The committee was seconded by Senators GraVandius and Calvin Coolidge with Senator Lime jumping in later, but received immediate pushback from Senators Prim and Verteger, who argued that Arnhelm should not be subject to senate oversight and the current state of Arnhelm did not warrant a senate investigation. Senators backing the committee seemed to argue that Arnhelm was under the jurisdiction of the Senate via the City Council Act, and that the committee was merely a ‘fact-finding committee’, a buzz phrase that repeatedly was referenced throughout the discussion. The firey debate escalated and spilled into the rest of Europeia, with heated arguments occurring on the Europeian Discord server, as well as citizens such as Astrellan voicing his own thoughts on a matter through a speedily-released op-ed article, titled ‘This Is Not Senate Work’ published through the European Broadcasting Corporation (EBC). The article received three pages of discussion, with notable citizens such as Drecq, Deepest House, Olde Delaware, Kuramia, and HEM jumping in the discussion, mostly opposing the creation of this committee.
The committee thread was withdrawn the very next day by Senator Darkslayer, citing “a lot of hard feelings and some difficult discussions”. Before the withdrawal of the committee, the EBC launched a poll regarding the Arnhelm Investigatory committee to determine where the citizens sided on this issue. While the motion to form the committee is no longer active, the EBC is releasing this data for future reference and use, as well as to hopefully analyze how the committee may be received by the public if it was formed.
The poll was more or less evenly split between citizens involved in Arnhelm and citizens not involved in Arnhelm. All Senators responded to the poll.*
The poll received 27 responses in a 48 hour period, interestingly with almost an even split down the middle between citizens engaged in Arnhelm, and citizens not involved in Arnhelm. 14 citizens were involved in Arnhelm, while 13 were not.
The depicted data shows that 7 responses were senators. When looking further into the data, it appears that 5 of the senators went on to mark that they supported the creation of an Arnhelm committee, while 2 did not. *Although this data is not verifiable, the fact that 7 responses indicated they were senators and that there are currently 7 occupied senate seats makes it seem likely that the responses were not falsified.
Respondents to the poll generally matched the voter demographic in the senate election.
This question was intended to see how the respondents of this poll compared to the voters in the Senate election. There are key patterns, such as Pichtonia and Darkslayer leading the vote, while Forilian, SEC, and Peeps received fewer votes, similar to the Senate election.
Voters in the senate election did not consider the Arnhelm Investigatory Committee to be a significant factor when casting their vote.
From the data above, you can see that only 7.4 percent or 2 responses indicated that the candidate’s position on the Arnhelm Investigatory Committee played a part in who they voted for. Over a majority of responses (63 percent), indicated that the platform topic of establishing an Arnhelm Investigatory Committee did not play any part in deciding who to cast their vote for, with a smaller coalition of about 30 percent indicating that it played a small factor.
Responses say no to committee, unlikely to change over time.
The data above shows that once again, a majority of 63 percent of responses said that they did not support the creation of a Senate-led Arnhelm Investigatory Committee, with a small fraction of one-third saying they did support the motion. Interestingly enough, only 1 response said that they would support the senate creating such a committee possibly in the future. The data shows that it’s unlikely the responses will change their minds in the future, it’s likely that future proposals will meet the same pushback.
Threat of recalling senators over disagreement present but not significant
The debate over the creation of an Arnhelm Investigatory Committee was heated at times, especially over on the Europeian Discord Server. Notably, former Steward of Arnhelm Olde Delaware remarked that he would “fully intend to carry out [his] threat to recall any sitting Senator who votes to go along with a bogus and bias[ed] committee on Arnhelm.”. The data above shows that more than half of the responses indicated they would not vote to recall senators over this issue, but a small fraction said they would (14 percent), surprisingly nearly 30 percent of responses indicated that they would consider it. It is important to note that to recall a sitting senator, citizens can present a petition that requires one-fifth of the voters in the last executive election. In this case, it would have required 13 signatures. If all the responses that marked yes and possibly signed the petition, it would have been one short of meeting the required threshold. This is surprising given that the debate was over a single issue, but it may represent how contested and heated the debate was.
Responses see Arnhelm as being stable in terms of activity, data sees trend based on feelings towards committee.
The data above shows that two-thirds of responses indicated that they believed Arnhelm was doing well in terms of activity, with a sizeable 30 percent of responses indicating they were neutral over the issue, and only 1 response marking that they felt it was doing poorly. When looking at the data as a whole, it is not surprising that responses who previously opposed the creation of an Arnhelm committee generally indicated that they felt good about Arnhelm’s current activity, while voters who supported the creation of the committee tended to mark Neutral or Good over Excellent.
Data sees a more divided response in terms of Arnhelm’s legislative training capabilities, still sees trend over how they feel about the committee.
