For over five months, our region has been constructing a new legislative body on the grave of the Citizens' Assembly. In the debate leading up to its death, legislators stated that the longstanding lack of activity in the Citizens' Assembly meant that something was better than nothing, and in the words of Senator Astrellan, "[Arnhelm] sounds like a good time".
As someone who has served the most terms as Citizens' Assembly Chair in Europeia, I sympathized with those who saw the lack of activity in this body, and yearned to see something more. Astrellan's other points in favor of abolishing the CA were also persuasive: that mostly ex-Senators were making use of the CA, and that it was only active when a competent Chair served, but those periods never lasted too long. In all honesty, as much as it pains me to admit, it was the right move to scrap the Citizens' Assembly, and try something new with Arnhelm. However, now the time has come to examine what Arnhelm has become in the months since. Has Arnhelm become what the Citizens' Assembly had failed to be? Was it a useful legislative training tool? Was it active? And perhaps most important of all, was it fun?
Well, for a good while Arnhelm wasn't much of anything. After the Citizens' Assembly was abolished and the City Council (the name for Arnhelm before they would pass their charter) was put in to replace it, not much happened. The first order of business for Mayor Olde Delaware was getting a charter together, but that process took several months, with hardly any activity in October as the Senate debate the Arnhelm Authority Act, which led to some minor changes in how the charter and the Mayor would be voted on. The month of November passed with often a week of a gap between any progress being made, before the charter was finally put to a vote and passed by the middle of December.
With the charter now passed, new leadership was elected as Prim, and later GraVandius were elected to be Mayor. Before going into their tenures, though, let's examine what the charter accomplishes. Essentially, Arnhelm will deal with legislation on real life topics, that does not impact the outside region of Europeia, and will serve as a place to train people on how to write legislation. Fittingly, in the two months since the charter was recognized a budget ordinance has been passed, and discussion is ongoing on bills dealing with healthcare, littering, and other matters.
So, if the CA couldn't motivate people to write legislation on Europeian matters, it appears there are early signs that Arnhelm might be able to motivate people to write legislation on real life matters. But, who is participating? Is it mostly former legislators, as was the problem in the CA? Mostly yes. Aside from cookiespaigentland, and more rarely Gabingston, the main contributors to the conversation are Drecq, Prim, HEM, and GraV. Hardly a crowd that needs legislative training. At the same time, the Grand Hall has played host to Europeian legislative proposals with lively discussions from cookies as well as TheNationofthePeople, before either got involved in Arnhelm.
That answers most of our questions from the start, then. It seems that the legislative training potential is mixed, while activity levels are tied to the activity level of the Mayor, much like the Assembly was tied to the activity of its Chair. Bringing us to our final question: is it fun? Unfortunately, there's no definitive answer here, as fun is wildly subjective. I can answer only for myself here by saying that I am not at all interested in legislating real life issues, and find no fun in participating in those discussions. The practicality of discussing this legislation is designed to be limited, and I'd much rather discuss matters relating to Europeia when I'm in Europeia. I can get political debate everywhere, but Europeia offers unique debating opportunities that I feel are a much better use of my time, and the time of all our citizens, which is why I have avoided joining Arnhelm, despite my name being transferred over from the dead body of the Citizens' Assembly. I do not view Arnhelm as much more of a success than the Citizens' Assembly, honestly. It has become something similar in almost every way, with many of the same problems, and not much use outside of it being a hobby for those who already know how to legislate.
Personally, I think the region would be better off if we shut down Arnhelm and instead directed interested legislators over the World Assembly if insist on making legislation outside of the Senate only deal with real life matters. By training legislators in World Assembly drafting we can expand our influence in a way that helps our region grow, and maintain our gameside presence, and show off our legislative prowess abroad. Right now we have Arnhelm, which helps hardly anyone at all, and finds itself playing second fiddle to the Grand Hall, which itself plays second fiddle to the Senate.
We should always strive to make our government serve its people in the best way we can, and if we all think that the Citizens' Assembly was a failure, then we need to recognize those same signs of failure in Arnhelm, and get out ahead of things while the drive for reform is still with us. Help the World Assembly and help Europeia by ditching Arnhelm. Until next time, this is Calvin Coolidge, removing his nameplate from the door.
