Here's a poll from the legislative branch discussion locatedhere (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=93297).

First question we have to ask ourselves is if we want to have a senate where governors can meet. When voting please keep in mind that if there is a senate it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to be in control of the finance. It can also be 'a place to hang out for governors'.

This poll remains open for 3 days.

yes, im not sure what is would have power over.. but it could do something...

I beleve we should keep the senate around as a council of govenors. Though this is part of me living in the New England area with a history of a yankee tradition of having a small local government to discuss issues in the community. I would see the senate as a council of govenoers to discuss issues within the govenor community.

Yes, keep the Senate around, but make it so that it's unofficial, just a place for Governors to discuss things about build queues.

Yes, keep the Senate around, but make it so that it's unofficial, just a place for Governors to discuss things about build queues.
I remembered when I was a Military Leader in the past Demogames, I usualy use the senate to make a global queue request in the senate rather than spamming in each of the govenor's threads with request if my queue request require a cooperation with all of the govenors rather than just one.

Well, there really wouldn't be a Senate until we've elected two or three Governors in the game. But beyond that point, it would allow Governors to discuss issues on a global level, such as production for war, railroads, etc. It could also be a dedicated forum for the Governors to discuss the President's use of power. Things of this nature may be useful when the game gets rolling.

The Finance and Labor Dept. should control the sliders (if that's what the People choose). That experiment with the Senate failed. It never should have been tried, really. We don't HAVE to give the Senate a job to do, just let them be.

If we end up with one, can we please change the name to something more appropriate? Like council of governors or something?

If we end up with one, can we please change the name to something more appropriate? Like council of governors or something?

Perhaps the League of Govenors? :)

Perhaps the League of Govenors? :)

Makes me think of the failed League of Nations

... I'm holding my vote for now....

Makes me think of the failed League of Nations

... I'm holding my vote for now....

O O O
i learnt about that for my GCSE's, i dont think it is however as it involved whole countries this just involves areas.

i think a senate is a good idea as it gives the citizens more way to express their feelings. as in my feelings governers are more part of the citizenship than say military, trade etc

No! No Senate! Power to the People!

Besides, the last serious act in DG4 was to get rid of it.

Here are my proposals for governor coordination:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=1990302#post1990302
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=1981421#post1981421

Governors would have an informal place to coordinate their efforts, but would not have any collective powers beyond that which they have as governors. It would just mean that production is better coordinated. This would not be part of the government, much less the legislative branch, but simply a thread where they could gather.

The senate was completely useless and never did anything in DG4. It was more of a problem than an organization. If the Governors want to have joint discussions, do it in a private chat room. Vote No on this poll.

No private chatrooms, please(although there's really no way to govern that, I guess).

Keep the Senate so that the Governors have a place to meet. Then if anyone is able to crack the magic code and find a proper use for the Senate, the mechanism is already in place. Otherwise, we can just think of it as a cozy lounge for our Guvs to discuss national interests. :)

Fine, but lets drop the name senate, and the official status. I'm fine with having an informal council of governors that isn't an official part of the government (like a citizen group, in a way).

Now that the vote is tied untill now, I wonder if there are people who are in favor of 'an informal council of governors' but voted against the existence of a senate.

I did. Because senate implies an elite council with some sort of power. :p

I could care less if there was an "informal council of governors" but they cannot have any power whatsoever.

The senate was completely useless and never did anything in DG4. It was more of a problem than an organization. If the Governors want to have joint discussions, do it in a private chat room. Vote No on this poll.

Seeing as how this is my first Demogame, I certainly don't have your experience with previous Senates. And this poll is closed now anyway. However, the Constitution does call for THREE branches of government. A Council of Governors cannot replace a Senate since governors are, by definition, executives of states or provinces. Whether a Legislative branch exerts its power or not, whether it is a problem or not, it cannot and should not be thrown away so lightly. Personally, I would vote for a more parliamentarian form of constitution with a Prime Minister instead of a President where the Chief Executive must interact continually with the Legislators. Besides, if you watch C-SPAN at all, the televised coverage of the House of Commons is much more lively than any coverage of the Senate or House of Representatives.

On a separate note, is there any reason why we can't have a House of Lords, too? Now that has to stir up somebody's passions. :king:

HOUSE OF LORDS!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!! That strongly emplies Nobility which is something I'm dead set against. Any minister (or citizen for that matter) who puts thier support behind nobility is a traitor to the idea of democracy. Democracy means equality and equality does not allow for nobility!

This system should be based more on the American System with a House of Representatives (the citizens in this case i guess), and an ELECTED Senate. I can't see how taking power away from elected assemblies can be a good thing.

