Issues of the Day: Speaker Empowerment
Written by Evelyn
Edited by Cordova and Vor
This is the first instalment in what I hope will be a regular series of articles examining major topics of debate in the Senate and within Europeia as a whole. For this instalment, I will focus on the debate surrounding empowerment of the Speakership. This has become a somewhat contentious topic as of late - Senator Cordova has submitted an amendment for consideration by the Senate, and both candidates in the recent Senate by-election made their positions on Speaker empowerment clear in their platforms for the election.
Currently, the Speaker of the Europeian Senate takes a role similar to that of the Speaker in counties such as the (IRL) UK - that being the role of an impartial referee who takes responsibility for certain administrative tasks and ensures that order is kept within the Senate. However, there has recently been a movement to empower the Speaker - Senator Cordova's amendment would give the Speaker "power of the docket", meaning that they will be able to remove bills from consideration or prevent them from passing a specific reading. This increase of power intends to make the Speaker a more political figure by encouraging them to use their power over the docket to prevent bills from passing that are unfavourable to their political aims - thus making the position of the Europeian Speaker more similar to that of the House of Representatives in the IRL US.
Supporters of the amendment argue that it will increase the desirability of the Speaker role - Senator Cordova, himself a former Speaker, stated that though he was happy to serve as a Speaker during their term, the role could often "feel like a burden" due to the heavily administrative nature of the role. By giving the Speaker power of the docket, it is argued that the role will first become more attractive, and secondly that it will result in increased discussion, with Senators having to advocate to the Speaker and their peers for the right for their bill to be on the floor.
Those more sceptical of the bill argue that empowerment of the Speaker gives them an undue amount of influence over the legislative process, potentially allowing the Speaker to stall the progress of bills that might have widespread support from the public, regardless of whether the Senate has been unable to secure a large enough majority to overturn the Speaker's power of the docket. During the Senate by-election, Lloenflys suggested in their platform that the Speaker should therefore be elected by the public, ensuring that the Speaker's legislative priorities are assented to by a significant portion of the regional population, while also allowing for a Speaker candidate to run with the promise of only exercising the administrative role of the Speaker. This view seems to be shared across the Senate, leading Senator Cordova to alter the amendment to provide for the popular election of the Speaker, though the specific details of the voting system for this are still under discussion in the Senate.
It is worth noting, however, that a popularly elected speaker is not unanimously supported amongst all supporters of Speaker empowerment. In a Grand Hall thread, Comfed argued that making the Speaker popularly elected would "weaken" the amendment, expressing concerns that a popularly elected speaker may have a legislative agenda that is at "odds with the Senate as a whole", creating a situation in which the Speaker and Senate have vastly different priorities.
As per the Constitution, if Senator Cordova's amendment does successfully go through the Senate, then every citizen of Europeia will be able to vote on it in a region-wide referendum - so make sure to keep an eye out for that.
As one can see from the variety of viewpoints that have been showcased in this article, Speaker empowerment is a matter that is subject to lively debate, with valid points made on all sides of the argument. If Senator Cordova's amendment is able to pass, if will for certain be interesting to see what the ramifications of the Speaker's new powers will be, and whether Senate activity is positively impacted as a result.
