[PROPOSAL] Constitutional Amendment: Splitting the HoG and HoS

[The Grim Reaper]

1. Article 4 of the Constitution shall be amended in the following manner.

1. Clause A shall read "The WA Delegate of the region is the Head of State".
2. Clause C shall be deleted.
3. Clause E shall read "The Delegate cannot be elected Secretary or Officer".

2. Article 5 of the Constitution shall be amended in the following manner.

1. Clause C shall read "If an Officer is elected Delegate or Secretary, they are taken to resign their Officer position".

3. A new Article 5 shall be inserted into the Constitution, reading as follows.

Article 5: The General Secretary

A: The General Secretary of the region is the Head of Government.
B: The Secretary assigns roles to the Officers of the region.
C: If the Secretary submits their resignation, elections for a new Secretary will begin immediately with a challenging period as set out in Article 8. The resigning Secretary will vacate the position immediately.
D: The Secretary cannot be elected Delegate or Officer.

4. Article 8 shall be amended to read as follows.

Article 8: Elections

Part 1: Challenges

A: A citizen who wishes to become the Delegate, the Secretary, or an Officer may announce their intent to challenge for the position.
B: A challenge to an official within 30 days of their election requires the support of four other citizens. Otherwise, a challenge for Delegate or Secretary requires the support of two other citizens, and a challenge for Officer requires the support of one other citizen. If the required support is not received within 7 days of the announcement, the announcement lapses.
C: Elections begin once a challenge receives the required support.

D: The challenge period is the first seven days of Delegate or Secretary elections and the first four days of Officer elections. Other citizens may submit challenges for that election during the challenge period, subject to receiving the requisite support under Clause B.
E: An incumbent official being challenged is automatically taken to have submitted a challenge unless they announce a contrary intention.
F: Subject to this Clause and Clause K, each Officer election is for a single position. If there are multiple vacant Officer positions, each challenge for Officer is taken to be for all vacant positions.

Part 2: Voting

G: Following the challenge period, the Assembly will vote to elect the Delegate, the Secretary, or Officers. All citizens who have submitted a challenge in that election are candidates.
H: Citizens admitted after the beginning of an election for the position of Delegate are not eligible to vote in that election.
I: If the number of candidates is not greater than the number of positions being challenged in that election, each candidate must be confirmed by a single majority vote. If a confirmation vote for Delegate fails, the incumbent Delegate retains the position. Only confirmed candidates become Officers following a confirmation vote, with all other positions challenged in that election becoming vacant.

Part 3: Regular elections

J: Elections for Delegate or Secretary are to begin, as if a challenge had been submitted, at the beginning of the first calendar month following six months having passed from the conclusion of the last vote for the same position. The incumbent Delegate or Secretary must confirm their intent to run in these elections to be a candidate.
K: Elections for all Officer positions are to begin on the first day of April, August and December as if a challenge had been submitted. Each challenge in these elections is taken to be made for all four Officer positions. Incumbent Officers must confirm their intent to run in these elections to be a candidate. No challenge for an Officer position may be made in the 15 days before these elections.

5. The Speaker is instructed to reletter and renumber all clauses and articles appropriately.

---

CHANGES Click to toggle

In Article 4, 'Head of Government' is changed to read 'Head of State'. Clause C is deleted, because it's moved to the new Article 5. The Delegate's primary responsibility is now their current, unchanged, Clause B, "The Delegate may use the Regional Controls and act on World Assembly proposals and resolutions as they see fit, subject to regional law."

[NEW] Article 5 is a near-duplicate of Article 4, except it now has the old Clause C, and it omits Clause B. One more exception, an IMPORTANT CHANGE: The Secretary has been CHANGED so that upon resigning, they immediately lose the position. The original wording is still retained for the Delegate, meaning the Delegate holds the position until a new Delegate is elected while the Secretary loses it immediately.
The Secretary cannot be elected Officer, in the same manner as the Delegate, and neither the Secretary nor Delegate can be elected to the other position.

Article 8
These changes are to add the Secretary to this legislation; they are treated almost identically to the Delegate. This amendment makes it clear that term lengths are measured separately for each position.
Note than in Part 2, there are significant differences between the two - the Delegate is treated as they were before, but the Secretary is not added. This means new citizens can vote for the Secretary even if they join during elections, like they can for Officers, and the Secretary position can remain vacant on a failed confirmation vote.

I have no preference on treating the Secretary in the same way as the Delegate, such that the position is never vacant, but feel that restricting votes for the Secretary is unnecessary.

The Regional Controls Act does NOT need to be changed - it already refers to the Delegate specifically.

[Karputsk]

Broadly supportive of this. In agreement that both positions should be elected.

