 was written first and that 4:2 was a more detailed calrification of how the seats would be filled if empty.

So I am not suggesting a popularity contest. The Faction ranking (as I understand it), is an internal ranking done at the same time as the election, but not the same as the election and it's already law. This is just a further minor clarification.

The only part I have added (in keeping with the meaning of 4:2 as it already stands), is the detail on whether or not a person who has not stood for election can be placed in the empty seat. I currently think, and my sense of the majority of the citizens is, that someone who has not stood for election should not have a seat in the house.

Your sedond point is also true I think.

I specifically didn't deal with what happens when a Faction runs out of people to fill the seats or under what conditions the house disolves etc. I know this is a concern of Claude lately and I think it should be dealt with, possibly by a Constitutional amendment to Article I. I just didn't want to muddy the waters by putting forward a major revision of multiple sections of the constitution. This amendment is focussed on simply resolving the current crisis in as equitable a way as possible and like many such things opens up other issues in it's wake.

Some things that come to my mind are:

- How many seats can be empty before the RA is a valid representational body?
- Should a member be allowed to change Factions while sitting in the RA?
- Can a Faction be formed *after* an election?
- Can members elected under one Faction then join that other Faction that wasn't around at last election?
- Exactly when does the changing body of the RA become different enough that a new election is needed?

These are all related but not necessarily necessary to figure out all at once or all right now. I am proposing only these minimal changes to get past the current crisis wihtout changing things radically.

There might be an inadvertent amendment here; I,2 of the constitution currently reads:

I'm sorry. But your proposal as stands would turn the election into a popularity contest --intention or not. The fact that an individual cannot run unless they are part of a faction must stand. Your role as a member of the SC is to uphold The Constitution, not to rewrite it to your personal liking.

Further, by not allowing a faction to fill an empty seat in the RA, you ignore the will of the people who voted for a faction's presence on the RA.

This isn't a minor point. If Elections in Neualtenburg become prey to populist movements embodied in a single individual then the wheels come quite off the horse.

I would ask that the SC re-review this topic in an OPEN session with members of the RA present.

The wiki seems to be down for me at this writing, but possibly there was an amendment to that section that I didn't take into account?

I will amend the proposal when I can see if that's the case, but it doesn't change the gist of the thing in that I am still suggesting the striking only of the second last sentence and the slight word change in the last sentence of the Section.

As I have plainly explained previously and in detail, I am purposely *not* changing the constitution "to my personal liking." If I really was attempting to change the Constitution changed to the way I wanted to see it it would be quite different indeed.

I find my personal views to be much more Democratic and Libertarian-oriented than much of our Constitution but that does not mean I cannot interpret it's current formulation fairly, and without bias. Nor does it mean I can't make suggestions for change based on logical answers to current problems.

To sum up:

There is a conflict between 1:2 and 4:2, that has caused the current leader of the RA and it's members some difficulty. The SC has ruled on this.

As a personal gesture in my status as citizen of Neualtenburg I am putting forward what I feel is the most minimal change to the constitution that can be made to rectify this conflict (in essence, the striking of the single sentence in 1:2).

The other bit about the internal, seperate Borda ranking of Faction members is in there already in 4:2 and I did not write it, nor suggest that it be there. I merely added the clarification in (my) 4:4, that talks about what kind of member can be placed in an empty seat. (Only one who has stood in a general election and recieved votes).

Even if I played devil's advocate and argued to modify the Constitution by saying that 1:2 should prevail over (the original) 4:2, the same changes would be necessary.

In that case we would presumably leave in the sentence about the Factions controling their own seats "... as they see fit." in 1:2, and remove the larger section in 4:2 saying that they must use the internal ranking system. We would still, (or at least *I* would still if I was making that Amendment), have to put in the bit that defines that only a member who has stood for election may take a seat.

*That* is the nugget of the only real change I am proposing here (other than the simple fact that 1:2 and 4:2 can't both really be in effect.)

