Ruleset: Appointments, Vacancies and You!

[ravensfire]

The small group of citizens gathered to hear the last ruling from the Court at the Big Rock. Seeing the baliff walk towards the bench the 3 Justices sat on, the chatter quieted. Although a quiet term, there were some mutterings of possible disagreements over this decision. Seom citizens were here for the ruling, others were here for a possible arguement. Most, however, just didn't have anything better to do.

"Hear ya, the citizens of Yasutan," called the baliff, "the words of the Judiciary. The honorable, wait, can I really say that? Ravensfire? Honorable? After what happened last week? What? Fine, I'll finish. The honorable Ravensfire presiding, the honorable Octavian X and the honorable Lockesdonkey."

Ravensfire swung his stick against the table in front of him, calling the court to order. "I thank the baliff, and remind him that it wasn't my fault she lied about her boyfriend!"

"Today, the court rules on the final question brought before us, but also starts a discussion on that question. Please, allow me to finish. Copies of the ruling by each Justice will be made available at the end."

"DaveShack asked us to determine if citizens already holding an elected office could be appointed to another elected office. The implications of this are interesting - it would be possible for someone to hold multiple offices, even though we only allow citizens to run for just one office!"

"The election law is quite clear on this matter - one citizen, one nomination. A quick review of our oldest records shows that this was the preferred approach. Oddly though, the section of law concerning appointments is silent on this matter. I find that I must chastise my anscestor that wrote that section, and did not specify an approach."

"Absent any guidance, and with the generally permissive aspect of our rules, this Court rules that no law prohibits appointing a citizen to an elected office if that citizen already holds an elected office."

-----------------------------------------

Whew - that's the setup for this discussion - appointments, vacant offices and you!

So, last term the Judiciary said that people holding an elected office can be appointed to hold another elected office.

What do you think? Should this be allowed? Should it be allowed under certain conditions?

Here's the plan - we'll talk about this for a couple of days, and then I'll post a poll asking if we should allow this or not. If people say it should be allowed, we'll work on when it would be allowed (probably with a couple more days of discussion, and then another poll). Once all the polling is done, I'll put together an amendment for the appointment section that will try to make sure we don't have to do this again!

Thanks!
-- Ravensfire

 

[Hyronymus]

I think we should disallow it with one exception: citizens that accepted an office should also be able to run for DP. If we do allow people to hold two offices (DP not counted!) I'm afraid we will face coups with the sole intention to hold multiple offices. As explained yesterday by someone (sorry) that is the only way to gain control of multiple offices.

 

[grant2004]

I don't see people here being power hungry enough to stage coups to take control of two offices. Nor do I see such coups succeeding.

The ability to appoint a citizen to two offices may have uses in some areas, for example with the current discussion of converting the system of elders to a system of governors. The transition to a new form of government might be aided by giving an elder control of two cities, so that an extra Aimag didn't need to be formed to keep that new appointed elder in office.

I believe the ability to appoint a citizen to two offices is well checked by the current system. I don't think citizens will allow such a thing to happen unless there is a good reason for it. If for some reason we don't like the appointment of one person to two offices, we can always put up a confirmation poll, or stage a coup.

 

[Joe Harker]

I think people start coupin to hold more than one office i would hope the rest of us would stop it if it seemed to have the wrong intention

 

[Hyronymus]

I had a thought about couping. I think we should allow for people to demote an Official and appoint someone else. I believe it is every citizen's right to demote an Official but I do not believe it's every citizen's duty to take up the position himself.

 

[Joe Harker]

I had a thought about couping. I think we should allow for people to demote an Official and appoint someone else. I believe it is every citizen's right to demote an Official but I do not believe it's every citizen's duty to take up the position himself.

I agree with that

 

[Hyronymus]

I agree with that

, good. That however does call for a change too. I think the term demoting is more political correct than couping too by the way. A coup has a hostile connotation to me while demoting sounds more wooly. But that's just verbal knit-picking.

 

[Joe Harker]

But that's just verbal knit-picking.

It is just a bit

 

[ordinaryguy]

I had a thought about couping. I think we should allow for people to demote an Official and appoint someone else. I believe it is every citizen's right to demote an Official but I do not believe it's every citizen's duty to take up the position himself.

Just some comments.

You worked hard for a coup and you don't want the office? People voted in support of you and you just don't take over? How is the game going to progress?

 

[Hyronymus]

You can work hard for a coup because you have an ethical motivation or whatever but you may not have the time to take care of the Office yourself. And people shouldn't vote in support of whoever plans a coup of course, they should vote for the coup if they agree with the motivation of the coup!

