Why Do We Have Factions?

[Patroklus Murakami]

In a separate thread here, Jamie has posted a proposed Constitutional Amendment which would change our electoral system so that individuals, rather than factions, would be elected to the Representative Assembly.

I thought it might be helpful to post some information on why we have factions. They are not to promote ideological battles (as Jamie claims) but to "represent the ideological views of its [i.e the CDS] citizens". The idea was that, since we are a diverse group of people, there will be a range of political opinions held by the citizens and people should be free to form political groups (factions) to put their views forward at election time. We have seen a range of factions be formed in the CDS representing small government libertarians, pragmatic conservatives, social democrats, socialists and radical big government interventionists.

We elect factions, rather than individuals, because of the nature of Second Life. To put it briefly - people come and go. Even though the terms of office for the RA are quite short at six months, a lot can happen in that time. People lose interest in the CDS (or SL); they get excited by other projects; they find that RL responsibilities mean they can't log in so often or commit time to representing their constituents. This has happened in every RA that I can recall - people leave at some point and have to be replaced. The idea of using factions was that this was one way to ensure continuity; if one person drops out another member of faction can stand in to take their place.

Another benefit of factions is the avoidance of 'beauty contest', personality-based electoral contests. If we elect individuals, rather than factions, then we get into personal political powerbases and elections dominated by personalities and mudslinging rather than a contest of ideas. Now, our electoral process isn't *free* of personalities and mudslinging but imagine how much worse it would be if the contest were solely about individuals. Remember Hillary v. Barack? Our electoral system could get very personal if we decided to abandon contests based on platforms of policy proposals and ideas.

If Jamie's amendment were passed, factions would still exist and I assume that many people would still stand for election on a particular faction's platform. What's not clear to me is what would happen when, as is inevitable, some of those people resign during the term. Would we hold byelections? That could mean a lot of voting! Should people present a list of alternates who will step in if they drop out? What happens if the list gets exhausted?

I would also be interested in hearing why people think it might be necessary to make this change. What problem are we trying to solve here? Dissent? Disagreement? 'Squabbling'? I'm afraid those are the product of gathering a group of humans together! When you get a group of people together there will always be disagreement so, even if we elect individuals rather than factions, this supposed 'problem' will not be solved. In any case, I don't see that there is a problem. What's wrong with dissent? If the government proposes that we should sell off abandoned land at L$0 what's wrong with people objecting and trying to change the policy? That's what democratic politics is all about - the free contest of ideas and acceptance that we resolve our disputes though electoral means.

There are some improvements we could make though:

• 1. The RA is clearly too big, 13 people can't work effectively as a legislature in SL even with the kind of useful tools which Cindy brought to help RA sessions run smoothly. We should limit the size to 7 reps. That would be perfectly adequate for representing 130 people (or even more).
  2. The faction size rule is too high a bar for participation. It's ridiculous that a group should have to get 10% of the citizens to join to stand for election (incidentally, do any of our parties currently qualify? Last time I checked they all had less than 12 members. Uh, oh!) We should make it 5% or a minimum of 3 people like it used to be.
  3. Electoral reform. I was glad to see Single Transferable Vote mentioned as an alternative to our current system. Anything which guarantees proportional representation and does not force people to vote for (rank) factions they don't agree with would be an improvement on our current system.
  3. We should hold regular 'Town Hall' meetings rather like the regular meetings held in Al Andalus before the merger. This could be in alternate weeks with the RA. This would be a good way to discuss issues and build consensus before formal voting in the RA.

[Patroklus Murakami]

One further point, which I forgot to add earlier, is that our next elections take place in just over a month. I don't know whether Jon Seattle has been approached to set up the voting booths and elections software/server for us again but we should do that soon if it the approach has not yet been made.

If we change our electoral system this close to an election though we need to consider whether we can get someone to alter the software, test it etc in time. Perhaps this issue should be discussed now but concluded after the next election? I understand that there may be an 'anti-faction faction' standing in these elections which would reveal how much support this idea has among CDS citizens.

[Jamie Palisades]

When Patroklus chooses to jump in on a policy issue in Forum posts, he almost always provides helpful and reasoned comment on our big issues in CDS. This is no exception, so it's a great start to the conversation. Thanks for raising these issues on the proposed constitutional change posted here: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2630

As fate would have it, Pat also almost always chooses to jump in with helpful and reasoned comments that oppose anything I suggest. But that's a healthy thing for democracy. So let's delve into the policy points made so far.

[factions] are not to promote ideological battles (as Jamie claims) but to "represent the ideological views of its [i.e the CDS] citizens.

Hardly a difference. Read Article I -- it's designed to foster and encourage ideological debate, and says so. Not governing. Not cooperation. But ideology experiments! The fundamental plan was "let's have some fun with ideology pantomimes in a small village." Obviously, a few still love that idea. I don't. We're like a rural town council, whose members WANT to talk about the war in Afghanistan, and Communism and whether North Korea has the bomb .. and spend their time plotting to get rid of each other .. but this takes all of their energy, and prevents any work on fixing the city sewers, or re-vitalizing the high street shops.
When you put team jerseys on legislators, as their central identity, they WILL have ideological or ego squabbles. The old CDS structure incentives the wrong thing.
What if the only ways for our legislators to feel accomplishment were to create legislation by consensus, and encourage citizen programmes ... not to run pogroms, scrums, or yammer on about Arsenal or CSDF beating Man U or NuCARE?