It is my reading from talking to many different people at many different times about this, that *most* people seem to not want the possibility of someone who was not elected, being able to take a seat on the RA. That's why it's there. Without it, members could join Factions after the election has been made and the Faction leader under 1:2 could summarily place these unelected people in the seats.

If you disagree with this amendment, *that* idea (that someone needs to be elected to fill a seat), is what you should be arguing against.

The subsequent Section 5 is also completely new material and for that reason I am willing to de-link it from the proposed amendment in order for it to pass, but these problems and more will still come up at a later time. Again, IMO it's just a logical extension of the ranking rules as they already exist.

Please don't ascribe the other ideas in this amendment to me though or imply that I have a personal agenda to change how seats are filled. The internal Borda ranking is not something I wrote or that I am advocating as a change it's just something that already exists in the constitution.

The heart of the Constitutional matter here is 1:2

"Each faction controls their seats and may replace members or fill seats due to vacancies as they see fit."


That's it. Very simple. I've certainly not encountered these *most people* you've referred to, but if I had I'd no doubt have told them to read the Constitution.

Hi Dianne,

I do appreciate the well thought out amendment, but have to agree with Kendra here, and not just merely for the obvious self-serving reasons. It was explained to me (in the actual RA meeting) that my seat was elected, but that my "butt" was appointed by Claude, per 1:2.

The idea, once again is that we vote for factions & platforms and *not* for individuals, thereby avoiding populism and cults of personality.

1:2 & 4:2 do seem contradictory, so here's how I interpret them and I submit this alternate idea...I realize of course that the SC does not see it this way.

1:2 takes precedence, and is the normal mechanism by which a faction leader keeps the troops in line. Chances are that you vote against your faction leader in one meeting and you're tossed if there are faction members to fill your seat. The danger here is monolithic yesmen in each faction...But it's acceptable. Maybe require seating assignments stay static for the duration of a single meeting (assigned at meeting roll call).

4:2 (my spin) is used in cases immediately post-election and where members miss a meeting. In this case, for example, Kendra would immediately take Seldon's place as faction leader. Next in faction Borda count takes Kendra's seat. After that meeting, Kendra can rearrange seats any way she wants. Kendra can even give faction leadership back to Seldon (or not). What this ensures is that faction leaders show up for work. Big time. It also maxes out RA meeting participation as much as possible. As long as enough faction members show to a meeting, the seats will never be empty. Truly vacant seats as a result of 4:2 filled via 1:2. Faction leader cannot reassign after roll call, only after meeting's conclusion.

How does this work:
1)Logan doesn't show unexpectedly, 4:2 kicks in and next in line takes the seat. Continue down the borda count list until a present faction member is found at the meeting. Faction leader can rearrange the seats in any way per 1:2 *after that meeting* or if the seat is still vacant. You cannot touch seat assignments via 1:2 during a meeting (after roll call). This stops faction leader from tossing a member right after a single vote, and also promotes members staying for the whole meeting (they cannot be replaced during the meeting, once you take a seat in roll call, you're in and if you leave early, the seat is vacant).

2)Per 4:2 Kendra takes Seldon's place at a meeting where Seldon does not show up. Next in line takes Kendra's seat. Kendra is now the faction leader. She cannot use 1:2 until this meeting is over. Then she can rearrange.

-It does require public airing of the faction Borda counts. Does that happen now?

Whaddya think?

This is getting interesting.

You make some rather astute interpretations of intent here that I completely didn't think of at the time. And I thought about this a long time.

One trouble with the first part of your statement however is that it really doesn't matter at all how things were explained to you at an actual RA meeting, the only thing that really matters is the actual words in the Constitution, and they aren't clear right now. We can dream up all sorts of "what if" explanations of the possible intent here or there, but it really needs to be spelled out plain.

I think we are in a greement about the possible intent of 4:2 which also seemed to me to be perhaps more about election night ranking or something other particular seating situation that was envisioned but not quite spelt out. I find your interpretation of 4:2 (spin) quite compelling, but it's also just one possible interpretation.

