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Region: The Thaecian Senate

History

I see no reason to object to this bill. I don't think any more amendments are necessary.

I actually like the bill in its current state. I support it.

We will now begin voting on the bill:

[spoiler=Senators]

Angypt

Snowflame

Marvinville

Saltmore

Sevae

Gifty

Solittus[/spoiler]

I will be voting aye

Voting has now ended. On the question of whether to pass the bill, the votes are as follows:

The ayes are 5, the nays are 0, the abstains are 2.

The bill has passed both chambers of Congress.

Brototh

I would like to motion for Unanimous Consent for the following bills:

[Spoiler=Congressional Internship Act amendments]https://www.nationstates.net/nation=snowflame/detail=factbook/id=1783063[/spoiler]

[Spoiler=Recall Amendments]https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1779770[/spoiler]

[Spoiler=Citizenship Amendment]https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1694923[/spoiler]

I acknowledge all motions

I would also like to begin debate on the following bill:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1782416

I encourage all senators to read the bill and debate it.

[spoiler=Senators]

Angypt

Snowflame

Marvinville

Saltmore

Sevae

Gifty

Solittus[/spoiler]

I acknowledge all motions

I acknowledge all motions

I acknowledge all the motions

I have to ask though in regards to increasing the house size, excluding the number of people running as a factor how would this benefit overall? The house currently seems rather efficient as is?

No, no, no, no, we aren't expanding anything. This is a ridiculous notion. We have a competitive election once and suddenly all of the uncompetitive election data is erased? That is not how statistics works, that's just anecdotal evidence. Especially considering how many resignations we're having that are disrupting everything and making the EC do too much work

Pending the events taking place in the House, I am going to table the current bill.

I also would like to note that all bills have passed via UC.

The following 2 have passed both chambers of Congress

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1779770

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1694923

Brototh

We have begun our next piece of business! This is one of the only bills we have not done yet, and after this, we will have nothing more to debate unless we are given more bills. So, let's get through this and you all can take a temporary break!

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1710193

Be sure to provide your thoughts on the bill and give your opinion on the rmb.

[spoiler=Senators]

Angypt

Snowflame

Marvinville

Saltmore

Sevae

Gifty

Solittus[/spoiler]

Snowflame wrote:Be sure to provide your thoughts on the bill and give your opinion on the rmb.

No, I will not give my opinion.

I would like to introduce an amendment to the bill:

[Spoiler=Amendment A]

Change Sub-section II from

"within 14 days of its announcement"

to

"within 21 days of its announcement"[/spoiler]

Marvinville

Since there is no debate, we will begin voting on the amendment:

[Spoiler=Amendment A]

Change Sub-section II from

"within 14 days of its announcement"

to

"within 21 days of its announcement"[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Senators]

Angypt

Snowflame

Marvinville

Saltmore

Sevae

Gifty

Solittus[/spoiler]

I will be voting aye.

Voting has ended. On the question of whether to pass the amendment, the results are as follows:

The ayes are 5, the nays are 0, the abstains are 2. The amendment has passed. The bill will be posted shortly

We have now begun voting on the bill as amended

https://www.nationstates.net/nation=snowflame/detail=factbook/id=1788716

[spoiler=Senators]

Angypt

Snowflame

Marvinville

Saltmore

Sevae

Gifty

Solittus[/spoiler]

I will be voting aye.

The vote has now ended. On the question of whether to pass the bill, the ayes are 5, the nays are 0, the abstains are 2. The bill has passed the Senate but will return to the House.

Santa Marana

Due to the general election, I now declare the Senate to be on recess. Thank you all for your work this term and good luck to all your future political endeavors!

I inaugurate the following Citizens of Thaecia as Senators until at latest 10 Mar 2023:

Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore

Rayekka, Snowflame, New Central Iowa

The election to become Chairperson of the Senate begins now.

The standing period will now start, lasting for 24 hours, or until each legislator in the chamber has declared their intent or non-intent to stand, whichever comes first.

[spoiler=Senators]Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore[/spoiler]

I would like to say that I am happy to be standing here with you all again as a Senator.

As the previous chair of this chamber, we passed so many influential laws and we got a bunch of work done. I hope the next chair does an outstanding job and makes this term one of productivity.

I do not intend to run for chair.

I am legally unable to stand as Senate Chairman.

i do not intend to run

Looking for Unanimous Consent for the following bill.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1794829

It is clear that the Senate is in deadlock with nobody wanting to stand as Chairman. This UC will allow myself to stand for Chairman.