We elect factions, rather than individuals, because of the nature of Second Life. To put it briefly - people come and go. ... What would happen [in Jamie's plan] when, as is inevitable, some of those people resign during the term. Would we hold by-elections?

Our experiences show that factions don't add anything to continuity.
(a) We HAVE run by-elections, under the faction system too. As do most RL democratic governments. They worked fine.
(b) We have 3 branches of government. In the other two, we keep ourselves supplied with Chancellors and SC members without faction affiliation. And some of THEM have wandered off and needed replacing, too. Any RA, of any design, will require a replacement method. Factions are only one of many replacement systems.
(c) Obvious proof of the inability of factions to ensure faction continuity happened 3 terms ago. One faction, and the RA, fell apart for a while! The LRA quit in a huff, and his faction could not replace him. In THAT system, the second-ranked faction took over. Eventually. After stumbling around unprepared for two months. Obviously, the faction system did not preserve the ruling party's continuity. Under my proposal, the RA would just elect a new LRA .. and could even consider whether the person had the skills or probity to run meetings fairly.
Regardless of system, continuity depends on *people* staying, not factions. What we need is a structure that attracts and keeps good ones ... not drives them away in disgust at game-playing and time-wasting.

Another benefit of factions is the avoidance of 'beauty contest', personality-based electoral contests. If we elect individuals, rather than factions, then we get into personal political powerbases .. personalities ...

Our history richly disproves the notion that factions prevent this.
The list of people who CDS factions have tried to oust, in various, silly, drama-laden pogroms, usually more for ego than policy, is long and telling. There's even some consistency ... some football clubs have a bigger rep for injuring the other side than others.
Factions are un-controlled, mostly un-policed groups which *usually* amount to one or two dominant people -- and our rules give those tinpot tyrants complete power over all of their RA members! Factions are the unexplained, clubby fourth branch of government, and one who gets almost no oversight from the SC. The voters can vote for three smart, able, decorous members of SP ... and then SP can immediately get rid of them, by fiat, and substitute in three mean, brutish louts who cannot legislate or even form sentences. How is this good? Or respectful of the voters?

One further point ... is that our next elections take place in just over a month.

True. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the current RA were able to enact my proposal. It is the holiday "slow season", and a constitutional amendment requires 2/3rds -- that is. 8 yes votes from the 11 RA members. Currently there are 5 AA citizens, 3 SP members, 2 DPU members and 2 CDSF members. Can we really muster 8 votes?
But then, people said we couldn't do the Al Andalus merger either .. it was impossible .. then premature .. then badly designed .. then constitutionally wrong. Sound familar? Anyone else see a pattern here?
And no, a voting booth system that simply ... counts votes and tells you who got the most ... is no harder to create than our current arcane named calculation systems using Borda counts and the Sainte-Lague method.

Warm regards, JP

Jamie eyeballs the RA facebook board and mulls over what's going to happen next.

Jamie-muses-and-counts-votes.png (122.12 KiB) Viewed 1525 times

[Justice Soothsayer]

As usual, Pat and Jamie raise interesting points about the RA and possible reforms. As a former LRA myself, I'll join them in providing my perspective on what works and what doesn't work with the current system.

Factions - I think Jamie overstates the importance of factions in the day-to-day running of the RA. Very few votes in the RA come down to faction-line votes, particularly when it comes to legislation that is actually passed. Some proposals do get voted down in party-line votes, but that is a signal that in our system it is important to reach out to the other factions to get anything done. I don't think we've seen a single faction possess a majority of the RA seats in several terms.

Size - The RA does seem to be getting bogged down a bit due to its size, and I think we've hit (or maybe even surpassed) the logical limit of the size of the RA. It was hard to coordinate schedules for RA meetings that accomodate five members spanning Europe-N. America time zones, and I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be to do so for an RA of 13 members. Seven-day votes for absent members helps, but can lead to confusing voting when considering multiple amendments on a piece of legislation.

The LRA - To avoid succession problems when there is an LRA vacancy, we adopted the position of LRA pro tempore, the person who takes over if there is a vacancy in the LRA job. That person is elected by the full RA, and does not have to be of the same faction as the LRA. For example, I believe Cindy was picked as the LRA pro tempore when the LRA position was held by a member of a different faction.

Rules - The RA sometimes gets caught up in procedural nightmares. There is a fairly simple set of rules to govern the RA, but they are often ignored, particularly by those who prefer to follow Roberts Rules of Order. The RA should pick a set of rules and follow them, and the Leader should enforce them.

Replacements - As Pat notes, factions do serve as a vehicle for replacing RA members, and there is often a turnover during the course of a six-month RA term. If we eliminate choosing RA members by factions, there should be a simple system for filling vacancies. By-elections can of course be held, but I suspect we would be having far too many of them. If Jamie's amendment is adopted, serious consideration should be given to adopting a new method for replacing RA members. Perhaps two-thirds of the remaining RA members could appoint a replacement, or the next-highest votegetter could fill a vacant seat. If an RA seat is vacated within 30 or 45 days before a regular election, I'd just keep it vacant. I would also like to see a mechanism for replacing RA members who don't attend two or three meetings in a row. Absenteeism can cause problems, such as depriving the RA of a quorum necessary for action.