In response to Kendra's strong supporting statements about 1:2, I was already kinda thinking of acting as devil's advocate and reformulating the amendment based on 1:2 being paramount because the SC did go back and forth on it, (myself included!) Just to see what it woudl look like.

So here is that:

Initially, 1:2 would stay the same as now (with minor gramatical change and no deletion)
I disagree with you, that you can keep the provision in 4:2 even by giving it any of the varied interpretations possible to make sense out of it. Even if one can envision times at which it would be usefull, 1:2 always says that the Faction Leader can re-order people at any time. It's both confusing to have it in there and mostly irrelevant if you take 1:2 seriously. Possibly the level of detail and the very sensible procedures you have worked out in your post are really more internal Faction procedures and not Constitutional concerns.

Then 4:2 becomes very simple indeed(with the deletion of "Campaigning" included):
This leaves only the situation of whether someone can be a sitting member of the RA who was not actually elected. Because in this scenario seat assignment is at the complete discretion of the Faction Leader, and because the seats are owned by the Faction instead of by the sitting member as is more typically the case, a direct provision is necessary.

1:2 therefore has to be re-written with the additional statement (in orange):

This solution is actually simpler than the other, and might be both more popular and more in keeping with the "original intent" of the founders (as per Kendra's information.)

It does IMO take the government further away from democratic ideals, but if it proves to be more popular, I would withdraw the first proposal and submit this one.

I finally sorted out what the crux of my objection is. The recent SC decision and especially Dianne's proposal butally punish factions who have membership turnover,I strongly object to this since most voters never vote for a person only for a faction. Remember that a person is only ever voted on by members of his or her own faction.


What about something like this:

If a faction runs through its list but has new members not ranked in the previous general election , they may do a ranking of those members , overseen by the SC, to fill a vacant seat.

After all there's nothing in the constitution that says ranking of faction members may only occur in conjunction with a general election.

I think this is one of the discussions, where I can be of the most value, since it directly relates to an inconsistency I introduced, when writing the constitution. I went through my archives and found a rough draft of the constitution that was written before 25 Nov 2005 that has the text from Article 1 Section 2 ("as they see fit" but does not have the text from Article 4 Section 2 ("next highest ranking". I also found version 1.1 of the constitution, dated on 29 Nov 2005, that has both sections present, although Article 4 Section 2 has slightly different wording.

This, of course, makes sense, as the at the time Article 1 Section 2 was written, we had not yet agreed upon the method of voting, which, as we all know now is seat allocation by faction using the Sainte-Laguë method combined with an internal ranking of faction members. Therefore, the easiest fix is to simply strike the "as they see fit" text from Article 1 Section 2.


Given this modification, this leaves the question on how vacancies should be handled in the event that there are no able or willing faction members to serve or there are newcomers to the faction since the last ranking. Because those with seats on the RA exist to represent all those who voted for a faction, any method chosen must serve to maximize this representation. To do this, one can simply choose the next-highest ranked faction member, if one exists and if the faction membership hasn't changed. If no successor exists or the faction membership has changed, a faction should be allowed to recruit (if needed) and then rerank members of the new faction to fill the vacancy.

If there are not enough willing members to serve even after recruiting and reranking, then I would recommend giving that vote to the existing member. This way the representational vote of the people is not skewed by a seat-filling snafu. It's a problem that will go away if the population ever increases.

~Ulrika~

Thanks Ulrika, that does seem to be a most pragmatic approach. I worry about simple RA collapse if people turnover. What happens if seats are vacant for the whole term and a new election is required? What would happen if their just aren't enough people to form an RA?

We need to maximize representation at the meeting, per Ulrika. As one of my colleagues mentioned, the factions are all on life support right now.

BTW Dianne, I agree with you that what was said to me in the meeting holds no water per se. I also want to reiterate that I serve at the whim of the LRA and the SC and can be axed at a moment's notice by either.