[spoiler=Senators]Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore[/spoiler]

I acknowledge this motion

and i vote against the motion

I acknowledge the motion

I would have acknowledged the motion had it not already been vetoed. I do not intend to stand for Chair.

I will run for Chair.

Snowflame

The declared candidates are:

New Central Iowa

Pradera

The discussion and statements period begins now. The declared leadership candidates may address the chamber and sitting Senators may voice their views of consternation, confidence, or field any questions to the declared candidates.

This period will last between at least 24 hours and no more than 48 hours, depending on the volume of questions and discussion.

New Central Iowa

Simple question to both candidates: How will you maintain legislative efficiency and activity? It doesn't really require a major answer, would just be good to get a little answer for this if possible

To New Central Iowa...I have concern about you becoming chairman. You single-handedly blocked opposition, in this case an experienced candidate who wanted the job, from being able to run against you. The Senate was quite literally in a deadlock, and if Pradera didnt declare, you would be running unopposed thanks to your blocking of a candidate.

What will this event say about your ability to work with those who don't agree with you politically or ideologically?

To both candidates - during your time as Congresspeople, you’ve either had periods of inactivity or resigned. Why should we as Senators vote for you to be leader when you have a poor record?

Pap Sculgief wrote:Simple question to both candidates: How will you maintain legislative efficiency and activity? It doesn't really require a major answer, would just be good to get a little answer for this if possible

Well I would quite personally like to encourage the community of thaecia to work on the political side of things to encourage much more interesting future elections and such, as well as focus on pro-citizen bills rather than ones only affecting minority groups such as ones that would only affect party leaders.

Snowflame wrote:To New Central Iowa...I have concern about you becoming chairman. You single-handedly blocked opposition, in this case an experienced candidate who wanted the job, from being able to run against you. The Senate was quite literally in a deadlock, and if Pradera didnt declare, you would be running unopposed thanks to your blocking of a candidate.

What will this event say about your ability to work with those who don't agree with you politically or ideologically?

As for this question, me personally I quite like gaining political power in thaecia if I'm being quite honest here. I saw a chance to run for chair as nobody else was. I do understand that rayekka is quite experienced and will plan to work with them, but as for what it says about my ability to work with others is nothing at all. I simply prefer to keep

the senate to itself,(edit)to go more into depth here my choice to run for chairman was not spurred by rayekka posting that UC motion, rather i hadn't had taken the time to think about whether or not to run, aswell as noticing that nobody else was running

Rayekka wrote:To both candidates - during your time as Congresspeople, you’ve either had periods of inactivity or resigned. Why should we as Senators vote for you to be leader when you have a poor record?

Well for any periods of poor record I have if you look back (my first house election), I had just started nationstates and decided to give thaecia a try. Not knowing how the game worked I participated in a military operation on my citizen nation and therefore lost my seat. As for periods of inactivity I would of course try my best to inform the senate if something does arise.

Post self-deleted by New Central Iowa.

New Central Iowa wrote:As for this question, me personally I quite like gaining political power in thaecia if I'm being quite honest here. I saw a chance to run for chair as nobody else was. I do understand that rayekka is quite experienced and will plan to work with them, but as for what it says about my ability to work with others is nothing at all. I simply prefer to keep

the senate to itself,(edit)to go more into depth here my choice to run for chairman was not spurred by rayekka posting that UC motion, rather i hadn't had taken the time to think about whether or not to run, aswell as noticing that nobody else was running

That first sentence is very concerning, and you didn't deny the blocking of opposition. No one should run for chair because they simply "want power", especially when your position is one that will decide our policy for the next few months. And after what was pulled with Rayekka, I must say, I do not feel comfortable voting for you for chair.

I would like to encourage my fellow senators to vote for Pradera instead.

Snowflame wrote:That first sentence is very concerning, and you didn't deny the blocking of opposition. No one should run for chair because they simply "want power", especially when your position is one that will decide our policy for the next few months. And after what was pulled with Rayekka, I must say, I do not feel comfortable voting for you for chair.

I would like to encourage my fellow senators to vote for Pradera instead.

Apologies it seems that my statement didn't have the intended effect there, to clear it up I was trying to be as truthful as possible with you. It's not so simple as I just "want power" in thaecia but as was mentioned above I want to use said Power to push pro citizenry bills, for the betterment of thaecia as a whole rather than thaecia as singular groups. Though people do have different political ideologies, every person has a human basis to appeal to and a common sense of reason. So it's not so much working with other people on an ideological basis but rather on a person-person one

I drop out of the Chair election. I apologize if I have disappointed anyone by doing so.

I would encourage someone else to run in my place. I am choosing to not run because I believe that I should have more expiereince as a Senator before I accept a legislative leadership position.

