[A Little Legalese] Conflict in Senate Over Emergency Legislation

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Conflict in Senate Over Emergency Legislation
Speaker's Decision Deemed Controversial
Written by Astrellan

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(Europeia, July 15, 2020) - Speaker of the Senate GraVandius faced two challenges in the Senate over his decision to enact clause 8bis of the Senate Protocol Act (SPA) in two Senate amendments, which would deem them "urgent bills" and bypass the time requirements needed before voting could be opened.

Both the Vice-President Requirement Amendment Act and the Vice President Restriction Amendment Act were declared urgent bills by GraVandius today. He gave a reason for this decision in the latter's thread, saying that the bill "could impact some people's willingness to run for vice-president in the upcoming Presidential election, with standing just a few days away."

The first bill would change the constitutional requirement for a vice president to be nominated to sit on the cabinet - a requirement first introduced in the executive split era - and would make it optional instead. The second bill would constitutionally restrict the vice president from sitting on the Senate, a feature which was included in Constitution V, before the executive split.

However, GraVandius' decision on both acts were challenged by multiple senators, with Senator Calvin using clause 42 of the SPA to oppose the speaker's decision. He states that he had "heard complaints that this issue is not being given its due consideration, and would benefit from a longer debate period," following it up by saying: "[W]e also have our duties as Senators to consider in this matter, which I believe is more important on this issue." Senator Pichtonia seconded the challenge, stating that he "disagree[s] of the usage of 8bis for matters of political convenience," and a vote occurred in both threads to determine whether the urgent bill decision should be overturned.

The vote ended 3-3-1 for both amendments, meaning the question failed to reach a majority. Senator Darkslayer agreed with Calvin and Pichtonia, while Senators Prim, Lime, and Verteger supported the speaker's decision. Lime stated that "we've already discussed both issues, enough so that we could vote on them, and each Senator came to their own conclusion" and mentioned his stance that the Senate "should provide clarity to each Presidential ticket."

This all comes after a failed vote over the Vice-President Modernization Amendment Act which contained the language of both these amendments. When put together in one bill, the combined effect was ultimately unpopular and failed to reach the supermajority threshold needed for a constitutional amendment. This spurred each amendment to be considered in their own bills.

 

[Forilian]

So much spice

 

[Elias Greyjoy]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

 

[Prim]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

Yes, that is current law.

 

[GraVandius]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

That is correct.

I will note for the public record that I checked with a majority of Senators before taking this action and they agreed with my assessment that this could be ruled urgent as it may greatly affect individuals cabinet and and related decisions as we move into the standing for the election.

I don’t believe this was substantively different from Lloenflys invocation of it last term, as that was a largely optional (in the view of many of their other colleagues) clarification moved up for a similar timeline issue.

 

[Elias Greyjoy]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

Yes, that is current law.

Seems the latter would be a clear separation of powers issue. Have there been issues with activity that would make such a double-dipping in both the Executive and Legislature necessary?

 

[Mr. Verteger]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

Yes, that is current law.

Seems the latter would be a clear separation of powers issue. Have there been issues with activity that would make such a double-dipping in both the Executive and Legislature necessary?

The exact opposite, actually! We have an incredible amount of activity and newer players often find it difficult to get started or move up.

 

[Elias Greyjoy]

The exact opposite, actually! We have an incredible amount of activity and newer players often find it difficult to get started or move up.

A better problem to have than the opposite.

While I would be more tepid on rushing the first amendment (confirmations are largely formalities, unless they've changed drastically in the last few years), the second seems like a perfect definition of an urgent matter - an eminent (potential) conflict of the Executive and Legislature.

 

[Pichtonia]

We had the Vice Chief of State and Second Minister in the Senate for nearly a year without urgency or concerns of conflict of interest. They voted on treaties and nominations all the same, they were in administrations that vetoed Senate legislation.

I don't even deny that such conflict may exist, there is such a conflict. That's why I was always a little hesitant to discuss matters of Senate with Astrellan when he was my Second Minister and always made sure to distinguish these talks from our Executive business, as to not get him into an uncomfortable situation. And he was at odds with me many times. He never changed his mind in my favour by nature of being my second-in-command. Believe it or not, I think most of our Senators fundamentally know to distinguish their roles and take Senatorial independence very seriously.

Anyways, I wouldn't ban it. If we think there's a conflict of interest, I don't mind if we do, but then we have many different set of offices that are potentially in conflict, and the only ones we care about are President (which I fully back) and Vice President.

That is correct.

I will note for the public record that I checked with a majority of Senators before taking this action and they agreed with my assessment that this could be ruled urgent as it may greatly affect individuals cabinet and and related decisions as we move into the standing for the election.

I don’t believe this was substantively different from Lloenflys invocation of it last term, as that was a largely optional (in the view of many of their other colleagues) clarification moved up for a similar timeline issue.

I'll note that even though I seconded Calvin's motion, GraV is right here when he says he reached out. And I hope he can confirm that I, in fairness, did raise the concerns I had with the measure in our chat. I do think a legal clarification is very different from what this Senate is doing, however.

It's not a clarification of the law in order to guarantee its functionality. Our current, applicable law is perfectly clear.

But if what matters is that a majority of Senators wants and not whether it is truly required, then we should just be honest and change SPA 8bis to "The Speaker may designate a bill as urgent in circumstances where a rapid decision is wanted by a majority of Senators".

 

[Prim]

An unfortunate impasse. If I interpret this correctly, without these amendments passing, the Vice President A) must be nominated to serve dual positions as the VP/and a separate cabinet position and B) can also sit in the Senate?

Yes, that is current law.

Seems the latter would be a clear separation of powers issue. Have there been issues with activity that would make such a double-dipping in both the Executive and Legislature necessary?

At the time that change was made, I believe there were, yes.

 

[Aexnidaral]

Overall, I don't really care, but I don't really think it necessitated a designation as emergency/urgent, to be honest.

 

[Elias Greyjoy]

At the time that change was made, I believe there were, yes.

That was my guess. By the looks of it, the place is fairly bustling now though. I suppose this could be enacted post-election, but that might entangle some more things than are truly necessary.

 

[Astrellan]

Something that interests me about this is the precedent of using 8bis in this manner. My thoughts of that clause were for emergency changes; hence the name "urgent bills." Like Lloen's first usage of it, that bill provided clarification to make sure there was no ambiguity over a big part of the EMOA. While it would be very convenient for the VP bill to get passed quickly, I am unsure if it fits the criteria of urgent.

 

[Lethen]

This reminds me of the legislation we had on the books years ago that would allow the Speaker and a contingent of the Senate to "streamline" things by taking an informal vote to by-pass or essentially waive readings of bills. It was useful initially, but as time went on many of us - including myself as a Senator - became too accustomed to breezing through bills only to find legal issues after a bill was already passed that should have been caught with more deliberative readings