Just a couple of thing I'd want to discuss further. One is whether we consider changing the names of each position. Not keen on Chancellor, and interested to hear some suggestions for WAD as well. Based on whatever we agree on re the Head of Government we could also potentially consider renaming the Officer position to be more in keeping with it.

Two, I'm happy with leaving the Delegate's term as 6 months but would like the Chancellors bringing down but not to the same level as an Officer. I was thinking 4 months. This could cause issues since some HoG elections wont necessarily coincide with an Officer election, but I dont foresee effective governance / working relationships between HoG and Officers being any more of a pain than they are already. Plus, we could potentially account for that if we do come to some agreement on broader political reforms.

[Spartan Termopylae]

I don't see any need for this

[The Grim Reaper]

The amendment has been edited to change the title formerly referred to as 'Chancellor' to 'General Secretary', or 'Secretary' for short. This is treated in the same way as the 'WA Delegate' is referred to as the 'Delegate' for short.

I believe the legal term 'WA Delegate' should be aligned with the ingame name for the same thing.

I am open to (and actually supportive of) discussing changes in the length of term, but believe that this should be part of a discussion about the broader cabinet reforms that are forthcoming so that they can be aligned with any necessary changes to the Officers.

[Spartan Termopylae]

I still don't understand what makes this needed. The current system has worked well for us for years, and putting in another elected position when most recent elections have had a dearth of candidates seems somewhat counterintuitive

[Goobergunchia]

I think this needs much more clarity as to the role of the Delegate. "Head of State" makes it sound like the Delegate is essentially powerless, which I would not support. If the intent is to have a Delegate focused on gameside affairs and a "head of government" focused elsewhere then I think this needs to be very clearly delineated in the constitution. There are also a number of conforming changes needed to the Government Accountability Act.

I am also very uncomfortable with trying to neatly separate FA and WA responsibilities in a world where the Security Council exists.

[The Grim Reaper]

I will respond to substantiative comments by Spartan Termopylae and Goobergunchia tomorrow, but I had to make an urgent edit to the proposal to ensure that the proposal now bars the sitting Secretary and Delegate from being elected to the other position, and that Officers resign upon election to the Secretary position in the same way that they already did for the Delegacy.

[wabbitslayah]

I am directly opposed to this. What is the reasoning for doing such?

[NPS]

What problem is this solving?

[Guy]

I'm not convinced this is a good idea. The Delegate is the face of the governance of the region internally - they are who residents see as responsible for the WFE, the RMB, embassies, etc. It seems appropriate they head the government and are ultimately responsible for these decisions (subject to the Assembly, of course).

[TheKeyToJOY]

I don’t know about this one.

[Karputsk]

This was suggested and discussed in #citizens in the direct aftermath of Catalyse's resignation post, and was posed as a possible solution to the concerns raised in Cat's resignation and what was identified as a consistent theme of TRR delegates in the past few months - namely that of burnout. By splitting the current responsibilities of the Delegate between two positions, it was suggested that some of the stresses could be better handled and mitigated. Also, as alluded to in Cat's post, by making the Delegate position truly focused towards gameside matters beyond just security (such as but not limited to events, moderation, participation and integration), that it would provide the necessary focus and importance to an area often relegated to an ill defined and ineffective outreach portfolio.

Grim originally brought this matter separately as there was a consensus in the discord about it, so the thinking was it could be handled as separate to a consideration for broader political reforms. Judging from initial feedback to this thread, that might have been a little premature - I would encourage other citizens to comment so we know where we stand. At the very least I think, and as I outlined in discord, we need to recognise the critical position we are in. We are coming off the back of several particularly contentious events, that have resulted or played a serious part in the resignation of our Delegate and FA officer, and more broadly that there has been a consistent theme of burnout that has plagued recent Delegates. Burnout isn't a problem unique to our region, or our delegacy, and is somewhat subject to factors often outside of our control, but it has been become a worrying pattern and recurrent problem in TRR. There are a number of problems facing our region, beyond what I've mentioned here, and I dont think we can say business as usual is working, or has been working for quite a while. Even if people disagree with this proposed change, I think there needs to be a broader discussion regarding comprehensive political reforms.

[BowShot118]

I concur with what Karp said, and think that subsequent reforms off the back of splitting the HoG and HoS can be overall beneficial, even if the simple act of splitting them alone doesn't do much in and of itself.