This data shows a much more split response than the last question, with a little under half of the responses indicating they felt somewhat satisfied with legislative training in Arnhelm, nearly a quarter stating they were neutral over the issue, and a sizeable 30 percent stating that they felt somewhat negatively about Arnhelm’s legislative training. Once again, the previous question about whether they supported the creation of an Arnhelm committee is heavily correlated with this question. Responses that marked they did not support the creation of the committee tended to cluster in the top three options (excellent, good, neutral), while the responses that did support the creation of the committee trended towards negative feelings (neutral, poor, extremely poorly). No response that marked they supported the creation of an Arnhelm committee responded to this question higher than neutral.
Majority of electorate rejects formation of any committee, whether fact-finding or substantive.
The data shows that a majority of responses indicated they believed the committee was not a Senate responsibility at this time, however the previous responses indicated that they were unlikely to change their mind over this issue, so it’s likely they may believe that it is not the Senate’s responsibility entirely. The nature of this committee was a hot topic that was debated between both sides, with some seeing the committee as nothing more than a ‘fact-finding committee’, while the other side saw it as a committee with an ulterior purpose to motivate change in some aspect. While the data shows that a fact-finding committee is preferred over a substantive committee, the majority of responses clearly indicate that they do not support the creation of any committee at all. Once again looking at the data from one of the very first questions, nearly all of the responses that indicated they did not support the creation of a committee reaffirmed their stance in this question. Those that did support the creation of the committee were the primary source of responses indicating either the preference for a substantive committee or a fact-finding committee.
Majority believe in freedom of Arnhelm from senatorial oversight, data in line with past questions.
A majority of responses (once again 63 percent) responded that they believed Arnhelm should be independent of Senate oversight, with a small portion of responses indicating that Arnhelm should not be independent, and only 2 responses indicating they were unsure. We’ve seen this 63 percent number pop up again and again, and unsurprisingly, it’s because the responses are staying consistent throughout the poll. Once again, we see that voters who do not support the creation of the committee would likely tend to vote ‘yes’ on this question, while individuals supporting the creation of the committee would vote ‘no’, and the data shows this trend. Out of those who opposed the creation of the committee, only one responded no to this question (which has their reasoning explained in the comments box), and one responded unsure.
The committee is a ridiculous exercise.
Why can't we let go of the CA?
FFS, Senate has REFORM they promised to work on. I expect that to take precedence over this!
The Senate has enough work without making more work for itself in a place it really shouldn't.
I see no need whatsoever for the Senate to be intervening in how Arnhelm operates
Arnhelm is not autonomous. It in enshrined in Europeian law and as such is subject to Europeian oversight and laws. This is made clear by the fact that the High Court is empowered to resolve matters of legal dispute between Arnhelm Ordinances and Europeian law. CO1 (3) of the City Council Act is also potentially illegal by describing the Charter as the "highest law within the City-State", which is in direct dispute with the Constitutional supremacy laid out by SA2 of Constitution VI. Arnhelm has no right to be autonomous, it deserves oversight just like anything else does, and it needs to fix its laws to step in line with Constitutional law as Arnhelm does not get to be some kind of autonomous entity as long as they remain a part of Europeian affairs.
Some of the people who are in support of this are doing so to find "facts" to back up their already held negative beliefs about Arnhelm and to use this as an opportunity to restore the CA system in its stead. Given the state of the CA for many years before it was finally killed off show that it was not working nor was it providing anything major to the region as a whole in terms of legislative or political training, Arnhelm does both.
I answered No to the independence question but what I really mean is that nothing in the region should be "indepdendent" from the Senate thinking about its future and whether it is operating. Even the most powerful positions in the region are not given such independence. While I think Arnhelm should be left alone to function indepdendently (i.e. no Mayor should be required to testify in the Senate). That doesn't mean the Senate can't fact-find on the role the community is playing in the region and make sure it is operating as planned.
asks of recall about this seem unnecessary and excessive, for fuck's sake
Senate: please stop this investigative committee. You have better things to do.
I'm not sure where this idea that Arnhelm should not be subject to oversight comes from. It only exists because of Senate legislation. They don't need to micromanage it but checking in on it periodically is sensible
This committee will not lead to the destruction of Arnhelm, and nobody involved in this wants that. Unsure where the backlash is coming from.
The comments reflect the divisive nature of this debate, with over 12 people chiming in to provide input. Out of the 12 comments, a majority seemed to oppose the committee, which is in line with the demographics of the responses. Clearly, you can see the heated nature of this debate with some of the harsh and abrasive criticism of either side.
Arnhelm has seen an exciting week this past week. Along with this debate, there were other events such as the resignation of Deputy Mayor Monkey, the termination of Financial Deputy GraVandius, and an inquiry into the legality of amending Arnhelm’s charter. Days later, the debate over the committee has subsided and tensions have eased in Europeia. This was one of Europeia’s most hotly contested issues within a 24 hour time period in its recent history. While this specific issue has been put to rest for now, it’s very possible that Arnhelm is likely to receive this attention once again in the future as it’s unlikely that either side will let this stay buried for very long.[/hr][/hr]