To answer another question: It was asked what the Senate should do. It should be similar to real life. It should be able to propose laws, ammendments, conduct impeachment trials (after it goes through the judiciary of course), as well as propose government policies. For each point in my last sentence there should be a procedure. For Laws it should be proposed by a Senator or President and passed with a simple majority and subject to veto* by the President. For Ammendments it should be proposed by either a Senator, the President, a Minister, or a Provincial Governor and passed with a 75 pct majority. I'll Adress impeachment lower in this reply. For proposing Government policies** it should be proposed by any member of the government (including the Senators) passed with a 60 pct majority subject to veto* by either the president or the applicable minister. Also the senate should at all times consist of at least 3 Senators at the least and go up at the rate of 1 per province. Ill provide an exaple:

1 province - 3 Senators
2 province - 3 senators
3 province - 3 senators
4 province - 4 senators
5 province - 5 senators
etc.

Impeachment trials run as follows.

1. The question is proposed to the judiciary. If the Judiciary finds the performance of the official warrants possible impeachment then the matter is referred to the Senate for Impeachment proceedings.
2. During the Impeachment Proceedings the official up for impeachment will be represented by anyone he chooses (but by default by the JA and PD). The senate itself will choose a team of up to 2 Senators and no less than 1 to prosecute the case.
3. A special thread (not to be posted in by anyone but the representatives of both parties, witnesses, a judge to be appointed by a joint decision of all representatives, and impeachable official) will be opened and the proceeding shall be held there and if needed in a special chatroom to be named in advance.
4. When the judge (through due procedure) declares the proceedings concluded the Senate will vote on the matter (impeach/don't impeach/abstain) and the verdict of the Senate is final barring a declaration of an unfair proceeding by the Judicial branch of government.

* - vetos may be overridden with a majority of 80% or better
** - government policies should include power of the purse in some fashion?

i dont really see that impeachment trials will happen often or even at all but i felt it should be written in. furthermore, NO NOBILITY!

I would be willing to write something up to be proposed to the people if yall would like.

@ Bobby Lee - Basically it has been decide to detooth the Senate, as just have the Governors form a Council of Governors, where they can gather and talk about the good old days...I mean discuss issues pertenant to Provincial issues. :D Even when the Senate had teeth, I don't believe they were any kind of Nobility.

The Senate WAS the elected Governors before, and we did take their power away from them. :)

In your third paragraph, proposed laws and amendments are already handled by the Court, impeachment trials should be voted on in citizen trial polls, not in 3 person committees (more as the game grows). And policies are drawn up by the Heads of a Department or Branch (with regards to the WOTP). This is a perk for taking the Leadership role. Your suggestion of having a minimum of 3 Governors has been tried before and was deemed a failure, as Senators waiting in the wings seldom participated in the Senate votes on slider settings or Budget proposals.

Please feel free to draw up any proposals you wish concerning any part of the government, including the Senate or the Governors. We're always here to help.

The senate to be effective would have to be separate from the governors entirely. they would represent their provinces so obviously they would have to maintain a tie with the governor of the province but would in no way be subject to mandates by him...

as for policies of the government...let me revise and/or restate what i meant...the ministers would come up with policies which would be officially stated to the senate for approval. this means a general policy would be drawn up. also important treaties such as mutual protection pacts and military alliances would have to be approved but treaties such as RoP, Peace, and trade agreements would not. heres an example of i see it working:

The minister of Trade comes up with a trade proposal to make which will entail trading our extra spices for 2 gp per turn from say persia. this trade is ok without senate approval because it doesnt effect the budget...but if it were reversed it would because we would have to give up gold...

The Secretary of War (officially Military Minister) comes up with a general policy which is: "The military shall be upgraded over time and old units no longer of use shall be cut, furthermore the military will conduct demonstrations on the borders of (certain) hostile parties in order to discourage hostile action, furthermore the military shall engage in strong naval escort activities for our transports to the newly discovered islands and continents to the northwest and north of our position in order to better protect our chances of colonosation there." This policy only requires direct ratification on one point, that is the upgrades and removal of certain military units. This is because it directly involves the treasury...now for another policy of example: "The military wishes to increase its numbers through the recruitment of new units throughout the empire." this policy also requires ratification because of its dircet budgetary effect, if ratified the senate may draft a plan to be sent to all governors for the recruitment of the number of decided upon military units. That is the military can request 10 swordsmen but the Senate may only approve 6 and thereby issue a proclamation to all governors: "The Senate of Japanatica hereby decrees that a new policy of military expansion has been adopted. All provinces shall be required to produce proof of the production of one military unit to be completed no later than <insert in game date here>."

