As of today, the Administrator responds to two recent change requests to this website as follows:

Submission Date: Nov 19, 2009

Submitted by: President Hock

Change Request: on the succession of the president

The following Substantive Proposition was approved today by the people, and I am submitting it to you on their behalf:

Recalling Article III (The Presidency) of the Constitution:

5) The President shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Per change request 13/2009, submitted by President McVicker, 'absence' is also acknowledged as a reason for impeachment.

It is proposed that the following be added to section 5):

If the President is removed from office by impeachment or other lawful means, the line of succession will follow the priority of listing of officials in the 'Officials' page. It is acknowledged that not every President will create the same cabinet (number of positions or title names). Thus, the cabinet member listed on the top of the list will succeed the President. If that official is unable to serve, then the next official down the list is selected, etc., until an able official is found. Only officials who have gained their position through direct election or other appropriate nomination voting can succeed the President (The staff of the Post and the Judiciary are not in the line of sucession). If no able official can succeed the President, then a new Presidential election will be called by the Administrator.

(Original Proposition Posted by Gregory Hock on 11/10/2009)

Note: The phrase "(The staff of the Post and the Judiciary are not in the line of succesion)" was added to the original proposition based on review comments and agreed upon by the author.

At the moment, the president can prematurely leave his / her office in one of the following two ways:

1. The President emigrates

2. The president is constitutionally removed from his office for the breach of the Terms & Conditions.

In any of these cases, the president is either not willing, or not suitable to perform his / her job and should not have any further influence on the political life of Titulia.

On the other hand, the citizens listed on the Officials page are not necessarily elected officials. They are appointed by the president.

This proposition basically means that the succeeding president would be appointed by the outgoing president, who already proved himself unsuitable or unwilling to serve the republic.

We do not want to allow this, therefore this change request is rejected.

In case of the president leaving prematurely for any of these two reasons, elections will be called immediately, and the republic will have to exist without a president for 9 - 12 days. We see this as a lesser problem than having a president selected and appointed by an unsuitable person.  

Status: Rejected.

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Submission Date: Oct 30, 2009

Submitted by: President McVicker

Change Request: on the creation of a legislature

The legislature would consist of two houses.

The lower house would consist of the entire citizenry (as now) and would be the place where any new propositions were introduced. Any citizen would be able to submit a proposition to this house, including the President, cabinet members and members of Congress. Propositions would reach substantive status based upon whatever proposition legislation exists at that point, whether it be as now, or amended. Nomination and budget propositions would only require a simple affirmative majority in this house, in order to pass. As now, nomination and budget propositions would not be required to pass to substantive status and both of these forms of proposition would be active for 5 days only. All other original propositions would be active for 7 days only.

The upper house would consist of those members elected to Congress by the citizens and would act as an amending and revising body. It would receive any propositions that had reached substantive status in the lower house. It would discuss the proposition and apply any amendments or revisions that it thought were necessary. A substantive proposition would be active for 3 days, after which voting (by Congress) would close.

Without substantial* amendment a simple affirmative majority** would be required to pass the proposition, at which point it would be put forward for implementation (either by admin, or by the executive).

If substantial* amendment (to the proposition) has been instituted and passed, (voting rules as outlined previously) then the proposition returns to the lower house, where a simple affirmative majority (over 3 days) is required to pass the proposition, at which point it would be put forward for implementation, as already outlined above. If the amended proposition is rejected by the lower house, then it returns to the upper house for further amendment or revision (or to return to it's original form). The process would proceed as previously, with the legislation either being passed without substantial* amendment (as per the original proposition) and forwarded for implementation, or it being returned to the lower house for a further vote, with the same rules applying as before.

If amended propositions are rejected by the lower house on two occasions then the upper house must vote on the un-amended propostion, (as per the original proposition) with the same voting rules as outlined (for the upper house) previously. At this stage the proposition would either be passed or rejected.

*(substantial is taken to mean any revision or amendment to the original proposition that would change its effect in practice, or the intent of the original proposer).

** 60% (3/5) of Congress must vote in order for any vote to be legal. Any tied vote would go to the casting vote of the VP.

Electoral Process & Organisation (for Congress)

For the purposes of congressional elections, Titulia would be divided into five regions/states/counties/constituencies. They would consist of Central, Northern, Eastern, Southern and Western Titulia. These regions would correspond to the map of Titulia and their precise areas would be agreed upon by proposition, after submission by the executive. I would propose that the 'Central' area be slighly smaller than the other areas, as this is, at present, the heart of Titulia and thus has more 'weight' than the outlying areas of Titulia.

All citizens would be required to register for one, and only one of these areas. Thus if a citizen registers themselves in Southern Titulia, they may only vote for congressional candidates that are standing for the seat of Southern Titulia.

Similarly, those who wish to stand for Congress, may only stand in whichever region they are registered in.

Citizens may change their registration during the one week period immediately after Congressional elections have taken place in the area they wish to change their registration to. This will allow freedom of movement without electoral manipulation. For similar reasons citizens may only change their registration a maximum of 3 times in a calendar year and there must be a 2 month interval between changes of registration.

Any citizen registered in a particualr area may stand for that seat.

The candidate receiving the most votes will be elected to Congress for that region. In the event of a tie, a run-off election consisting of the tied candidates only, shall take place. A sitting member of Congress will remain in place until the electoral process has been resolved.

Elections shall take place over 5 days. Run-off elections shall take place over 3 days. There will be no gap between elections and any run-off elections.

Nationally, congressional elections shall take place each week in one of the 5 regions. This shall occur on a rotational basis. Thus one week Central shall hold elections, the following week Northern, then Eastern etc, until all have held elections and the process returns to Central. I'd suggest the rotation follow this structure: Central/Northern/Eastern/Southern/Western.

This change request is accepted in principle, i.e. there will be an elected legislature.

However:

1. The election and functioning of the legislature, as described in the request, is extremely complicated in terms of software development, therefore we will be proposing a phased implementation of these functionalities.

2. Some aspects of the above design raise difficulties that will require some changes to this plan. The Administrator will discuss these difficulties with the President in detail to come up with a final version.

Status: Under detailed consideration.