This is interesting in that I had almost come full circle to thinking that, in the interim at least, it might be more the people's choice to go with Kendra's suggestion, use 1:2, and strike 4:2's internal Borda ranking rule.

I say interim, because I think such a (lack of a), system will be ultimately unworkable for completely different reasons, which is why my amendment proposal goes with and tries to further specify the Borda ranking system instead.

This part, if I understand what your getting at here correctly, I have a problem with.

This seems to allow people who have not actually run in an election to sit in the house and vote on bills. While I can see no specific provision against this even in the UDHR, (and I find that a bit shocking ), it certainly goes against the spirit of at least Articles 20 and 21 and is something that was a key concern of many people I talked to about the whole issue of who can sit in the house.

Do we really want to put so much emphasis on the political parties over the member running for office that we are willing to have non elected representatives?

There are many possible abuses of such a system, not the least of which being the simple ejection of all sitting faction members after an election and putting in "ringers" who did not run for office at all. A party that can sustain itself in office, by constantly "recruiting" more members to fill seats instead of "going into the quiet night" when the original members abandon it, is a danger to the Democratic process IMO.

This system seems more about the Faction Leaders and their ability to control the vote than it is about representing the will of the people.

Respectfully I don't think you quite get it here. The re ranking Ulrika describes is an election at the faction level. As I tried to point out there is no constitutional provision requiring that factions rank their members only during the general election. As to the possible argument that the individual did not face the vote of the citizenry, they never did.

Since you, AFAIK, are not in a faction, you did not vote for any person when you cast your ballot in the last election. You voted for factions. Since faction member rankings are secret, you have no right to expect that a vote for a given faction will result in the presence of a particular person on RA. The only persons who have the right under the present constitution to decide who fills a given faction's seats are the members of that faction.

Yes. All successful virtual-world governments should be designed to work with high turnover rates, while maximizing representation. Another solution is to shorten the length of a government's term, as elections always seem to reinvigorate the populace.

~Ulrika~

This is all correct. In fact, the old text from Article 1 Section 2 ("as they see fit" is an indicator that the factions were to maintain their own internal heirarchy. It was later augmented in Article 4 Section 2 to describe the method of ranking, which for technical reasons happens to coincide with the election.

The trick now is to reconcile the need for aperiodic on-demand faction ranking and regular general elections in a way that maximizes representation (respects the faction seat allocation) while preventing abuse. Piece of cake.

~Ulrika~

I'm not sure what your saying here.

I have said from the beginning that 4:2 seems to imply a second internal ranking or "election," at the Faction level.

My point was only that it is:

a) made irrelevant by the fact that the Faction Leader (by my reading of 1:2), could override any internal ranking procedure at any time anyway.

b) something that is more an internal "Faction rules" matter and perhaps not necessary to be enshrined in the constitution.

That's why I suggest if we go by 1:2 we should strike the passage on Borda ranking in 4:2. It's not necessary to have it in the constitution, it's just one way that a Faction can rank it's members or decide who gets what seat always keeping in mind the constitutional provision (1:2) that they can really allocate the seats however they want. That's what 1:2 says.

I did indeed vote for a Faction, by voting for a member who by law, can only run for office if they are a member of a Faction.

My point about "non-elected" officials is just that.

If we continue with the setup we have now, contrary to most world governments, it is possible and indeed likely that we will have sitting members of our Representative Assembly who did not run in the last election and were not voted for in typical Democratic fashion. This is a necessary result of giving the Faction the level of control over the seats that we are doing with this wording.

This is totally fine if you are all okay with that and if no challenges are made to the law as it stands.

I am merely pointing out that this is not something typically done in RL world governments to my knowledge and something that *could* be a problem down the road.

If in RL I elect a local member to political office and then his boss says he is "out" and my new representative is some other guy that I did not vote for, this is IMO outrageous behaviour. It goes to my right of freedom of political association and to be represented by freely chosen representatives.

