Rise of the American Empire

1) Columbia
2) Hesperia
3) any of the other 3 options in no particular order.

Looming over the convention is naturally the question of what to do with the approximate 18 million plus people in the occupied Mandate territories.

The Pacifican delegation offers the following solution: the former territories will become federal land during the de-Iccanization process. Afterwards, the Republic of Texas will begin the process of synchronising its government structures and bureaucracy, alongside the infrastructure of the former lands with Federal help. Once all of that is over, the territories will become a part of the Republic of Texas.
 
The Bermudian Institute of Economic Growth has developed the Economic Wellbeing Index (EWI) to compare American nations by EP income per capita, to complement the Economic Development Index (EDI) which measures EP income alone. A nation with an average EP income per capita has an EWI score of 1.00, and the listed nations are divided into four groups: Far Above Average, Above Average, Average and Below Average.

The national scores in the Economic Wellbeing Index have been calculated using confirmed population numbers from the All-American Census and other statistical data collected by the TANICIUS (Toda América! Nongovernmental Institute of Commerce, Industry and Universal Statistics).

Spoiler formula for calculating a nation's EWI score :
[EWI] = E/L - (T/P)/L + 1

E = a nation's EP income per capita
L = largest individual EP income per capita
T = total EP income of all included nations
P = total population of all included nations
Economic Wellbeing Index, Spring 2065
|
Far Above Average | (>2x average EP income per capita)
Republic of Louisiana|1.60
Sparta|1.49
United States of America|1.41
|
Above Average | (≥1.25x average EP income per capita)
Jefferson|1.36
Republic of Tennessee|1.33
Cherokee Nation|1.29
Duluth-Superior|1.26
New York City|1.23
Popular Federation of Ontario|1.22
Commonwealth of Bermuda and Carolina|1.17
|
Average | (<1.25x and >0.75x average EP income per capita)
Boston Commune|1.10
Colorado|1.09
Republic of Texas|1.09
Free State of Quebec|1.07
American Federation of Syndicates|1.01
Confederate States of Georgia|1.00
Empire of Chicago|1.00
Kingdom of Alberta|0.95
Republic of Virginia|0.90
|
Below Average | (≤0.75x average EP income per capita)
Navajo Nation|0.88
Lenape Commonwealth|0.80
Kingdom of Florida|0.70
Pacifica|0.69
 
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  1. America
  2. Hesperia
  3. Vespucci
  4. Bartolommeo
  5. North America
  6. Magellica
  7. Columbia
  8. Usonia
  9. Continental _
 
1. Continental _
2. North America
3. America
4. Usonia
5. Hesperia
6. Magellica
7. Bartolommeo
8. Vespucci
9. Columbia
 
Shouldn't the ballot be secret? For the democratic process' sake and all.

It's a convention, so I don't think secrecy is warranted. Moreover I'm not sure of a way of doing a secret ballot that participants could easily trust.

EDIT:

Seeing as everyone else has voted and shows no problems with the name list nor the voting method, NYC will put its vote in as well:

1. Continental _
2. North America
3. Usonia
4. America
 
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The results of our name vote is in and the winning name is Hesperia. A more detailed tally can be found here (credit goes to J.K. Stockholme for counting votes): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B7cbnbAtSUE9baOzML6jbKEgep6WYFU5rMioYYluvjU

Now before we move on to the next step on the agenda put forward by NYC, which they will post more about when they have the time, we should discuss what to do with Hesperia for an official name. Below are some ideas:

Hesperia (using the short form without any additions)
Union of Hesperia
Federation of Hesperia
Continental Federation of Hesperia (this one combines the two names that made it into the final voting round)
Confederation of Hesperia
Hesperian Union
Hesperian Federation
Hesperian Confederation
Federated States of Hesperia
United States of Hesperia

My favorites of these are Continental Federation of Hesperia, Federated States of Hesperia and Union of Hesperia (in that order). I also prefer the forms where Hesperia is used as a noun over those with the adjective Hesperian. What do the other participants think of an official name?
 
Continental Federation of Hesperia is a pretty nifty way of getting both of the most popular proposed names (Hesperia won with by a margin of 1 vote) in one package.
 
+1 for Continental Federation of Hesperia
 
Colorado backs Continental Federation of Hesperia.

Florida backs Continental Federation of Hesperia.

Virginia backs Continental Federation of Hesperia.

Louisianan, Chicagoan, Texan, Jeffersonian, Utahan, Spartan, and Georgian delegations see where the wind is blowing and throw their lot behind the CFH title.
 
Issue #2 - Structure of Government

Let's move on to the first substantive issue. Under this issue there are three sub-issues:
a. Atlantic Federation Design vs. Other Ideas
b. Electoral Rules (who can vote, candidate tests/restrictions, voting process)
c. Names of Things (Chancellor vs. President, Council vs. Senate etc.)​

For the first, there are currently two main proposals on the table for a federal structure - the Atlantic design and the Directorial system.