New Central Iowa

Announcement From The Electoral Commission

We are now moving on to the voting period of this election. Since we have just one candidate (New Central Iowa) standing, there shall be three voting options, an "Aye" vote declares confidence in the candidate, a "Nay" vote declares no confidence for the candidate, and "Abstain" indicates an abstention from voting that is discounted from the overall total number of votes cast.

Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore

Nay. The statements by the candidate during the questioning period lead me to believe that we as an institution can do better.

Nay, and I believe that the Senate should place the amendments to LR.048 to incredibly high importance and should receive unanimous consent to pass to fix the situation

Rayekka wrote:Looking for Unanimous Consent for the following bill.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1794829

It is clear that the Senate is in deadlock with nobody wanting to stand as Chairman. This UC will allow myself to stand for chairman

I vote aye

Looking for Unanimous Consent for the following bill. Let’s get us out of this senate gridlock.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1794829

I acknowledge this motion.

[spoiler=Senators]Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore[/spoiler]

Given that the previous UC motion expired but it now seems to have the support of the objecting member (as is required in this circumstance by the CRA). I move unanimous consent that the Senate pass the following act:

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1794829

Edit: Well ignore that. Great minds think alike or something along those lines.

I acknoledge Senator Rayekka's motion.

I acknowledge the motion

Rayekka wrote:Looking for Unanimous Consent for the following bill. Let’s get us out of this senate gridlock.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=dispatch/id=1794829

Aye

I acknowledge the motion.

I acknowledge the motion.

i propose a UC motion to confirm ministers Islonia As defense minister Brototh as minister of foreign affairs Isopi as communications minister Toerana V as culture minister (just these for now)

[spoiler=Senators]Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore[/spoiler]

Toerana V

I object this motion. This is not the correct format to do it. I am opposed to UC ministers in the first place, but the writing of this UC is informal and not specific.

Rayekka wrote:I object this motion. This is not the correct format to do it. I am opposed to UC ministers in the first place, but the writing of this UC is informal and not specific.

apologies how should i format it instead

New Central Iowa has failed to gain the confidence of the Senate, and therefore I re-open the elections and start the Candidacy Declaration Period. Senators who are interested in serving as Chairman, are requested to declare their candidacies.

I nominate Rayekka for chair of the Senate

Marvinville

I intent to run for chairman

Marvinville, Santa Marana

Post self-deleted by New Central Iowa.

i do not intend to run as i share pradera's feelings on position of chairman of the senate

Pradera

I do not intend to run, and I would urge us to move on quickly to the voting period. Nominations have been open for more than 24 hours, and as a chamber we really need to start getting on with business, like confirming the ministers. This has taken a week now, so let's try to quickly get through this

The CDP is now closed, and we now proceed to the Statement & Discussion Period. The sole candidate is Rayekka.

I have no questions and will be voting in favor of Rayekka.

I have no questions for the candidate, not only due to my confidence in their ability but also due to my concerns with how long this process is taking

I have no questions for the nominee.

Now voting

Candidate is: Rayekka

Aye/Nay/Abstain

I will be abstaining as it is my own nomination

Post self-deleted by Saltmore.

The vote is closed, 6-0-1-0, Rayekka is elected Senate chair.

Congrats Ray, you have now been PM, Speaker and Chair! If you get WAD you'll be second person to get the government grand slam (behind yours truly) (sorry I needed an excuse to flex)

Rayekka, Pap Sculgief, Snowflame, Marvinville, New Central Iowa

Ministerial confirmations:

Senators, we will be firstly confirming Prime Minister Marvinville’s cabinet. This will be done in two stages with three nominees confirmed in either one. This confirmation hearing is for:

Brototh for Foreign Affairs Minister

Pap Sculgief for Home Affairs Minister

Toerana V for Culture Minister

I hereby open the questioning & statement phase. The nominees have consent to talk in the chamber.

[spoiler=Senators]Snowflame

Rayekka

Democratized Peoples

Pradera

Pap Sculgief

New Central Iowa

Saltmore[/spoiler]

Pap Sculgief, Brototh, Toerana V, Marvinville

Post self-deleted by New Central Iowa.

Vote aye for both me and Toerana brothers, he a real one G, if you vote aye for one of us it gotta be both of us ✊ We a package deal homies

Toerana V

Hi Senate. Pleasure to be here after the significant delay and I'm looking forward to these highly anticipated questions.

I'd like to start out by talking about my prior term in culture. Culture wasn't in the world's best state but I believe we got the department into good shape. It is active, it has enthusiastic members and we have begun to outline some things for the term.

