Chair of Assembly: Role, Duties, Powers Need Definition

[Farengeto]

It's not though. The CoA doesn't have some long role because all it's supposed to be is an administrative role similar to that of a speaker in real world governments.


http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaker_(politics)


It's job is to maintain assembly debate and represent the assembly and act as a liaison between the cabinet and assembly. That's it. There's no big executive role behind, and I think the only reason it's even in the cabinet is so it can report between the two. If you ask me the entire role could be replaced by an appointed one an still do its job just as well.


There's a reason I struggled trying to follow through with my CoA candidacy; how do you run for a position when even your own voters can't agree on how it's supposed to work?

[Sandaoguo]

The representative role lies in the liaison responsibility. The rest is all administrative. So I'm not sure we're actually in disagreement there, Farengeto. Unless you think the Chair shouldn't be allowed to participate or vote in Cabinet discussions, and instead simply act as some kind of journalist.

[Southern Bellz]

I don't understand your argument, who were you representing when you made your statement besides yourself?  I don't mean to reopen an old issue, but I've seen you make the argument a few times that you were acting as a representative of the assembly with your statement, and I really did not see any clamoring in the assembly for a different opinion from the cabinet except from Unibot.  Unless I am misreading your argument.

[Sandaoguo]

I never made that argument, SB. Unibot and others may have said I was representing the Assembly, but the only person I said I was representing was myself.

Regardless, I said earlier that I didn't want to drudge this up, because we shouldn't be redefining the position based on what happened. That would just lead to you guys over correcting and basically neutering the position based on your disagreement with me.

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[Escade]

This is not about you specifically GR, it's about clarity. How will TSPers run for a position or, as Farengeto stated, campaign for it if they don't know what exactly a CoA is?

 

What I'd like to do is clearly define the position and then have that information available to everyone: TSP residents, voters, et al.

[TheGrimReaper]

If the issue is clarity, may I suggest we start from the absolute basics and work our way up?

 

Define the /foundational/ tenets of the position, the responsibilities that are absolutely irrefutably part of the position, so that we have a basis that /everyone/ agrees on, before moving onto ideas that require debate.

 

For example, defining the reponsibilities of the Chair of the Assembly REGARDING being a Speaker, ignoring for now all other aspects of the position so we have something concrete to fall back on and add to during this discussion.

[Sandaoguo]

We all agree on the procedural aspects of the position as they are outlined in the Charter. What we don't agree on is whether or not the position is representative of the Assembly at all, and to what extent the Chair (or any other Cabinet position) is an individual or a member of a Cabinet bloc.

 

What I think is the problem is that Escade et al. see the Cabinet through the lens of a parliamentary system (or even the US executive system). That means they view the Cabinet as a single unit, with each member supporting one another, along the lines of traditional Cabinet collective responsibility, as mentioned by Belschaft.

 

The problem with this paradigm, in my opinion, is that the structure of our government doesn't assume or support it. Cabinet members are individually elected on their own platforms. It is possible for individuals to run opposing campaigns and both be elected in the Cabinet. It may have happened before, but I don't know the electoral history of TSP well enough to say for sure. I can assume it doesn't happen often, just because the same pool of voters elects every Cabinet member, and it's unlikely they'll elect people with opposing campaigns. However, what we have definitely seen is that Cabinet members can disagree once they're elected. It's happened many times, and the end result has been varied. Some Cabinet members have just gone along in silence. Others have been pushed out of the Cabinet or resigned, and then disagreed. But I broke a cardinal rule of publicly breaking rank while expecting to stay within the Cabinet.

 

So, I think there are only three solutions to the problem. Either we change the paradigm within the Cabinet itself, which we can't do legislatively. Or we change the electoral system altogether, electing slates of nominees instead of electing people individually. Or we change the nature of our government to include a stronger executive a la the United States, allowing the Delegate to appoint Cabinet members with the advise and consent of the Assembly. With that, the Chair would take on an explicit representative role, or be excluded from the Cabinet altogether and just be the leader of the Assembly.

