Citizenship Reform - Recap & Stall

[Bromo Ivory]

Recap of what happened so far (I fully expect the other factions to jump in with a "no way, this isn't how it happened"):

Citizenship report:
Once the report was issued a lot of folks immediately complained about it - which pointed out a couple of issues - so I went back and put some numbers in it and revised and calrified wordign in it to make it a bit more clear. Right about the same time, some people (primarily CSDF) tried to suppress the report using the judicial branch - which was finally, narrowly, stopped. I suppose this was a warning sign to me that there are people in the CDS willing to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid dealing with this particular issue. The RA adopted the revised report, though with the other factions abstaining rather than standing for or against the findings. I suppose I concluded at this point is that the factions do not want to be seen in the light of this issue at all. Disappointing, but this is why they are allowed to abstain.

So, I wanted to invlove all the factions in deciding to do what's next regardless of precisely what that would be. I got volunteers from all factions to do this, though the CSDF, after selecting a volunteer, declared that they would not participate in any sort of discussion since they were "too busy" to deal with this issue. (To even talk about it). They made it plenty clear to me (indirectly, of course) that they would be voting down any legislation that was proposed - and were unwilling to indicate what would be agreeable by not participating in talks. This was doubly disappointing, but given an amendment requires at least 1 vote form the CSDF in order ot pass, this effectively killed this approach.

Sudane, realizing what had happened, posted on the forums the two procedural issues that she was hoping would be resolved with reform. The RA quickly passed these patches - apparently they had been discussed 12 months previously, privately or some such. Anyway, they were ready to go.

So ... what does this leave the reform? I felt rather thoroughly set-back at this point. So, I decided to bring it to the RA, and ask plainly for some discussion on where the major roadblocks - the places the factions felt strongly shouldn't be touched and where there was room for compromise. I felt the report felt most people were for some sort of reform - even if the exact reform was not unanimous. Anyway - I failed to bring a specific proposal to the table, so Pat has refused to put it on the agenda. I will formulate a question for the RA and submit something by next week, provided no RL obstacles rear their ugly head.

So ... this is where the Citizenship Comission results stand - blocked currently, but I am working to try to find some place and some common ground so that we can work something out.

It really does appear to me, that some don't even want to talk. I hope they have a change of heart, since I was hoping our democracy would be open to working together.

[Patroklus Murakami]

From my email to Bromo earlier today:

The CSDF position on the issue was outlined here. Our position is not intended to force anyone into a guessing game; we don't think this issue is worth pursuing any further right now. We think there are other, higher priorities to focus our attention on.

Could you explain what you mean by 'discuss the major issues/ roadblocks in the open forum'? If you mean discussing this further on the CDS forums then go right ahead. I'm not sure we will have much more to add since we've made it clear we don't see this as a priority but there's nothing to stop you from raising the issue once more. If you mean discussing this further in the RA then I would question whether that's a valuable use of the RAs time. We have already discussed this issue pretty thoroughly, held the commission that you wanted and passed essentially the same legislation Sudane and I proposed a year ago. The role of the RA is "to pass laws and its service role is to promote the city and perform long-term planning" so unless there's a proposal on the table I see little value in putting this item on the agenda for the meeting.

I would be quite happy to discuss with you the major problems I foresee with enacting any further citizenship legislation outside of the RA meeting if that would help. The summary of our meeting transcript refers to "the expected difficulties of negotiations, the long time it will take to implement a compromise proposal (if it includes LLÂ’s IDV, or property protection) and because of previous experiences how contested subjects (franchulates, judiciary) have totally derailed other issues." I could expand on these points if you like and explain why we've come to the conclusion that no further movement on this issue is worthwhile right now.

So, I didn't 'refuse to put it on the agenda' but I did question whether it was a good use of the RAs time. And I've offered to explain our position further to you if that would help so it's not true to say 'that some don't even want to talk'. There are other inaccuracies in your account but highlighting these two will suffice for now.

[Bromo Ivory]

Hi Pat -

The CSDF said they were not going to participate in discussions. This is what I mean by "didn't even want to talk" - one can refer to Sleazy's comments elsewhere.

And if I misunderstood you about putting it on the agenda - I felt it was most fair to write out something to base a discusison on. So I will do that.

I certainly really hope I am mistaken in my conclusions and that the CSDF wants to participate in creating citizenship reform, just I really haven't seen any motion to making a quad-partisan effort - the most I got was IM's saying how the CSDF couldn't possibly particiapte for all kinds of reasons surrounding "being too busy."

[Patroklus Murakami]

Bromo

You missed the point of my post. I was exposing two of the 'inaccuracies' in your original post to indicate how untrustworthy the rest of your partial, one-sided and tendentious account was.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

For the sake of the argument: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 8841#p8841

May I quote the following:

The Scientific Council, after debating the issue, feels that the RA, through the report presented, and the references that are publicly available, has adequate documentation to formulate an eventual decision based on all the information. It was unanimously decided that the SC will not interfere in this process.

I just wanted to clarify that the SC not only did not attempt to block anything, but in fact decided not to interfere! It was certainly discussed and rejected as being part of the SC's duties to comment on the matter... so I wonder where you get this idea of an "attempt" by the CSDF to engage the Judiciary to "block" the report?...