Progression of the game can be guaranteed even if the initiator of the coup doesn't want to take the position of the Official. It's actually quite simple: if you initiate a coup but don't want to take the position of the Official you must produce someone who is willing to take the position of the Official. Of course this person must be produced upon initiating the coup, not afterwards.

 

[ordinaryguy]

You can work hard for a coup because you have an ethical motivation or whatever but you may not have the time to take care of the Office yourself. And people shouldn't vote in support of whoever plans a coup of course, they should vote for the coup if they agree with the motivation of the coup!

Progression of the game can be guaranteed even if the initiator of the coup doesn't want to take the position of the Official. It's actually quite simple: if you initiate a coup but don't want to take the position of the Official you must produce someone who is willing to take the position of the Official. Of course this person must be produced upon initiating the coup, not afterwards.

I see your point. But citizens should be discerning enough to see if the coup is for real and has a purpose, so I don't think a spur-of-the-moment coup is going to succeed. Plus elected offices had quite a good majority, so it makes the possibility of a coup succedding even lower.

 

[grant2004]

people may be elected with large margins, but if they make a large mistake mid-term then I'm sure there would be a lot of people willing to change their votes. I disagree with the idea of a coup initiator not taking the office, it seems preferable for the person they want to hold the office to simply start the coup in the first place. The person who wants the coup but not the office can send a PM suggesting a coup and offering their support if he wants to get things kicked off.

 

[ravensfire]

On appointments to a vacant office, how about this change.

The Chieftain must post an announcement that they have a vacant office to fill. Any time after that announcement, the Chieftain may appoint any citizen not currently holding an elected office to the vacant office. After 48 hours from that announcement, if no citizen not holding an elected office expresses interest in the vacant office, the Chieftain may appoint any citizen to that office.

This would mean that if any citizen not holding an office expressed interest, they would have to be appointed before someone that already is holding an office. That should eliminate the problems of centralizing power if others are interested. If nobody is interested, we can still have someone appointed so we don't have a vacancy.

-- Ravensfire

 

[dutchfire]

The Chieftain must post an announcement that they have a vacant office to fill. Any time after that announcement, the Chieftain may appoint any citizen not currently holding an elected office to the vacant office. After 48 hours from that announcement, if no citizen not holding an elected office expresses interest in the vacant office, the Chieftain may appoint any citizen to that office.

Been there, never want to be there again.

 

[Conroe]

Slightly off-topic and long-winded ... my apologies ...

I had a thought about couping. I think we should allow for people to demote an Official and appoint someone else. I believe it is every citizen's right to demote an Official but I do not believe it's every citizen's duty to take up the position himself.

Its called a recall election. The way it works (in real life) is that a petition is circulated to recall an elected official. If enough people sign the petition it is put on the ballot and a recall election will occur. This happened in California a few years back when Governor Gray Davis was recalled. Arnold Schwarzneggar was elected Governor in his place.

, good. That however does call for a change too. I think the term demoting is more political correct than couping too by the way. A coup has a hostile connotation to me while demoting sounds more wooly.

Its not that it is politically correct, it is two different actions. A recall is something that is written into a constitution and provides for an orderly way for the citizenry to remove an elected official.

There is also impeachment where elected officials vote to remove other elected officials. This is also a constitutionaly defined process.

A coup, as you inferred, is a hostile action. No question about it. It is not normally defined in a constitution. And in fact the constitution is normally thrown out as a part of the coup. A coup is stopped when the established government (or the citizenry who have taken up arms) is able to forcibly prevent the government from being overthrown. For this reason, most coups are military coups, where it is the government's own armed forces that initiate the coup.

 

[DaveShack]

After 48 hours from that announcement, if no citizen not holding an elected office expresses interest in the vacant office, the Chieftain may appoint any citizen to that office.

Been there, never want to be there again.

Beat me to it.

 

[ravensfire]

Yeah, I know. I remember that far, far too well. I tried to be very, very precise in the wording - but I'll take any advice.

Here's what I think should happen. A vacant office should go to a citizen expressing interest that doesn't already hold an office. After 2 days, any citizen can be appointed to the vacant office. The appointment can be made at any time after the Chieftain posts that there is a vacant office.

-- Ravensfire

 

[Cyc]

Hehehe....

I still believe in this. Ravensfire has the right idea.

 

[Falcon02]

Dutchfire and DaveShack... I'm afraid I missed the said events, what happened that makes you guys so concerned about that policy?

 

[ravensfire]

In a previous DG, a similar provision that wasn't quite exact in wording caused a fair amount of disturbance. They're concerned that if this wording isn't clear and exact, we could have the same situation.

-- Ravensfire