Bill: Downsizing of the Consilium Burgensum

[Muizer]

The aim of this bill is to put an end to sorry state of affairs that has plagued elections to the Consilium de Civitate from its inception: of candidates being admitted by default, due to lack of volunteers. This has effectively removed the only check citizens have on arguably the most influential Curial institute.

Article 5 - Consilium BurgensumThe Consilium Burgensum manages the granting and removal of all Parliamentum Ranks by voting. The Consilium Burgensum may also function as an advisory body to the staff of TWC in matters concerning the Parliamentum and its Burgenses.

Membership: The elected members of the CdeC are all Milites. The full membership comprises of:
Sixteen Twelve elected Milites, who may discuss and vote on all matters within the Consilium Burgensum Forum
Duces, who may discuss all matters within the Consilium Burgensum Forum, but have no vote.
The Curator, who may take part in all Consilium Burgensum discussions, and has the deciding vote only in the case of a tie. The Curator has veto powers over any Consilium Burgensum decision.

Elected members of the Consilium Burgensum and the Curator must actively participate in discussions and votes, Duces participation is optional.

ElectionsConsilium Burgensum members are elected as per Article 2 of this Section - with the added requirement that candidates hold the basic rank of Miles and have no Staff warnings at the time of election. Each elected Consilium Burgensum member has a term of three months starting from their date of election. When their term expires, new elections will be held for membership to the Consilium Burgensum.

If a member of the Consilium Burgensum resigns during their term, or if during elections less than sixteen eligible Milites apply in the candidates thread, the vacant positions may be filled by a volunteering Staff Officer with at last Burgensis rank until appropriate Milites can be found to stand for election.


Elections
- Elections to the Consilium Burgensum will take place on the 20th of March, June, September and December.
- Candidates must hold the basic rank of Miles and have no Staff warnings at the time of election.
- For the duration of the 3 month term vacancies on the Council are filled according to order of precedence established in the polls.
- Runoff election will be held when the need to further establish precedence arises.
- Council members who (are forced to) resign their seat will be taken off the list of precedence for the remainder of the term.

Emergency clause:
- Should the number of serving councillors fall below 6 with no available replacement, elections will be held for a new council. The Curator will decide beforehand whether the new council is to serve for the remainder of the term only or for the next term as well

[Tom Paine]

Make it 12. 8 is pretty low, I fear, whereas 12 is a high enough number to provide a wide variety of experience and knowledge as well as low enough to get the active participants volunteering to hold the rank.

[the Black Prince]

i can agree in principle with reducing the number of councillors, but 16 was set, i believe, to get a broad cross section of views without the council becoming overly large and ponderous.

as to the rest, no.
you complain about people being elected by default and then suggest that people who LOSE elections should automatically get promoted??? its hardly the most logical thing to do. If the curia had wanted these people on the CdeC they would have voted them there. Limiting elections to specific times entirely limits the ability of the council to elect replacements if members should resign or be removed.

as for the idea of the council with low membership being replaced by a mere 2 people, its ridiculous from start to finish. i would rather see an understaffed 5 member CB than leave it to just the Curator and Speaker.

The speaker currently has no rights to vote on the CB whatsoever, why on earth would he be the one to take over?

[Muizer]

as to the rest, no.
you complain about people being elected by default and then suggest that people who LOSE elections should automatically get promoted??? its hardly the most logical thing to do.

It would no longer be a matter of "winning" or "losing". The vote establishes an order of precedence.

If the curia had wanted these people on the CdeC they would have voted them there.

I would agree with the theory if it weren't for the fact that it doesn't take the very real limitation of the size of the pool of potential candidates for the Council into account.

The only way to organize any meaningful election is to vote on all candidates, at once. If you take that as the premise, the order of precedence actually makes a lot of sense.

Limiting elections to specific times entirely limits the ability of the council to elect replacements if members should resign or be removed.

Freudian slip? I guess this bill is a lot more urgent than I thought

as for the idea of the council with low membership being replaced by a mere 2 people, its ridiculous from start to finish. i would rather see an understaffed 5 member CB than leave it to just the Curator and Speaker.

The speaker currently has no rights to vote on the CB whatsoever, why on earth would he be the one to take over?

I'm open to suggestions on this.

[scottishranger]

How will the curator, alone, pass judgement on citizens? Will it be arbitralily?

And how will the speaker deal with Burgensis and Milites votes? Also arbitralily?Or different?

[the Black Prince]

i meant Curia of course! or parliamentum... or whatever its called now...

suggestions... yes, perhaps the council is too big, but i think your concerns about elections could be addressed by simply lowering the size of the council from 16 to 12 and leaving all other procedures as they are now. With fewer positions, it would be much more likely for an election to be contested.

one thing to consider, with only 12 councillors, 8 would be needed to vote a candidate through (60% being 7.2 councillors, rounding up, because rounding down is less than 60%). Currently you need 10 of the 16 to be in agreement to guarantee passing (60% being 9.6, rounding up again). Its a question of do you think that 8 peoples judgement of suitability is as good as 10's? Also bear in mind that the number diminishes if councillors abstain. Currently, it takes 6 councillors to voice a negative view to prevent someone going through. With 12 people on the council, only 4 people are needed. If you reduce it to 8, only 3 people need dissent to block a promotion.

[Muizer]

Its a question of do you think that 8 peoples judgement of suitability is as good as 10's?