By this logic George Bush could have got elected by having a lot of popular people running for him locally, and then oust them all and put in a hundred Karl Roves the next day. I apologise if there is something I am just not understanding here but I don't see how much clearer I could say it.

If that is your concern I think there are two ways to prevent it:

If we were to dump 4.2, the faction still remains a voluntary association. Faction members who didn't like a power grab by the leader could vote with their feet. If enough did, the faction would dissolve.

OR

Keep 4.2 and allow the ranking of persons within the faction to occur at the general election and at other times as follows. Either....

1) if all members from the original ranked list are exhausted and there are new members in the faction.

OR

2) at any time the faction leader calls for it. Keep in mind that in this scenario the leader is putting his or her own head on the chopping block potentially.

In such a scenario The faction members would submit their ranks directly either to the SC Dean or, if he/she is a member of the faction in question, to a chair designated by him/her who is not a member of the faction doing the ranking.

Smart. I didn't think of this interesting twist. If there is a vacancy, there should automatically be a reranking, however you're stating here that the leader (or anyone?) could call for a reranking at any time. That would be very interesting, indeed!

Technically the head of a faction shouldn't have the ranked list. Instead, I believe the SC should proctor the ranking and release only the names of those who are ranked highest and willing to serve, like in the election.

~Ulrika~

Look at me just carrying on like I haven't been declared a terrorist, banned indefinitely from the sim, and in negotiation for the use of my IP. I'm such a sucker for politics. Time to put on the mean face again. Grr!

~Ulrika~

When I said the faction members..submit their ranks, I meant submit the lists representing their individual preferences, not the ranks which the process assigns to them.

Hmmm. I would say that one of the problems right now is that its also not clear under what conditions a Faction *would* disolve. Nor the house for that matter.

My personal feeling on this stuff is that I don't care that much as I never intend to join a Faction.

I think that the particular rules on who sits in the Factions seats, (which by 1:2 they have absolute contorl over anyway), is really internal buisness to that Faction and not something of constitutional concern except as where it might violate the constitution or other founding documents. Some of your suggestions here are great, some of Pelanors were too, as to how to interpret the ranking and when it applies etc. but I think this is something that perhaps only requires a bill to change one way or the other, perhaps not even that. It's not really a constitutional matter to me other than we have to decide on either 1:2 or 4:2 taking precedence.

I feel that the idea of having that control extend to placing members in seats that did not run in the election (if that is indeed being proposed or is made possible by the current language), is one of those times where the procedure might indeed violate our basic principles and founding documents. I have always been worried about it, and the more we talk about it on this thread the more it seems to me to be untenable as a position by any government that claims to adhere to the UDHR for instance.

If a faction has fewer than 3 members, it dissolves, since a faction must have at least 3 members.

But I'm not the SC member in this thread.

I was thinking about the procedure that one should use for repopulating the RA in the event that a seat is left vacant. In my head as I worked out the flowchart, I realized that there were redundant steps, so thought I would put it down on paper to see if I could optimize it. Sure enough, there was a simple optimization (bringing recruiting to the front of the flow chart) that made for a very simple flow. Open the flow chart in another window and read along.



This flowchart is based on suggestions from previous posts that use recruiting, reranking, and a proxy vote in an attempt to maximize representation (it's the recruit-rerank-proxy method).

1. If a seat is vacant or once a month, if there is a proxy vote in effect, the affected faction will begin recruiting. This recruiting is mandatory even if there exists a member who's willing to fill the seat.
   
2. After recruiting, if any member has joined the faction since the last ranking, the group is ranked again.
   
3. The highest-ranking, eligible, willing faction member is given the empty seat.
   
4. If there is no such faction member, the remaining RA members in that faction divide up the empty-seat vote equally.

A quick unrelated question -- why is it that images no longer show up in the N'burg forum? This change happened while I was gone and I never heard why it was implemented.

~Ulrika~