Senators Prim and Kari Shock Senate Colleagues and Public with Unwillingness to Compromise; Shut Down Debate on Lazarus Proposal



Senators Kari and Prim Shock Senate Colleagues and Public; Shut Down Debate on Lazarus Proposal
By Deepest House

(January 2, 2018 – Europeia) – With the citizens of Europeia having debated the merits of various proposals for months during the Constitutional Convention, the people have passed on the Lazarus Proposal to the new senate for debate and finalization. However, during the course of that discussion, Senators Kari and Prim stunned their colleagues when they shut down further debate on the issue and motioned for the proposal to return to the Constitutional Convention. The motion to return the proposal to the Constitutional Convention emerged after opposition to the idea of appointed senators surfaced.

“If people wish this to not include the appointed Senators then I motion to table as they are a key dynamic of this proposal, to the point where it is not worth pursuing without them,” Senator Kari said in motioning to table the proposal. Senator Prim joined his colleague by saying “I cannot support the Lazarus Proposal if it gets watered-down. It would not be a significant or effective enough change in my mind to be worth the effort.”

The Lazarus Proposal includes language for each head of the proposed split-executive branch to appoint a citizen to serve in the senate. A current poll within the Constitutional Convention appears to show the idea dead in the water among citizens, with 76.9 percent against the inclusion of appointed senators in the proposal. With such broad support among the population, the abrupt withdrawal by Senators Kari and Prim left their colleagues flabbergasted.

“Frankly, I think their reactions are pretty immature,” Speaker of the Senate JayDee said in an exclusive interview with the Europeian Broadcasting Corporation. “Reform is about compromise and that means being willing to concede some points. The fact they deide to pack up after one change is honestly quite disappointing.”

Senator United Vietussia also expressed his feelings over the the senators' actions while he spoke on the senate floor. "This is a reform for the whole of Europeia, not a few people that supported one idea and are willing to hold the reforms hostage over it," he said.

Speaker JayDee and Senator United Vietussia were not the only senators to register dissatisfaction with the EBC. “I could only compare it to a certain someone not signing a funding bill because it didn’t include 7 billion dollars for a wall,” said Senator Luna-Nation. “The unwillingness to compromise is not consistent with the traditions of the senate, and demonstrates an abdication of duty over a single provision of a comprehensive reform package.”

It is certain that Senator Prim, if not Kari, would take issue with that notion, however. “We have made plenty of concessions to this process already. Or are we never allowed to say "Enough is Enough,” he asked rhetorically. It is important to note, however, that no concessions have been made by the senators at all, having just took office several days ago. Any debate and proposal modifications that occurred during the convention are separate and distinct from the actions of an elected official in his or her office during official discussion of an issue.

Senator HEM was more diplomatic in his remarks, and chose to focus on the mission at hand and getting it done. "We are here to do the people's work, and it's not going to be easy. It's going to be really hard, and I suspect it's going to require some new ideas thrown into the mix. Let's saddle up and get it done," he said, while offering respect for the positions of Senators Kari and Prim.

Vice President Pierce was so moved by the development that he penned an opinion piece for the EBC. “The most important problem I see here is that the good Senators are attempting to shut down the discussion over a single issue even though the majority of the Convention wants to eliminate the provision. I have high respect for the members of my own party, but I fear they have allowed their own views to cloud their judgement on what is best for the region per the will of the governed,” he wrote. “Any reform proposal that does not abide by the will of the people through the Convention is not a legitimate proposal. In order to keep their promises to the citizens of Europeia that voted them in and the confidence of the region, the Senate must stay the course and pass the reforms that the Convention wants rather than stagnating the efforts by the whims of two pertinacious Senators.”

Private citizens have also expressed their frustration with Senator Kari and Prim’s actions. “In truth, I feel bad for Sopo and HEM,” said former Europeian president Darcness. “At least they want reform because they think it can help, not because it will give them notoriety or because they just want to tear down any establishment they can. Reformers control both the senate and the executive, but can’t get it done.”

With the Lazarus Proposal garnering more support than any other reform proposal, and the first to be discussed by the new senate, it would be unfortunate for reform progress to stall over a single provision which is overwhelmingly unpopular. However, that is where Senators Kari and Prim have chosen to make their stand.
 
It is important to note, however, that no concessions have been made by the senators at all, having just took office several days ago.

This is absurd. Kari and I have been Senators since October and we have both been active in the reform process every step of the way. To say that we haven't made any concessions simply because we took office in this Senate session several days ago is disingenuous.
 
I am frankly so frustrated with the reform process that I would be happy at this point simply to pass the split executive and be done with it.
 