The Atlantic Design

In the Atlantic design there are two chambers of the legislature - Congress and the Federal Council.

Congress is a body of elected representatives where one half of the seats are population-based voting districts and the other half are allotted equally between states, elected via a separate, state-wide ballot. All elections are handled using single transferable vote, with states serving as multi-member districts.

Each state also has one seat on the Federal Council, with the seat filled (nominally) by the heads of government of member states in the union - (though designated representatives may carry out their functions). The Federal Council must approve Congressional legislation by simple majority, super-majority, or unanimity, depending on subject matter.

The leader of the federal government is whichever party leader in Congress can command a majority of seats - this leader (Chancellor, President, whatever) possesses a mandate to create a federal cabinet of ministers, to run the government.

The Directorial System

In the Directorial system, there would be a House of Representatives and a Council of States - collectively referred to as Congress. These would be functionally equivalent to their respective variants in the Atlantic design.

Following each congressional election Congress would sit in a joint session to elect the members of an executive committee - which would be called the Federal Council (not be confused with the upper chamber of the Atlantic design), who would serve together as a multi-person head of state and head of government with equal powers. Only members of the House of Representatives are eligible Councillor candidates.

Each Councillor would also be the head of a federal department if we have those (such as the Department of Justice or the State Department). The Federal Council would therefore be a cabinet as well as the executive of the state. This would look quite like what is used in Switzerland.

One of the Councillors would be selected as the Chair of the Council (either by the joint session of Congress or the Federal Council members internally) - they would not have any special powers, however they would be first point of contact as diplomatic representative, and would chair meetings of the Federal Council. The position of Chair would have a one-year term, with no individual Councillor allowed to remain Chair for more than 2 years.

Electoral Rules

So far there have been a few proposals regarding the electoral rules of the new union. Both of the above proposals presume an STV voting method (ranked ballots with multi-member districts) - though that can be opened to debate as well.

The most contentious proposal is to have literacy tests for candidates to the highest offices - such a test would be required for party leaders (in the Atlantic design) or presumably Councillors (in the Directorial system).

We should also determine term lengths for the offices in whichever structure we go with, whether there are term limits, and any rules regarding the creation of voting districts (e.g. should there be a national independent body or state-level bodies).

-

NYC suggests a discussion period without a time-limit until a consensus or clear voting blocs arise, at which point we can hold a vote or move forward with a consensus proposal.
 
The Cherokee Nation backs the Directorial System.

We strongly believe that a bare minimum of scientific knowledge should be required to serve as an elected representative, but since that idea seems to be unpopular we will settle for scientific literacy being required to serve as a party leader or council member.
 
Bermuda and Carolina too backs the Directorial System, seeing as how it was our idea in the first place. We believe that the benefit of such a system is that vesting the executive power in more than one person would make for a balance between different states and different parties, allowing for a coalition presidency if there is a coalition of parties holding majority in the House of Representatives for example. An additional suggestion is to perhaps make it so that Councillors must be from different states, even if they represent the same party or coalition of parties in power? Our initial proposal also intended to have a one-year term limit for Chair of the Council, not allowing the re-election of a sitting Chair, rather than the two years which was expressed in the description above.

(Edit: If it wasn't clear enough, let me explain the names in the directorial system again. House of Representative would be the elected lower house, Council of States would be the upper house with representatives from state governments, and Federal Council would be the directorial executive. The only real difference between the two proposals is how the executive works.)

We agree with the voting methods for elections, and there hasn't been any counter-proposals yet so it sounds quite uncontroversial.

The literacy tests however worry us. While we do hear what the Cherokee Nation means by it, and why they want such a system, we still feel queasy about the idea of requiring a test for candidating for certain offices. Even with good intentions behind it, it is something that could grow to become a corrupt practice of keeping certain parties out of the rooms of power - for completely different reasons than those imagined now. Bermuda and Carolina is willing to compromise on this issue if it turns out that nobody else is with us on this, but we would like to hear thoughts from its supporters on how you plan to avoid potential abuse.
 
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NYC has a few questions about the directorial system:

1. What does a joint session of Congress mean in terms of authority to select Councillors? Does the Council of States have the ability to deny Councillors by majority vote? Does each Councillor pass through to the Federal Council one by one, or do they get voted on as a group? How do parties get involved in this process?

2. Is it expected that the Federal Council would be mostly composed of representatives from the same party? I.e. if there were a majority in the House of one party, would they be expected to have full power over the Federal Council?

3. How are disagreements among Councillors resolved?

NYC's only reservations about the directorial system are that it seems to unnecessarily complicate decision-making at the highest level. We would want to avoid gridlock within the head of state itself - not sure how party politics affects that. What benefit does having a multi-person office have that a single-person office doesn't?

