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Bill: Seat Reduction Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Front Canrillaise
Status[?]: passed
Votes: This bill asks for an amendement to the Constitution. It will require two-thirds of the legislature to vote in favor. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: May 2228
Description[?]:
| We have too many politicians and the taxpayers shouldn't be so overburdened with having to pay their salaries. Let's move it back down to 600. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change The total number of seats in the legislative assembly. Should be between 75 and 750.
Old value:: 750
Current: 185
Proposed: 600
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 23:23:46, February 25, 2006 CET | From | Beach Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Lower is better |
| Date | 02:09:41, February 26, 2006 CET | From | Lutte Féministe de Libération | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | I was afraid we'd have this conversation. This is wholely undemocratic, unfair, and unfun. We increased seats a long while back for these three reasons. It's undemocratic to shrink the number of representatives. As the nation grows, the number of representatives should increase as well, so that the number of people represented by one politician remain the same, whether it's now or one hundred years ago. A stagnant number of seats, or worse yet a decreased number of seats, means that less people can appeal directly to their representative. You are strangling direct democracy. Moreover, it's unfair. By decreasing the seats you are taking seats away from EVERY party, which seems entirely wrong. For a measure like this to pass, you should have everyone's support. Finally, and most importantly, it's no fun to have fewer seats. Fewer seats means reduced majorities, smaller parties, and duller elections. Parties no longer look impressive (i.e. the DEP and the RWE look very poweful now, whereas they'd look less so if they only had 30 or 40 seats). Elections would be duller too. When you lose seats you only lose four or five seats, instead of 10 or 15. And when you win more seats, you win only five or six, not 10 or 15. It's just so much better to wake up, log on, and see the large number of seats that have swung away from, or better yet, to your party. And if your so concerned about people paying for more salaries, why don't we just decrease the pay of politicians. We don't really need it, direct democracy and enjoyment are more fun. |
| Date | 05:52:21, February 26, 2006 CET | From | Beach Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | 1. I see as somewhat valid. 2. Is not a reason. 3. Is also not a reason. |
| Date | 13:03:33, February 26, 2006 CET | From |  Mouvement des Conservateurs | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Despite of what our party would support in the past, we are not very keen to support it now. We always supported a 75 to 100 seats parliament system because it was in the advantage of the big three keeping them in power. (OOC) By highering the electoral threshold there the risk is that our 'political diversity' could stagnate which often results into old parties leaving and a reduced number of new parties coming in, to keep the game interesting as it is at this point, I will vote against a lowering of the seats. |
| Date | 02:39:12, February 27, 2006 CET | From | Lutte Féministe de Libération | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Thank you RCC. Your reasoning, as always, is illuminating and enjoyable. Hopefully your opposition will help to quash this maneuver. |
| Date | 07:40:37, February 27, 2006 CET | From | Beach Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | How about a nice round number like 500? |
| Date | 17:35:04, February 27, 2006 CET | From | Mouvement des Conservateurs | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | I could live with 500. |
| Date | 00:42:59, February 28, 2006 CET | From | Lutte Féministe de Libération | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | We changed to 600 at the request of the DEP, who wanted it to be easy to figure the required majorities for bills and constitutional amendments. We felt 600 was the best number because 400 is 2/3rds and 300 was 1/2. |
| Date | 00:57:01, February 28, 2006 CET | From | Beach Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Then 300 would work. |
| Date | 10:30:31, February 28, 2006 CET | From | Devout Ecologists Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Yeah, kinda opposed against 500 where 2/3rd is 333. I mean, with the last monarchy elections, there was a time where we had one vote short: 399. Dramatic number. Now if you have one vote short with 333.. you have 332. Not so dramatic. And I really like round numbers. Just a question though, to the RCP, how did a 75-100 seated parliament systeem keep the big three in power? |
| Date | 13:29:57, February 28, 2006 CET | From | Mouvement des Conservateurs | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | With such a high electoral threshold new parties were easy to get discouraged and resigned very fast. |
| Date | 23:12:37, February 28, 2006 CET | From | Beach Party | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | I think it was just we had a lot of newbs signup and die, rather than the numer of seats. |
| Date | 00:44:01, March 01, 2006 CET | From | Front Canrillaise | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Darn, this has no support. : ( |
| Date | 16:54:35, March 01, 2006 CET | From | Mouvement des Conservateurs | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Newbs stayed until after their first elections, leaving with no seats and left. |
| Date | 19:17:42, May 15, 2006 CET | From | Lutte Féministe de Libération | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | Please vote for this, 750 is too much for such a small country and its a difficult number to deal with. It's not like 600 is much smaller anyway, and newbs come and go all the time no matter what we do. |
| Date | 00:06:22, May 16, 2006 CET | From | Front Canrillaise | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | We actually prefer a much lower number, but one step at a time I suppose. |
| Date | 21:56:03, May 16, 2006 CET | From | Lutte Féministe de Libération | To | Debating the Seat Reduction Act |
| Message | We won't support anything lower, of course. We feel that 600 is the magic number of consensus, and anything below is unwielding for the same reason, the math becomes troublesome and there are too few parties with more than 100 seats. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | ||||
| yes |
Total Seats: 505 | ||||
| no | Total Seats: 0 | ||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 178 |
| Random fact: When it comes to creating a Cultural Protocol in a Culturally Open nation, players are not necessarily required to provide a plausible backstory for how the nation's cultural background developed. However, the provision of a plausible backstory may be a factor in whether Moderation approves the Cultural Protocol if players in surrounding nations question its appropriateness for their region of the game map. |
| Random quote: "Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity." - Karl Marx |