15th Senate Week in Review [96-6] | 10/17 - 10/24
Written by Kasa
Edited by Vor
Edited by Vor
Preamble
Welcome back to Senate Week in Review. As of the writing of this article, Europeia is three weeks away from the next general election, which will be the first to be administered under the Elections Act (2024). Although this information doesn't warrant its own section, the Act was recently passed 19-17 via popular referendum.
Revising the Legislative Counsel's Power Amendment Act (2024)
Senator Lloenflys's bill passed 4-1-0 this week, with only Senator Rand abstaining and all other Senators voting in favor. As a reminder, this bill removes the Legislative Counsel's power to initiate judicial proceedings on behalf of the Senate. Discussions were had on whether or not to formalize this power and turn the Legislative Counsel into a "Legislative Attorney General", but those ideas were ultimately shelved, perhaps to be revisited someday in the future.
The bill was sent to the President, where it received the People's Assent and is therefore now law.
Run-Off Improvement Act (2024)
This bill went through some further mechanical debate this week, including suggestions to add a "No One" option to elections (which found broad support) and debates on whether to have "Loser Run-Offs" or an automatic by-election when not enough candidates are elected. Legislative Counsel JayDee also released his analysis of the bill, which called the current language "sufficient" but also advised the Senate to clean up wording that "[...] could result in two candidates proceeding to a run-off simply because they tied; even if neither were the highest vote getters."
At this point, ongoing debate isn't really for or against the bill itself; there seems to be a consensus that there are loopholes that need to be addressed. However, Senators disagree over what exactly needs to change. Referring to the prior examples, there seems to already be a majority in favor of giving voters the option to vote for no one, and a slight preference for automatic By-Elections compared to "Loser Run-Offs". This latter part isn't too surprising, as one of the main critiques of the old election regime was that it basically forced the election of unpopular candidates through Run-Offs in elections where too few candidates were elected.
As of the writing of this article, the bill remains in second reading due to ongoing debate.
Summary
The Senate had a fair amount of discussion this week, which was mostly dominated by arguments about the content of the Run-Off Improvement Act. Activity was pretty good, especially with another election slowly approaching. Thanks for reading Senate Week in Review, and the EBC hopes to catch you next week with our 16th edition.