14th Senate Week in Review [96-5] | 10/09 - 10/16
Written by Kasa
Edited by Vor
Edited by Vor
Introduction
Welcome back to Senate Week in Review. There were two new bills introduced and discussed this week; the first being an adjustment to the Elections Act (2024), and the second being an amendment to the office of Legislative Counsel.
Run-Off Improvement Act (2024)
Seantor Rand introduced this bill following PhDre's comments in the Elections Act referendum thread. In the wording of the Elections Act (2024), a Presidential run-off is administered with the same candidates as the first round plus an option to Re-Open Elections. Neither of these make much sense when it comes to Presidential run-offs, which is why this fix was introduced.
So far, only PhDre has commented on the bill. He noted that he would prefer to not give candidates who failed to get initial majority support a second chance against ROE, and added that he would be "happy to draft language to this effect shortly". As of the writing of this article, no draft has been introduced.
Although no Senators aside from Seantor Rand have joined the discussion yet, the bill seems fairly likely to pass. Typically, consensus is easy to find on bills dealing with wording issues and small amendments.
Revising the Legislative Counsel's Power Amendment Act (2024)
This bill was introduced by Senator Lloenflys, who stated his concerns with the language that Legislative Counsel can "initiate any judicial proceeding affecting the Senate, the Senate Clerk, the Speaker of the Senate, or People's Assembly." Basically, this wording allows the Counsel to partially act as a "Legislative Attorney General" and unilaterally initiate legal proceedings without the Senate's approval.
The right to do this was previously reserved for the Senate alone, and Lloneflys argues that either that status quo should be brought back or the Legislative Counsel should be recognized as the default representative of the Senate in all proceedings, making them a full-fledged Legislative AG. As things stand, the Counsel can act on the Senate's behalf without its explicit support, which is something he wants to avoid. Senator Rand commented that his intention was to create a Legislative AG, but also noted that he thought having a full representative was "probably better" than the current system.
Senators broadly were open to either removing this power from the Counsel entirely or introducing language that would make the Counsel into a full representative for the Legislature, but the option to remove the power had slightly more support in the end. Given the openness to the second option, though, it wouldn't be surprising if a bill is proposed that would implement those changes someday.
Senator Lloenflys indicated that he would take the bill as is to vote, and it is almost guaranteed to pass given that all Senators support it to some degree.
Conclusion
Although no firestorms of controversy were ignited this week, with both new bills being fairly minor amendments to past Acts, an interesting idea was raised in debate about a Legislative Attorney General and how it would help further legislative independence. Make sure to catch next week's Week in Review to see if that discussion quickly develops into something larger. As always, thanks for reading Senate Week in Review.