NYC has no problem with literacy tests for the highest offices so long as they are undertaken by an independent body.
 
Limiting corruption in the chancellor/councilor test; how about everyone in the National Academy of Sciences (or new equivalent) is registered, all having the ability to remove their names from the list if they desire, and then a computer program randomly selects x people from each society to review, and- if necessary- alter the test questions. Once the questions have been determined, the candidates should take the test in an isolated room. They give up internet access when they enter the room and take the test on a computer, which automatically grades them. In the event the computer is having difficulty evaluating a question, send the question and answer to 3 different qualified people randomly selected from the aforementioned list. The question/answer pair will have no name attached to it and at no point do any of the graders learn who it was they were grading, nor do any of the test-takers learn who graded them.
 
To answer the questions posed by NYC:

1. This depends on how we want do define "joint session". I haven't put too much thought into it but I borrowed the joint session of Congress apointment thing from pre-plague Switzerland, where it meant that both houses gather as one body and vote. I can see now how this proves problematic with our upper house's composition of only 1 representative per state, the head of government. How were we thinking of appointing the President in the Atlantic Federation system? This would basically be like appointing x number of Presidents, because it sounds like there would not be a direct election of the executive there either, but rather depend on majorities in the parliament?

1/2 (the questions float together) In the Swiss system, Councillors are appointed individually to a seat, not as a group. Throughout history this has worked in two ways: in the beginning it was always a majority government, either party or coalition, who had their nominated members elected to the Council because they had the votes in the parliament to appoint them. Over time Swiss parties made a deal so that the Council would have all the major parties regardless of ideology represented in a "grand coalition", but this was however only a customary agreement between parties and not put into legislation so the majority still could in theory appoint only themselves. The way I see it going down in this future confederation is that parties can make agreements to support one another's candidates for the Council, but in the end the parliamentary majority would have the biggest say in who sits on the council. With a multitude of states with a multitude of prevailing ideologies, despite our shared ideals, this setup allows for an easier sharing of power between a coalition of parties if that is a situation that was to arise, which is likely to happen now that we most certainly won't have a two-party system. Combining this with a limit on how many Councillors can be representatives from the same state ensures that there is a power balance between states even within a majority coalition. That way we can't have a party with representatives from one or two states only take up the entire council.

3. This is a good question. Imagine that rather than the President making a final decision on advice from their cabinet members, the cabinet members are together the President. They would decide by a majority vote what action the executive council is to take and while they may not agree individually they would still be acting as one body. In Switzerland, this principle of unity was preserved by Council votes not being open to the public and records being sealed for 50 years, so that there is no knowledge of which Councillors voted for or against but rather only what the Council as a whole voted for or against. I'm not sure I support this secrecy, but the point I wanted to stress is that Council doesn't necessarily equal every individual Councillor. It is their combined majority will that counts. In Switzerland during the era of grand coalitions decisions were often reached by consensus either way but I believe if we make this a requirement, the Federal Council might not work smoothly in the case of an uncooperative Councillor.

The number of Councillors would have to be decided on aswell, depending on how many federal departments there will be - smaller or related departments can be combined under one Councillor. An uneven number would be a good idea to avoid a 50/50 deadlock in Council votes.
 
System Votes

Directorial System

Florida

Colorado. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Louisiana. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Georgia. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Sparta. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Texas. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Jefferson. Supports the motion to require Department heads be from different states.

Atlantic System


Chicago.

AR. The AR feels a unified leadership supervising the Departments while remaining subject to Congress has advantages over a system where the Executive would bargain within itself.

Virginia.

Literacy Test Votes

Yea

Jefferson
Colorado
Texas
Louisiana

Nay

Virginia
Chicago
AR
Georgia

Recommendations

Jefferson suggests, should the Directorial system be adopted, that members of the Federal Council not be required to be members of Congress. This is particularly so in the event of literacy tests, so as to ensure that there's a broad pool of candidates (there's always a possibility Congress will have a deficit of eligible people if the tests don't apply to all Congress members).

Virginia proposes the exact size of Congress be set by statute, so as to allow it to change its size in response to need, while of course every state gets at least two representatives in the lower house (one for the population half, one for the state half).

Virginia proposes borrowing an idea from the old US Constitution by having the leader of one of the Houses of Congress vote in the event of a tie in the Federal Council. This reaffirms legislative supremacy by allowing the legislature to break executive gridlock, while being more desirable than debating dissolving or reshuffling the government. Virginia personally supports the Speaker of the House, representing the more democratic part of Congress, as the one to cast a tie breaking vote in the hopes that the Federal Council's decision will reflect a national, popular interest.