 

I would simply prefer the Cabinet to change its behavior and environment, getting rid of the notion of collective responsibility altogether. The alternative I think is best would be electing the Cabinet as a slate. The drawback to that is getting enough people to have more than one slate.

[Rebel-topia]

Im against electing as a slate. Thats too close to political parties, and the general consensus in TSP has been one of ixnay onway oliticalpay artiespay...

[Kris Kringle]

I'm also against slate elections. The good thing about individual election is that each person learns to be accountable to the People and to know about what they actually want to do once in office. I also don't think our current system supports individual responsibility, considering our history of collective responsibility. The Charter only outlines procedures, but behaviours are left up to us to define.

[Southern Bellz]

I think it's defined broadly enough in the charter to let the chair decide how to liaison between assembly and cabinet.


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[Sandaoguo]

[quote name="Southern Bellz" post="112347" timestamp="1387988441"]I think it's defined broadly enough in the charter to let the chair decide how to liaison between assembly and cabinet.

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The problem is that the Chair DOESN'T get to decide. The majority of the Cabinet gets to dictate how the Chair acts, under threat of ostracism or recall. So the Cabinet needs to change its collective behavior, or we need to change the structure of the Cabinet to reflect the current behavior.

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[Escade]

I think that's the question though. Is the CoA meant to be on par with the entire cabinet, as a force of its own or is it a member of the cabinet then and must bend to majority?  That's the distinction that we're considering here.

[Southern Bellz]

 

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Southern Bellz" data-cid="112347" data-time="1387988441">
I think it's defined broadly enough in the charter to let the chair decide how to liaison between assembly and cabinet.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

The problem is that the Chair DOESN'T get to decide. The majority of the Cabinet gets to dictate how the Chair acts, under threat of ostracism or recall. So the Cabinet needs to change its collective behavior, or we need to change the structure of the Cabinet to reflect the current behavior.


Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk
 


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No one is free from the threat of ostracism or recall.  It's something everyone has had to deal with that has been politically active in TSP.  Passing laws do not change that.

[Sandaoguo]

I think that's the question though. Is the CoA meant to be on par with the entire cabinet, as a force of its own or is it a member of the cabinet then and must bend to majority?  That's the distinction that we're considering here.

 

I think you're asking the question too narrowly. What you, as Delegate, and what the rest of the Cabinet need to determine, is whether or not you want to stick with collective responsibility. If you do, then we need to have a discussion about how our governing structure aligns with that. The Cabinet is not elected together, so it is not constructed to act collectively. That it has done so more often than not is a product of Cabinet members generally being in agreement, which is a very shaky ground to stand on. Cabinet unity is held together by fragile social customs, and those customs are fragile exactly because Cabinet members are elected upon their own individual platforms, and are answerable to those platforms when they run for re-election.

 

 

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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Sandaoguo" data-cid="112385" data-time="1388019896">
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="Southern Bellz" data-cid="112347" data-time="1387988441">
I think it's defined broadly enough in the charter to let the chair decide how to liaison between assembly and cabinet.


Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

The problem is that the Chair DOESN'T get to decide. The majority of the Cabinet gets to dictate how the Chair acts, under threat of ostracism or recall. So the Cabinet needs to change its collective behavior, or we need to change the structure of the Cabinet to reflect the current behavior.


Sent from my HTC One V using Tapatalk
 


</blockquote>
 

No one is free from the threat of ostracism or recall.  It's something everyone has had to deal with that has been politically active in TSP.  Passing laws do not change that.

 

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Yeah, of course that's how it is SB. But that works against your declaration that the Charter lets the Chair determine for themselves how to liaise between the Assembly and the Cabinet. If the Chair's behavior is constrained by threats from other Cabinet members, then you can't really say the Chair has the freedom to define their own position.

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[Rebel-topia]

But its not the cabinet that decides a recall. At the moment, a 3-1 vote in favor of the recall must be met. If every ("remaining") cabinet member (there are 5 if one is being recalled) voted for, only 2 Assemblymen would have to vote nay for the recall to fail.