This proposal is not about how many councillors there are, but who the councillors are. At the moment the citizens don't have a voice in the composition of this supposedly representative body.

For what it's worth, I have a backup proposal. It's rather more complicated though. It says that the number of councillors equals the number of candidates in the poll divided by 2. Would that be preferable? After all, you could have your council of 12 then (or even 16!) AND the citizens (or burghers or whoppers, or whatever they're called these days) would be guaranteed proper representation.

[the Black Prince]

the body is not supposed to be representative in the way a parliament elected by proportional representation is. Its meant to represent a broad cross section of opinions from among the Milites class (i think thats patrician these days, its what i meant anyway).

Yes, its unfortunate that citizens aren't getting the chance to vote. Nothing prevents us actually holding a vote though, and citizens can vote to their hearts content... but i don't see how 7 people can fail to get elected in a poll in which 7 "victors" are sought. Election by default is simply an exercise in time saving.

In the manner in which you pose your question, no election can EVER be representative. the Curia cannot vote whoever it likes into office. it can only vote those people who want the job. You don;t get to choose who your congressman, or MP is either, you only get to select from those who are running. The same with the CdeC. The curia cannot force people to run. Its entirely possible an MP may run uncontested for an election... its unlikely, because a party will always want to ensure it gets as many seats as possible, but for example, a Speaker seeking re-election is unopposed by the 3 main parties, in some cases therefore not being opposed at all. In those cases, a vote is still held in the UK, but its largely irrelevant, he would only need to vote for himself to get re-elected.

Unlike being an MP though, being a CdeC member is thankless job with no remuneration and done b patricians willing to give a little more time and effort. There's no incentive to run for it. If you're unhappy with the numbers or composition of people nominating themselves, PM other patrician members and persuade them to run.

If you go with your more complicated option... what happens if only 2 people propose themselves... only 1 gets the position, and you have a small CdeC... thats not right either.

[Muizer]

the body is not supposed to be representative in the way a parliament elected by proportional representation is.

Yes it is.

[Ragabash]

I like the proposal otherwise but eight is a bit too small number, make it twelve or sixteen and you will have my support.

[Muizer]

I like the proposal otherwise but eight is a bit too small number, make it twelve or sixteen and you will have my support.

I would change the proposal if I believed we'd get 24 resp 32 candidates for the elections, but that's not realistic.

[Fabolous]

I don't really think the whole set election dates and precedence is needed. 16 has always been too large and has resulted in the CDC constantly seeming to have 2-3 virtually inactive members. Cut it down to 12 and have the people actually be truely active.

8 is too small, and anything less than 12 probably is. Honestly, I'd rather see the pool of available canidates increased before we seriously cut CDC size down to less than 10.

[Last Roman]

I support this, plus it weens us off the CdeC a bit.

[imb39]

Has this idea been dropped or have I missed the vote?

[Garbarsardar]

I support this bill. The original 16 members were to balance Senatorii and Patricians. This need does not exist for a long time.

I think that 12 is an appropriate number.

[Ragabash]

Yes, I agree with Garbarsardar, while eight is a bit too low, twelve members is much more reasonable number.

[happyho]

Well I also agree with Garbarsardar and Ragabasah, I think that 8 is too small a Council while 12 offers a large enough sampling of opinions to ensure quality judgments are made.

If a smaller CB or CdC is to become a reality, perhaps we should also consider setting a limit of consecutive terms that may be served by each member of the Council. I believe that since the terms served by each councilor is set at 3 months, placing a set limit of two, maximum three consecutive terms should be put in place to ensure that it's not always the same people that get elected to the Council.

I think that this will help in taking away some of the 'old boy's club' image that the Curia seems to have with some members.

Any thoughts about my idea for setting a limit to how many terms can be served on the CdC? Agree, disagree, "boo to this idea"?

[Garbarsardar]

I like happyho's idea. I think members of the CdeC (CB) should have a break after 2 consecutive terms. It is a good balance between transferring and acquiring experience and permitting to new members to participate.

[Ragabash]

happyho.

I agree with the idea to have a limit of consecutive terms inside the CdeC, but before such decision is made, we need to have enough active Patricians to fill those roles.

[happyho]

I like happyho's idea. I think members of the CdeC (CB) should have a break after 2 consecutive terms. It is a good balance between transferring and acquiring experience and permitting to new members to participate.

That was also another point I wanted to get across, but I ran into a mental wall that for some reason would not permit me to articulate that thought.

happyho.

I agree with the idea to have a limit of consecutive terms inside the CdeC, but before such decision is made, we need to have enough active Patricians to fill those roles.

Are there currently not enough Patricians? If I'm not mistaken there are currently two people more than actually necessary presently up for consideration for the CdC, if we do lessen the overall size of the CdC from 16 to 12, would that not make it easier to fill all the roles that currently require Patricians?

Since the proposal to redefine the Patrician rank has failed, should we not be concentrating on 'revitalizing' the Patrician rank now? The Curia has spoken, the rank stays as is for now, that does not mean that the problems plaguing the rank are gone. Having said that the same could also be said for most Citizens, other than the recent batch that came in just before me and since then most don't seem to ever post in the Curia.

Increasing modder participation is important, but since many modders seem to see themselves as being above the 'politics' side of TWC, perhaps we should also focus more of our attention on those members (plebs I think they're called) that DO show an interest in the Curia. This will possibly help solve the problem of not enough people being active in the Curia.

What after all is the point in giving somebody a voice and vote that they will never use?