The AR and Georgia propose that half a state's seats be allocated by single member, IRV ballots, while the other half are chosen by STV in a statewide multi-member district. In the event of an uneven number of seats for a state, the state can decide whether the odd seat is decided by the STV pool or by a single member district. As an example, Georgia can have 5 seats allotted from equal representation and 4 allotted based on population, for 9 total. Within the state, 4 seats are chosen by statewide STV, 4 by single member IRV districts, and the 9th seat will be allotted based on the state law, though it must be added to the STV pool or be another single member district. Naturally, single member districts should be roughly equal in population. By having single member districts, local interests can be carried to the federal level, making sure every community has a voice. Between these single member districts, the statewide STV districts, and the Federal Council, national, state and local interests are all represented in government.
 
In response to Cherokee:​

Sounds good to me! Then the literacy tests will be the purview of a national academic organization.

In response to Bermuda:​

1. In the Atlantic design, it's a classic parliamentary system. Whoever commands a majority in the lower house receives the Presidency/Chancellorship. The upper house is just a check, it has no influence over who is leader of the nation.

So how do you suggest the directorial system selects its directors? What is the nominating process for each member on the council?

2. So you would leave the party-composition open to whatever happens I infer? That's fine for me, but then the big question is above - what is the exact process for selecting the members of the council.

3. So are all disputes between Councillors will be handled by majority vote in your view? Do you suggest secrecy of voting?

4. How many Councillors do you suggest? Five, seven?

In response to Others:​

Can each of them clarify which system they are referring to?
 
Bermuda can agree to the plan put forward by the Cherokee regarding the tests and follow New York City on that point.

Alright, so the directorial system would also be a parliamentary one, and if the upper house is not used for appointing the executive in the Atlantic design, it should probably not be used in the directorial design either. So in that case, I would say only the lower house representatives should be electing the federal Councillors.

As for the nominating process, parties would nominate candidates either for every Council position or only specific Council position if they have for example agreed to support another party's candidate (which would be the case in coalition governments). So for example, each "interested" party would nominate a Federal Councillor to head the Federal Department of State, and the House of Representatives would then vote on who to appoint for that position. Then do the same with the other Council positions. If no candidate for a Council position reaches a majority of the vote, there should be a second round of voting with the two candidates who received the most votes. To try and avoid a Council with members entirely from one state, each party would be allowed to nominate a maximum of two candidates from the same state. There can of course also be independent candidates nominating themselves for a Council position but they would still need to gather support from other representatives to be elected. I hope this answers both question 1 and 2 from New York.

I think Jefferson has a good point about who should be available to be nominated, and can agree to allowing non-parliamentary candidates for Councillor if we go with the directorial system and others agree with it aswell.

As for New York's question 3 and 4. Yes, Council decisions should be decided by a majority vote. I suggest there is a secrecy of voting to preserve their unity outwards as a Council, but that records of Council meetings are otherwise handled in the same way as any Cabinet meeting would in the Atlantic design or the former United States. I am not sure what the standard is here. 7 Councillors are a good amount as it is enough to sort federal functions under 7 main departments, but not too many to make the Council too big for an executive body.

Ideas for 7 federal departments not set in stone, feel free to comment or come up with your own suggestions:
Federal Department of State
Federal Department of Justice
Federal Department of Finance
Federal Department of Defense
Federal Department of the Interior
Federal Department of Education, Health and Human Services
Federal Department of the Environment, Energy and Transportation

And yes, when you speak of the lower and upper house of parliament, and the executive council in the directorial system, please make sure it is known which you are referring to since there are some name overlaps in the proposals. I would however want to say that even if we end up going with the Atlantic design over the directorial system, House of Representatives and Council of States are in my opinion still better names.

EDIT: I forgot to respond to what Virginia, Georgia and the AR had to say. Having the Speaker of the House (lower house) resolve ties in the Council of States/Federal Council (upper house) sounds like a good idea to me.

As for the proposal of combining IRV single-member districts with STV multi-member districts, I support it. It sounds like a good way of balancing local and regional interests.
 
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Can each of them clarify which system they are referring to?

All proposals apply to both systems, with the exception of Virginia's proposal that a leader of one House of Congress have the power to break ties in the Executive the Directorial system.

I would however want to say that even if we end up going with the Atlantic design over the directorial system, House of Representatives and Council of States are in my opinion still better names.

EDIT: I forgot to respond to what Virginia, Georgia and the AR had to say. Having the Speaker of the House (lower house) resolve ties in the Council of States/Federal Council (upper house) sounds like a good idea to me.

Virginia should clarify that it is referring to the Directorial system alone with its proposal. The idea is that rather than necessarily having an odd number of departments, there can be a provision to have the legislative leader of one House able to cast votes only in instances of gridlock in the Executive. On the other hand, having the lower house's Speaker able to cast a tiebreaking vote in the upper house reaffirms the ultimate supremacy of the lower body, while not undermining the upper house's status as a check on the lower.
 
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