Fine for resigning?

[Aliasi Stonebender]

It has come to my attention - well, hell I was there - that at least one member of the SC is of the opinion that Amendment 8 makes resigning a RA seat a crime against the Constitution. Now, I am no longer a member of the SC myself, but I only resigned my seat, not my brain... and I just don't see the reasoning.

Given that the member in question is known to me to be intelligent and reasoned, I would like to know if this is an official opinion of the SC as a whole, and what the logic behind this opinion is. (It's not a [i:1fz4rfwm]particular[/i:1fz4rfwm] issue with me, since my own RA resignation was well before this amendment... but it concerns me. Will we be forcing people out of Neualtenburg or whatever we call ourselves for simple RL issues?)

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

No, I think that will never happen

The reasoning behind it is slightly different. Currently, there are very simple ways to abuse the whole RA process, by "comitting" some members of a faction to take a RA seat, but then withdrawing when a critical decision comes forward; or, contrariwise, getting members that weren't elected into the RA (a good strategy when you definitely wish to get unpopular members of your list to get a seat on the RA — just let them out of the list, let other get elected, then remove these, and let your unpopular member in).

This is sadly what also happens in some democratic systems; to prevent this to happen, there are sometimes branches of government with the power to "dissolve" the RA and force new elections.

Under [i:3qp013e3]our[/i:3qp013e3] system, this is not possible, since it's the RA itself that sets its own term and the election day. So, my personal feeling is that this "gaming" aspect should be somehow kept to a minimum.

There are three good, legitimate reasons for dropping off the RA:
- accepting a voting position on either Guild or SC
- leaving the City
- RL issues (of all sorts)

Even the first one can be "gamed" (ie. people jumping from RA to the other branches just to have an "excuse" for letting unelected members to enter the RA...).

Taking this into account, one should consider ways to limit this to happen. Fines is a possibility (either to the person or to the faction). Setting up a "threshold of change" is another (ie. if more than 50% of the original RA members have been replaced, new elections have to be called). Still, artificially forcing new elections by calling for these special situations are [i:3qp013e3]another[/i:3qp013e3] form of gaming the system.

All in all, I just think that the RA could give some thoughts to this, and provide the appropriate legislation. If there is no fear of having the system "too much gamed", this whole discussion could be dropped

[Dianne]

I'd like to chime in with support for Gwyn on this.

The concept of 'gaming" the RA and concerns over possible scenarios and what would be "right," took up the large majority of the SC's time in the debate over RA seat replacement (1:2 vs 4:2 for those in the know ). We really need some legislation to be proposed on this matter in the RA.

Another scenario might be that three parties run for the RA, two are elected on popular platforms with large amounts of members, and a third unpopular party's platform receives no seats at all.

Is it possible that all the members of the two elected parties could leave their parties and join the third during the governments term? It's not so clear if that is allowed or not.

If they did so, you would have a situation where one monolithic party with a platform that no one voted for, was in complete control of the RA. Unlikely of course but still something to be deliberately avoided.

The whole issue of when is a faction a faction, under what conditions and at what times they can form, dissolve, when you can leave one or join one etc. is just not dealt with in the constitution or the law books really. it should be.