[Spartan Termopylae]

I still don't see what this would do. Someone is still going to potentially suffer burnout, and we'll potentially have empty roles. Some people will run for delegate based on everything it currently is. Strip away a chunk of that, I see it becoming a less than desirable role for the vast majority of potential candidates

[BowShot118]

I still don't see what this would do. Someone is still going to potentially suffer burnout, and we'll potentially have empty roles. Some people will run for delegate based on everything it currently is. Strip away a chunk of that, I see it becoming a less than desirable role for the vast majority of potential candidates

Assuming further reforms take place beyond splitting the current Delegate roles across the new Delegacy and HoG position, it'll help to reduce burnout because the Delegate won't have to do as much, and won't be the one ultimately responsible for everything about this region's government. Less to do and less responsibility, possibly over a shorter term (at least for the HoG) will result in less burnout as the government won't rely on as much one person carrying it on its back. We have Officers, yes, but the Delegate is still responsible for making sure those Officers work and setting overarching government policy, and any and all criticism will ultimately fall at the Delegate's door.

I'd argue that splitting the HoS/HoG, particularly with further reform, doesn't necessarily make it less desirable, just less powerful. It's not like our current Officer elections have very few candidates but our Delegate elections are full of them, there's no reason to believe a more powerful Delegacy in a region that is currently racked by so many issues is any more appealing that an Officer role, particularly when you throw in an intimidation factor for newcomers.

There is always going to be the potential for burnout, but we can reduce that risk by reducing the load and subsequent pressure on the top job. 6 Months is a long time to run a region, particularly with our current dearth of interest in government.

[Salem]

I don't think this is necessarily the solution. This is a solution Europeia tried out a few years back and despite having high citizen engagement, it lasted maybe a year or two before the old system was put back in place.

My largest concern about creating another position is right now we struggle to have candidates to fill our officer and delegate elections. It was only last Officer cycle where we only had three candidates run - Cookies, Soviet, and I. The last delegate election only had two serious candidates - and I also struggle to say Bowshot is a serious candidate due to how frequently they run for office without ever putting in effort between cycles to increase their election chances. The previous delegate election had three candidates, one without a campaign thread, and two serious candidates with one being Bow again.

I'd be more for changing our delegate elections to every four months instead of six months.

[BowShot118]

I don't think this is necessarily the solution. This is a solution Europeia tried out a few years back and despite having high citizen engagement, it lasted maybe a year or two before the old system was put back in place.

My largest concern about creating another position is right now we struggle to have candidates to fill our officer and delegate elections. It was only last Officer cycle where we only had three candidates run - Cookies, Soviet, and I. The last delegate election only had two serious candidates - and I also struggle to say Bowshot is a serious candidate due to how frequently they run for office without ever putting in effort between cycles to increase their election chances. The previous delegate election had three candidates, one without a campaign thread, and two serious candidates with one being Bow again.

I'd be more for changing our delegate elections to every four months instead of six months.

TRR has a problem with inactive WAs, more frequent del changes are just gonna cause issues with our endo count and possibly with our long term security imo. I do agree that HoG should be decreased to 4 month terms, but with the inactivity of the majority of our WA population I think that makes splitting the HoS/HoG slightly more beneficial than not. At the end of the day, even if a proper split of powers reform doesn't occur, I think it's very feasible that a figurehead Del has candidates, even if it just turns into a longer held figurehead position occupied mostly by Older, more trusted members of the region.

I've gotta add, thanks for the weird jab in there lol, always appreciate being attacked over my electability in the middle of an unrelated discussion on Constitutional reform.

[Chef Big Dog]

This thread will be archived in 2 days if no clear further interest is shown, on August 18th, 2023, at 5:32PM EDT.

[Manson]

I’m interested in continuing this discussion actually.

[BowShot118]

Unless someone wants to continue discussion/carry it forward this thread'll be archived in a few days.

Please do let me know if you do, thanks.

[Giangsang]

Are the problems this change would be solving still relevant to the region, or were they more spontaneous issues?
I realize a lot of the talk in this thread mention a recurring theme of burnout from many past delegates, but to me it seemed like Cat's resignation (the latest case of burnout) was more caused by all sorts of issues coming our way all at once, which surely isn't a recurring theme, right?

I'm still relatively new, which is why I'm asking these questions. Maybe this is something that happens all the time and I've just missed it.

[BowShot118]

Unless someone wants to continue discussion/carry it forward this thread'll be archived in a few days.

Please do let me know if you do, thanks.

[Manson]

Unless someone wants to continue discussion/carry it forward this thread'll be archived in a few days.

Please do let me know if you do, thanks.

I’m objecting solely because I’m interested in continuing this discussion. Maybe not entirely centered around Grim’s proposal, more around the persistent idea of reform.

[Manson]

Fuck it, seconding Grim’s proposal.

[Catalyse]

Fuck it, seconding Grim’s proposal.

There has been no discussion on this for months. Don't just call for a vote for the sake of it.