Our biggest success was hands down the Paradox games, and that will likely continue to be the department's Crown Jewel, spearheaded by Altys. I also consider the other, free games a successf, even if participation dried up. Those will be coming back with a vengeance to give all Thaecians a chance to play games with us regardless of their interest in Strategy games or financial situation.

As per Marv's manifesto, we are going to be looking more heavily into more casual fun that doesn't require staff to run, as well as working to diverse the Free to Participate stuff we run.

That doesn't mean we are going to neglect gameside, however. Gameside was hands down the weakest area under me previously, but following discussions within the department, Cinema and Ambis are going to be continuing with regular polls, and Ambis has been brain storming a choose your own adventure via polls to kick-start once I am confirmed.

Alongside this, I hope to investigate running competitions, robbing Sarah once again and looking to run writing/art/photography etc competitions over the month.

I have other ideas for what we can run that are yet to be debated, but with Ambis spearheading Gameside Involvement, Altys pushing forward with regular Paradox games and myself and the rest of the staff introducing a more diversified pallet of events and activities to cater to more of Thaecia I am confident we can continue to grow the department into the heart of Thaecian government and ensure that Culture is helping as much as it can in the integration and retaining of newcomers and existing Thaecians.

Naturally, plans will twist and adapt as the term progresses, but we have a strong active core in the department, and with myself at the helm, with the flexibility I have been promised by Marv, I see no reason why we can't achieve everything I have set out here and more.

Questions are welcome, naturally, as are suggestions for what people want us to run! It makes our lives significant easier if we are able to create a dialogue between the department and the citizenry so we can run what people want to see be run.

Marvinville, The Ambis

Congratulations to all on your nomination to serve as Ministers in this new government.

First, to Brototh. Do you foresee any reforms to the FA Council over the course of your service? Beyond that are you looking at any larger FA shifts or will you be keeping FA metaphorically steady as she goes?

Toerana V, what do you see as Culture's primary purpose in Thaecia? I also thank you for laying out some of your plans already, but to probe a little bit, do you have any gameside plans beyond polls? Finally, will you be planning any larger interregional events over the course of your term?

Pap Sculgief, what is your vision for recruitment this term, how will you seek to grow the number of telegrams sent and nations recruited into Thaecia. Also, what do you view as the most effective form of integration?

Finally, Toerana V. What do you see as Culture's primary purpose in Thaecia? I also thank you for laying out some of your plans already, but to probe a little bit, do you have any gameside plans beyond polls? Finally, will you be planning any larger interregional events over the course of your term?

Thank you all in advance for your responses.

Pap Sculgief, Toerana V, Marvinville

Hello fellow Senators, I'm delighted to be able to speak to you today as a Cabinet nominee, it is an honour to not only be here in the first place, but to also be here for one of the most important cabinet roles for the internal functioning of the region. I'd like to talk about my plans for the Ministry for this upcoming term.

First of all, I'd like to start with the main vision of our PM's campaign: recruitment. Recruitment is the main issue for the survival and stability of a successful region, and so I would like to prioritise and focus on it this term. I myself will be actively participating in the manual recruitment process, being it at long or short stints throughout the day. This is something I want to encourage all citizens of the region to do if they can, and I want to look at ways we can reward and thank those for participation. I think we can definitely make it easier to access the instructions to manually recruit as well, which can help boost participation.

Secondly, the only way we can make recruitment meaningful is by ensuring that new recruits remain engaged in the region and in the site, otherwise recruitment is meaningless. For me, we can only do this if we directly speak to, and encourage a response from newer recruits. This is something that I will personally participate in, and I will encourage others to do. At the same time, we need to ensure that we don't bombard new recruits with complex information, and so I want to make sure that, as a region, we provide simple information to newcomers when we directly speak to them. This will involve going over information dispatches, reforming the RMB welcome messages, and to make ourselves more approachable to questions. It is a strong belief of mine that if you properly engage newer members, they will be more inclined to remain playing and as a citizen of Thaecia.

Finally, as I am aware of the length of this statement, I want to briefly touch on the final main element of my plans - the RMB. For me, I feel that there is a lessening government presence on NS itself. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing, when we are trying to recruit and engage newer members to the region, it does potentially alienate them from the activity of the government. This is why I want to have an improved game-side presence for my ministry, involving the use of the RMB to post ministry relevant updates and things similar to that. I will also personally improve my presence, which will hopefully have a positive impact of the activity of the RMB and of the activity of my ministry as well. The HAM is responsible for internal affair, so it makes sense for me to have a game-side presence.