i hope those examples give a general idea of what im envisioning, basically the senate is empowered through power of the purse. as to impeachment trials i still stand behind my idea on how that works (and wish to clarify the whole senate votes on the issue but only 2 reps of senate participate in the hearing) but of course that is not important to the idea of a senate, slider settings should simply be a proposed policy of whatever minister it is who is officially in charge of that which should be proposed with the main policy and subject to a vote of yes or no, not 50, 60, 70, 80, etc...i revise what i said earlier about the senate being able to propose policy...only the ministers of the department but it should be subject to votes....

what i said about laws and ammendments: what i am saying here is they should be first voted on then proposed to the courts...pehaps this is already done by proposeing it directly to the people, and in such case this point is pretty much null/void

if you insist that the senators, separate from the governors will not participate without a province, then i should the logical course would be to simply wait until we have a minimum of 3 provinces and then hold elections for senators

This should probably be take up in the Citizens forum since this poll is closed.

probably, i need to read up on how to do this stuff...i would appreciate some advice PMed to me on generally how to conduct getting something of this nature put into the constituition

probably, i need to read up on how to do this stuff...i would appreciate some advice PMed to me on generally how to conduct getting something of this nature put into the constituition

Read the Judicial Thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=95439). I think everything you need is there. Be careful, though, there is a lot of information and not all of it is apparent at first glance. So read it carefully. I made a lot of mistakes. Even had two of my polls invalidated. You just have to keep plugging away at it. As hard as it is getting it to a vote, the hardest part is getting enough people to support you. Good luck!

Bobby Lee, I really like the ideas that you have proposed above, and they would work great in a game designed to accomodate them. I played briefly in a game on another website that dealt with the same premise as this, but was based on Republics instead of Provinces, and had a different form of government mechanics. Unfortunately, the game dwindled away to nothingness because of low participation. But if the game you're describing ever came to fruition, it sounds like a good game to be in. I just don't think these ideas will work here. I could be wrong.

In order for a Senate to represent "the people" in a godgame like CIV, they have to empathize with the citizens, the happy, content and unhappy. In order for Civ to work in a fashion with two representative houses, a senate and a council of governors, the Senate would need an ingame set of sanctions. That could be public unrest, so that the senator could tip the balance of happy/unhappy with 1-3 citizens each way. Since we are nok talking about CIV-Sims, which could well be a part of CIV 4, there is no way we can count on the people that form the DG to represent "each province" in game. A true senate pass laws, vetos, nominate people for high offices, in fact our various polls we run through may well emulate the US Senate. Adn with two houses, we could as well take the Japanese Diet with their Senate, their house of councillors.
Who said we wanted a US model Senate, after Florida 2000 many people would rather not seek to emulate a US institutional model, be it in game or reality.

So, for the purposes of a Senate, we could just say that when we have the first five provinces in place, players could decide on their residence and press the Ministry in an organized fashion. Citizen groups could be "provinces" and so on.

But since few of us here has a personal affiliation to a vrtiual province they never even played in, heck, I do not care about my own IRL province even, how could we expect people to dedicate a lot of their sparetime doing this. With short terms as 1 month per minister, the Senatorial function of longer terms, US six years to Congress 2 years, doe s not fit into the ingame model.
do not forget this is a game, with some 2 dozen active people, 'I am impressed that we actually have govt and press groups up and running.

So be real, no senate.

@Provolution - You have applied too much of the real life to my idea, i believe i mentioned real life so that is probably my fault. I never actually said the model had to be named as a Senate but I cannot possibly comply with an idea to name it a House of Lords or anything of the sort. The purposes of my Senate have been redrawn and refitted for this game to some extent and a discussion has been posted in the Citizens forum. Currently I hold the idea of creating a Senate but giving it only the power of the purse. My foreign policy ideas, law, ammendment, etc. ideas have all been dismissed as they are all already controlled by the people either through precedent or law. I don't see why each province should not elect its own Senator. Whether people are attached to thier provinces in game or not is not an issue it just means everyone may only vote in one Senate race.

On a separate note, I must say I am horrified with a few of your suggestions about real life whether true or not. The idea that you are not truly attached to your own province/state in real life is horrifying to me. Maybe it is because I'm from Texas but I can't see myself living in any other State unless major outside factors got involved. Your suggestion about the US system implies it is faulty. I would have to say that that especially sickens me. The US system, as it was first laid down, is by far the best system ever created beyond that of no government at all (which I should add I don't see as possible in today's world). The only problem with it is the fact that it has been perverted, twisted, and ultimately undermined until it no longer is healthy. The people in power over it are the ones responsible for any supposed issues with the system. I am not saying that it is perfect, no, even the founding fathers acknowledged that changes might be required and therefor allowed for ammendments to the constituition and under no circumstances will I question those great men for they proved thier worth a million times over. But that is all off subject and I will leave it alone now, if you wish to respond PM me. No ill feelings.