Calvin Coolidge Triumphs Over GraVandius in Senate Power Struggle


Calvin Coolidge Triumphs Over GraVandius in Senate Power Struggle
By Deepest House
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(Europeia – February 17, 2018) - Senator Calvin Coolidge defeated former Speaker of the Senate GraVandius in an internal power struggle to emerge as the leader of the region’s senior legislative body. The new senate elected Calvin Coolidge to the leadership position via unanimous consent after GraVandius conceded the position when it became clear he did not have the support to return to the speakership.

After leading the senate during the previous term, the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation identified GraVandius as the frontrunner to retain the speakership in an election preview. However, immediately upon the conclusion of the election, newly elected Senator Darcness proposed to elect Calvin Coolidge via unanimous consent, circumventing the usual nomination and election process, much to GraVandius’ surprise.

“What a pleasant way to wake up this morning,” the outgoing speaker said in Europeia’s Discord server upon seeing activity in the senate. “Since Darcness and Aex were clearly willing to completely forgo even my chance at being Speaker, it would seem unlikely that either of them would vote for me,” GraVandius added on the Senate floor as it became clear his fortunes had turned. He later conceded the speakership to Calvin Coolidge.

This will be Calvin Coolidge’s first term as Speaker of the Senate, and his fourth term in the senate overall. In addition to serving in the senate, Mr. Coolidge also serves as Europeia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Calvin Coolidge campaigned for the senate with the Assembly Plan as the centerpiece of his legislative agenda.

“The Senate needs to loosen up and become a place of experimentation and broad discussion rather a rubber stamp for Assembly bills, tweaker of grammar, and the people that vote on presidential appointments,” he said in during his campaign. “Now, it's easy to say that without providing a plan because I'm promising nothing, but here's a proposal that I think can help: have bills that pass the Senate also require passage through the Assembly.”

While the region has discussed bicameralism in the past, these discussions have usually not gained much traction. With Mr. Coolidge’s strong performance in the election and his victory in the battle for speaker, he can implement this agenda with something of a mandate.

The significant defeat in his run to retain the speakership was compounded by his overall election results. GraVandius finished in fifth place out of six in the general election, receiving only one percent more votes than the last place finisher. The poor results perhaps indicate further erosion of support for GraVandius in Europeian political sphere beyond the speakership.

The Europeian citizens elected six senators for this term. By descending vote total order, Aexnidaral Seymour, Calvin Coolidge, Darcness, Ervald, GraVandius, and United Vietussia won election. Ervald is perhaps the greatest surprise of this election, launching an insurgent campaign and finishing strongly. Yuno, Olde Delaware, and newcomer candidate Peter John Chamberlain were unsuccessful in their bids for elected office.

The next election in Europeia is the presidential election, scheduled 35 days from the general senate election.
 
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This seems overly dramatic.

With Mr. Coolidge’s strong performance in the election and his victory in the battle for speaker, he can implement this agenda with something of a mandate.
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I'm also going to go with, no? Darcness has publicly stated he dosent want structural change. I don't either. Neither does the region, according to HEM's most recent poll. I will bet real money that bicamerilization does not get passed this term.

Also while it was a less than great vote turn out for me, it's not like I was anywhere near being voted out. Being 17 votes ahead of Yuno.
 
I think "power struggle" is a bit too edgy to describe what happened but this article is nonetheless thoroughly informative. :p
 
I feel like the title was click bait. The first sentence felt a little like it too., and then after that the article felt more like it was reporting what actually happened.

Let's not have the Senate be a huge drama fest for its term. Those are never nice. I also don't see why it's warranted, but then I just wanna see active peeps.
 
I’d like to take a few minutes to address concerns that this article is “overly dramatic” or contains “clickbait.”

First, to make such claims is to ignore the overall significant context of the election and speaker election. Regarding the election, we had Calvin Coolidge, one of the most respected and accomplished citizens in the region run for senate on a bold platform of substantial legislative change. Indeed, he is legitimately proposing the most substantial legislative change the region has contemplated in years. He did so openly in his platform, and he also openly campaigned for the speakership in his platform. More on that later.

GraV, I will also address your “I'm also going to go with, no?” comment in regard to my statement that Calvin has “something of a mandate.” As mentioned previously, Calvin campaigned openly and strongly with the Assembly Plan as the centerpiece of his campaign and legislative plans. He then finished second in voting, only two votes behind the winner of most votes. He then secured, from his fellow senators, the most important legislative position in the region, with the power and ability to shape and schedule the legislative agenda for the term. To flatly say “no” on his mandate demonstrates a willful ignorance of both the electoral and speaker election results. You’ll notice that I didn’t say “clear mandate” or “absolute mandate.” I said “something of a mandate,” which is fair, reasonable and hard to deny. When you campaign for senate with the Assembly Plan as your centerpiece, come in second, and then win the speakership, that counts for and means something. You may want to debate exactly what it means, but it certainly leans closer to “something of mandate” than “no” mandate.