As someone who has served the most terms as Citizens' Assembly Chair in Europeia, I sympathized with those who saw the lack of activity in this body, and yearned to see something more. Astrellan's other points in favor of abolishing the CA were also persuasive: that mostly ex-Senators were making use of the CA, and that it was only active when a competent Chair served, but those periods never lasted too long. In all honesty, as much as it pains me to admit, it was the right move to scrap the Citizens' Assembly, and try something new with Arnhelm. However, now the time has come to examine what Arnhelm has become in the months since. Has Arnhelm become what the Citizens' Assembly had failed to be? Was it a useful legislative training tool? Was it active? And perhaps most important of all, was it fun?
Well, for a good while Arnhelm wasn't much of anything. After the Citizens' Assembly was abolished and the City Council (the name for Arnhelm before they would pass their charter) was put in to replace it, not much happened. The first order of business for Mayor Olde Delaware was getting a charter together, but that process took several months, with hardly any activity in October as the Senate debate the Arnhelm Authority Act, which led to some minor changes in how the charter and the Mayor would be voted on. The month of November passed with often a week of a gap between any progress being made, before the charter was finally put to a vote and passed by the middle of December.
With the charter now passed, new leadership was elected as Prim, and later GraVandius were elected to be Mayor. Before going into their tenures, though, let's examine what the charter accomplishes. Essentially, Arnhelm will deal with legislation on real life topics, that does not impact the outside region of Europeia, and will serve as a place to train people on how to write legislation. Fittingly, in the two months since the charter was recognized a budget ordinance has been passed, and discussion is ongoing on bills dealing with healthcare, littering, and other matters.
So, if the CA couldn't motivate people to write legislation on Europeian matters, it appears there are early signs that Arnhelm might be able to motivate people to write legislation on real life matters. But, who is participating? Is it mostly former legislators, as was the problem in the CA? Mostly yes. Aside from cookiespaigentland, and more rarely Gabingston, the main contributors to the conversation are Drecq, Prim, HEM, and GraV. Hardly a crowd that needs legislative training. At the same time, the Grand Hall has played host to Europeian legislative proposals with lively discussions from cookies as well as TheNationofthePeople, before either got involved in Arnhelm.
That answers most of our questions from the start, then. It seems that the legislative training potential is mixed, while activity levels are tied to the activity level of the Mayor, much like the Assembly was tied to the activity of its Chair. Bringing us to our final question: is it fun? Unfortunately, there's no definitive answer here, as fun is wildly subjective. I can answer only for myself here by saying that I am not at all interested in legislating real life issues, and find no fun in participating in those discussions. The practicality of discussing this legislation is designed to be limited, and I'd much rather discuss matters relating to Europeia when I'm in Europeia. I can get political debate everywhere, but Europeia offers unique debating opportunities that I feel are a much better use of my time, and the time of all our citizens, which is why I have avoided joining Arnhelm, despite my name being transferred over from the dead body of the Citizens' Assembly. I do not view Arnhelm as much more of a success than the Citizens' Assembly, honestly. It has become something similar in almost every way, with many of the same problems, and not much use outside of it being a hobby for those who already know how to legislate.
Personally, I think the region would be better off if we shut down Arnhelm and instead directed interested legislators over the World Assembly if insist on making legislation outside of the Senate only deal with real life matters. By training legislators in World Assembly drafting we can expand our influence in a way that helps our region grow, and maintain our gameside presence, and show off our legislative prowess abroad. Right now we have Arnhelm, which helps hardly anyone at all, and finds itself playing second fiddle to the Grand Hall, which itself plays second fiddle to the Senate.
We should always strive to make our government serve its people in the best way we can, and if we all think that the Citizens' Assembly was a failure, then we need to recognize those same signs of failure in Arnhelm, and get out ahead of things while the drive for reform is still with us. Help the World Assembly and help Europeia by ditching Arnhelm. Until next time, this is Calvin Coolidge, removing his nameplate from the door.