Alongside all this, I will continue to perform the admin roles, like updating factbooks, if needed the WFE (however that won't always be the case) and the WA Waiver list. I hope I have managed to convince you of my capabilities, I hope I've answered the question of Democratized Peoples, and as always, if you do have questions, I won't hesitate to answer them.

Toerana V

I have no questions for Brototh or Bow.

I do have one question for Pap Sculgief.

So, I'm sure you agree that recruitment is one of the most important ways for Thaecia to grow. However, for the past year, we have had constant debates on how to get more people to participate. A common issue we see is that we talk about the importance of recruitment, yet getting people to do it is a big issue and has been for a while.

I'm saying all of that to say this: you mentioned rewarding those people who do participate. Can you name what some of those rewards are? Also, how do you plan on engaging as many people as possible in recruitment? Will you advertise it often, encourage it, have special events dedicated to it? Or is there another idea in mind?

Pap Sculgief

Democratized Peoples wrote:Toerana V, what do you see as Culture's primary purpose in Thaecia? I also thank you for laying out some of your plans already, but to probe a little bit, do you have any gameside plans beyond polls? Finally, will you be planning any larger interregional events over the course of your term?

Culture's primary purpose in Thaecia is to give people a reason to stay. Domestic Affairs could work really hard on getting people to join Thaecia and step into discord, but if there's nothing for them there, then why stay? Culture is the way that the government can stimulate activity outside of politics within the region, encourage interaction between community members and help us keep more people for longer as they become invested in the region for more than the politics, which can often turn toxic. In my opinion, you can't successfully integrate someone with Politics alone. Integration is not the sole domain of Domestic Affairs, all government departments have their part to play and I believe Culture's part to play is significant, at least in comparison to that of Foreign Affairs or Defence.

As for gameside specific, as I briefly mentioned Ambis is planning to run a choose your own adventure via regional polls. Ideas I've had in the back of my mind have also been working with Domestic Affairs on running AMAs, which have the benefit of increasing awareness about what the government does. I don't want to get into specifics of what I'm thinking though, as I haven't bounced them through the department just yet and I'd rather be concrete with more refined plans on the Senate floor.

As for interregional events, they are not and will not be a priority for me personally. When I'm faced with the two options of investing my time in Thaecia itself versus investing my time into an event designed to cater to several regions I lean towards investing in Thaecia itself. That being said, I'm not opposed to interregional events, but they'd very likely have to be pitched first by the Prime Minister or Minister of Foreign Affairs, either as their idea or following communication with allies. I'd naturally do my part as Minister of Culture but the core of my focus remains on what I can do to stimulate activity within the region, its discord and on its RMB, not in another region's discord or a shared platform that will be dropped at the end of the event. We want to continue to grow Thaecia's community.

Apologies if I didn't quite go into detail about the Gameside stuff, but I don't want to sell the Senate on something we haven't .

The Ambis

Snowflame wrote:I have no questions for Brototh or Bow.

I do have one question for Pap Sculgief.

So, I'm sure you agree that recruitment is one of the most important ways for Thaecia to grow. However, for the past year, we have had constant debates on how to get more people to participate. A common issue we see is that we talk about the importance of recruitment, yet getting people to do it is a big issue and has been for a while.

I'm saying all of that to say this: you mentioned rewarding those people who do participate. Can you name what some of those rewards are? Also, how do you plan on engaging as many people as possible in recruitment? Will you advertise it often, encourage it, have special events dedicated to it? Or is there another idea in mind?

That's a good question and I thank you for asking it.

I think we should first encourage people to participate by stressing how simple it really is to manually recruit (ie. making a template that sort of stuff) and ensure that there is public information of how to do so. I do plan on advertising the role fairly often, so that it isn't always forgotten, as well.

On to the main body of the question, 'reward' was probably a bad choice of words on my part, and I'm going to be honest, I have a few little ideas in mind, however it's something that needs to be properly explored and thought through before we implement it. A few things I had in mind was ministry-based awards, public announcements of recognition, and even the thought of trading cards. These are a few things that could be implemented that could make recruitment more appealing. Of them all, public recognition is the easiest to implement, and is something that I think is overlooked when looking at the commitment to the region made by certain individuals. Indirectly, this could lead to an improved portfolio for citizens seeking government roles in future, which could be beneficial to those involved.

This is something that needs more thought, however I hope that the few potential ideas are enough to explain where I want to take this.

Snowflame, Toerana V

Thank you for the answer.

I have no more questions.

Pap Sculgief

Assembled with Dot's Region Saver.
Written by Refuge Isle.