I am frankly so frustrated with the reform process that I would be happy at this point simply to pass the split executive and be done with it.
Unfortunate how fast the fire dies when it burns so brightly.
 
The unwillingness to compromise is not consistent with the traditions of the senate, and demonstrates an abdication of duty over a single provision of a comprehensive reform package.”
This is absurd. The entire Lazarus Project proposal was, itself, a compromise proposal.

The fact I also introduced an amendment package to split the Executive within hours also very clearly shows that this is not about abandoning the reforms. I firmly believe that TLP, as things stand, is no longer the way forward.

I made that viewpoint known while putting forward a suggesting for how to move forward without TLP in a timely manner; Move back to the convention, take 7-10 days for the submission of proposals, hold a preliminary vote to whittle down the entries and a secondary vote on all the proposals which receive over X% of the vote to decide on a package that can be moved forward with, within the Convention, before being sent to the Senate for a final polish before a referendum is held regarding its implementation.
 
The executive split poses some serious concerns. It could very easily lead to a split of direction and policy between the PM and President which could lead to more stagnation and hostility. In addition, the split actually increases the amount of fully committed active leaders required to run the region as outlined by Darcness.

That's really just mostly nonsense. The executive split is pretty much almost universally supported and perhaps one of the only parts of the reform that *most people* agree on.
 
I'd imagine Aex' point is that the split executive proposal is going to get the widest amount of broad support if implemented, and the majority will actually care enough to iron out kinks, find improvements etc instead of letting the system fail.
 
I am going to reply to Darcness's points cited by Thatcher here as I didn't get the chance to in the other thread before it went off the rails.

The problem is that this bifurcation requires more active and engaged leaders, not less. You are 'lucky' that there are 3 engaged people (yourself, Pierce, Kuramia) to act as Taskmasters to your 8 Ministers.

In the future world of a split Executive, what would this look like? Sopo is President, Pierce is PM. Sopo can't keep up with the 4 Ministers he would have (If you need 3 to run 8, you definitely can't run 4 on your own), so he needs an assistant (Vice President or CoS, or whatever), so let's slot Kuramia in there. Well, the same goes for Pierce, he needs an assistant as well. Who would that be?

You have a labor shortage, and you want create more jobs? How does that make sense?

Because more people would be willing to run for president or PM in the new system than would currently be willing to serve as president. The "assistant" to both of those positions would be someone else serving as a minister, so we're not really creating more jobs--we're splitting the workload.

... except where those two individuals don't agree. Spheres of influence and work requirement overlap today, and this would cause even more strife. Or has everyone forgotten that we removed WAD elections because of this exact same problem? Two elected officials with some overlap in their areas of responsibility come into conflict, and nobody is the obvious winner. The solution there was to put the WAD under the President, and it seems to me that we've been better for it, as we have a clear chain of command.

The three branches of government we have exist because each one acts as a check against the other. Each branch has a sole individual that is in charge, and this is not an accident. If the President and Prime Minister were to somehow act as checks against each other (and other parts of the government), then perhaps they would make sense, but in this particular presentation, the logic doesn't hold.

The WAD was brought under the president because it was bad to have an independent, forward-facing individual with theoretical control over decisions that could impact our foreign policy. The comparison doesn't hold because the PM isn't intended to be forward facing. Any overlap is where the interesting politicking comes in. I'd be willing to incorporate checks between the two offices and between the branches if you have thoughts on what those might look like.

I must be misunderstanding your point here. To paraphrase: "Being a generalist is hard, so as our pool of generalist shrinks, we have fewer viable Presidents. So instead, let's specialize." The problem is that you now have TWO pools to worry about. Foreign specialists and Domestic specialists. And if either of these pools starts to see a dip in resources, we will be hurting badly. We're having a shortage in skilled participants, and the solution is to make us more vulnerable to dips in skilled participation? It doesn't make sense.

Also, if seeing 'fresh new faces' is your goal, specialization runs completely counter to that as well. By dividing the ambitious into two pools, the likelihood that each chair will see similar people in it increases dramatically.

I disagree. We become less vulnerable to dips in skilled participation because we're no longer looking for the complete/perfect package that can do everything and juggle at the same time. We're looking at more limited portfolios where we should be more willing to take risks on someone with less experience. And, assuming that the PM and president will collaborate, serving in one office could make one more qualified to hold the other.

Maybe I'm engaging in too much wishful thinking, but the new environment brought on by the split could be a breath of fresh air to the executive and open a lot of opportunities for people intimidated by the presidency as it currently stands.
 
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