If there is some concern over the use of “power struggle,” I will stand by that as well. By all accounts GraVandius had a successful term as speaker. In fact, had I been in the senate, I would’ve been inclined to vote for him to give him another term with his demonstrated success in leading the senate this past term (especially given some of our recent senate terms). However, we had a contested election for speaker, and the manner in which it was contested was also extraordinary and not consistent with recent speaker selection processes. The motion for unanimous consent, the blockage of that, and then the eventual win by Calvin for the senior spot in the senate absolutely is demonstrative of a power struggle. We had an incumbent speaker coming off a successful term lose his speakership to a newly-elected senator who ran on a bold campaign of significant legislative change while also openly campaigning for speaker. The incumbent speaker didn’t just campaign for senate – indeed his Discord username had been changed to “GraV for Speaker,” or something to that effect. To downplay this as not a power struggle doesn’t pass the smell test, in my opinion.

By their very nature, contested elections for speaker are power struggles. However Cal was able to do it, he secured the support of the majority of the senate in his bid for speaker. Whether negotiations happened behind the scenes, on the senate floor, or the Republic Square doesn’t matter. Both GraV and Calvin went into the election seeking the speakership, and both had the opportunity to win the support from the other senators. I don’t think there was much, if any, drama regarding who would win election – there was plenty of time to corral that support. Calvin did, GraV didn’t. With the support that Calvin won for his run for speaker, he also enjoyed proxy support for his legislative agenda.

Finally, as mentioned at the start, Calvin campaigned on significant legislative change. This senate election is one of the most important in recent history, and Calvin’s election to the speaker is one of the most important in recent history. Calvin’s legislative agenda could also potentially impact the next presidential election. While I don’t know Mal’s position on the Assembly Plan, if Cal determines that he does not support it, it is likely that Calvin will wait until after the next presidential election to implement that portion of his agenda.
If Calvin waits, how will that impact the upcoming presidential election? We could very well see two sides: a candidate who supports Cal’s vision and a candidate who would not. It is hard to imagine being able to make such a large and substantial change without the support of the chief executive.

When one takes a larger, strategic look at the election, its overall context, the implications for the future, and the manner in which it all played out, the article is neither overly dramatic nor clickbait.
 
GraV, I will also address your “I'm also going to go with, no?” comment in regard to my statement that Calvin has “something of a mandate.” As mentioned previously, Calvin campaigned openly and strongly with the Assembly Plan as the centerpiece of his campaign and legislative plans. He then finished second in voting, only two votes behind the winner of most votes. He then secured, from his fellow senators, the most important legislative position in the region, with the power and ability to shape and schedule the legislative agenda for the term. To flatly say “no” on his mandate demonstrates a willful ignorance of both the electoral and speaker election results. You’ll notice that I didn’t say “clear mandate” or “absolute mandate.” I said “something of a mandate,” which is fair, reasonable and hard to deny. When you campaign for senate with the Assembly Plan as your centerpiece, come in second, and then win the speakership, that counts for and means something. You may want to debate exactly what it means, but it certainly leans closer to “something of mandate” than “no” mandate.
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Right but you have to look at it more context than just the various election results. If you look at Calvin's platform thread a grand total of 0 questions were asked about his bicamerilization proposal. It generated little to no buzz in the election and definetly was not a forefront issue in the election. In fact, it was notably ignored by literally every other candidate for Senate, with a grand total of none of them even taking a position on it, which would be unheard of for a large proposal (see WA refom 70 days ago). Thus, it could be concluded that the election for Senate was a question, not of, do you support bicamerilization?, but do you want Calvin as Senator? For example, I didn't want bicamerilization but I still voted for Calvin because I felt he could be a good Senator. Darc explicitly stated that he dosent want structural changes to the Senate openly in his platform, and he started the petition for unanimous consent the first time, before I had even woken up in the morning. Which according to your logic would suggest that he was all in for Calvin's policies, when he clearly isn't.

Edit: So I suppose you correct in that Bicamerilization likely moved up from Dead on Arival, to getting a bit more consideration before being tossed. Which I supposed could be characterized by the term "mandate", though that implies people want it to happen.

We had an incumbent speaker coming off a successful term lose his speakership to a newly-elected senator who ran on a bold campaign of significant legislative change while also openly campaigning for speaker. The incumbent speaker didn’t just campaign for senate – indeed his Discord username had been changed to “GraV for Speaker,” or something to that effect. To downplay this as not a power struggle doesn’t pass the smell test, in my opinion.
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I'm going to note, that I was likely simply outmaneuvered, in that I did little to no maneuvering and Calvin probably did some maneuvering. I change my discord nickname all the time, that dosent equal actually campaigning for anything.

Regardless, I think Calvin will do just fine of a job, and I look forward to the term.

 
I would like to note that I personally voted for Calvin in the Senate election, but I do not support his bicameral legislature proposal.
 
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