[Sandaoguo]

[quote name="Rebeltopia" post="112412" timestamp="1388071418"]But its not the cabinet that decides a recall. At the moment, a 3-1 vote in favor of the recall must be met. If every ("remaining") cabinet member (there are 5 if one is being recalled) voted for, only 2 Assemblymen would have to vote nay for the recall to fail.[/quote]

I was threatened with recall by SB if I followed through with publicly disagreeing with the Osiris policy. It was ultimately Hileville who initiated the recall. When Escade attempted to broker an agreement, it became clear that even surviving a recall would mean ostracism, including being banned from the Cabinet forum for the foreseeable future, which is why Escade reversed her policy on dissenting opinions.

The Cabinet was operating under a system of threat and coercion. It doesn't matter that it's the Assembly who votes on recalls. Cabinet members used the threat of recall in an attempt to silence me. My access to the forum was cute off as a means of punishment, and recall was initiated. That's the kind of corrupt and unhealthy behavior we get under the tradition of collective responsibility. This isn't even the first time this has happened, either. It just happens to be the most public display of the Cabinet's undemocratic nature.

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[Rebel-topia]

Firstly, I know how the conversation went. I can see that. And I dont think its as terrible anti-Sandaoguo as you make it out to be.

 

Your access to the Cabinet forum was cut off for the fear of you releasing those talks (or any other discussions) from an area that you have no right releasing information from. Its not to "punish you". Would I have handled it that way? No. Id have let you make the decission to quote Behind Closed Doors stuff, then ripped you a new one in the courts.

 

And what other time has someone used their Cabinet position to publicly smear the Cabinet?

[Farengeto]

I agree that there should be conflicting opinions within the cabinet. It's a healthy and necessary part of democracy. When it comes to internal issues I can accept dissent. But when it comes to foreign policy there needs to be a unified statement. What we officially state will be one of the biggest factors on how other regions view us. And how will it look if our foreign policy is constant bickering?


And what if the region in question had been an ally? How would they react if the cabinet posted a statement, only for another cabinet member to condemn it and the ally region?

[Sandaoguo]

Nobody looks at the internal regional debates when it comes to foreign policy. They look at the official position of the government, and dissent doesn't change what is and is not official.

[Rebel-topia]

And the official position is that of majority.

[Kris Kringle]

You pretend that publicly dissenting in your official capacity as a Cabinet member has no consequences. It does and we have all seen that. Besides, one doesn't get to issue another government statement just because one didn't get their way. Democracy is also accepting when others don't agree with the case you made.

[Sandaoguo]

Kris, the consequences of what I did were and are completely within the control of the Cabinet majority. There would have been zero consequences if you guys didn't freak out. Escade and I reached a pretty reasonable agreement on dissenting opinions, which just goes to show that dissent does very little harm to the Cabinet. Why you guys refused to accept that I don't know.

 

But stop pretending like my statement did any harm to the region. The only harm it did was to the egos of certain Cabinet members. If you want keep saying I actually harmed the region, then as they say, put up or shut up. Show some real examples of harm.

[Escade]

Trying to get back to defining the duties, responsibilities, et al of the CoA.

 

This is what I started with:

 

The Assembly will be led by the Chair of Assembly.

The Chair of Assembly is responsible for moderating and administrating debate in the assembly.

The Chair of Assembly has the power to draft legislation based on assembly debates and cabinet discussions.

The Chair of Assembly will serve as the voice of the assembly in cabinet discussions and votes.

 

 

* GR or any other member who has served as CoA please add\refine based on what you've done. The CoA is like any other position in the government and can and should be clearly defined.

 

Thanks.

[Sandaoguo]

The only probem I foresee is with the last tenet. Given the pattern I've seen, I feel people will take it too literally and will punish the Chair whenever they make a decision that ends up being unpopular with some faction of the Assembly. It's difficult to take away individuality, and I'm thinking that's what some of you may have in mind with saying the Chair "serve(s) as the voice of the Assembly."

[Escade]

Well, feel free to add to it.

 

I started with a draft based on what I can figure out but would like you, Rebel and anyone else who's been in the position to edit\and more items to the list.