Been noodling around my suggestion earlier in Discord to introduce a new category that automatically repeals redundant legislation on passing and figured it would also be useful to add in the HOGS updates needed – and to remind myself that I keep forgetting to bring the SOM in line with the Formatting Standards Act.
Sorry - forgot that I was rewriting this and made some changes that narrowed the scope of a Merge down to Laws only. Rescoped and reintroduced the explicit barrier against the Concordat being Merged.
While I can see the logic of wanting to simply such votes, I fear that creating a -merge- proposal leads to a host of other tricky scenarios.
For example, if legislators feel that an act should be amended, but the second act should not be repealed. In that case by bundling it together as a “merge”, it conveniently hides the voices of those who think that the second act should not be repealed.
The current system provides clarity on what should remain and what should be amended, encouraging bill sponsors to talk and politik amongst each other to see what passes and what doesn’t. I believe that the current situation where one act is slated to be amended with another repeal failing is a lack of conversation, politiking, support campaigning from the sponsor legislator. In this case, I strongly do not believe that it is a failing of the system which needs amending
If someone was against a Law being repealed as part of a Merge, surely they could voice that opinion during discussion before it was being brought to a vote? And if that opinion wasn’t being followed, couldn’t that voice simply vote against a Merge?
It definitely could, but the inner thinking is “I really want the amendment for A to pass but I don’t want to repeal B”
And while some may choose to vote no, others would also choose to push it aside and vote aye.
In effect it’s bundling two choices into one vote which I think doesn’t respect the spirit of voting.
Perhaps to give a super extreme example not in the form of legislation.
“I hereby propose that we should elect Luck as Vizier, and at the same time we should remove AMOM as Vizier” (We love you AMOM)
Just assuming this was legal, hypothetically how would one decide? Maybe someone wants Luck to be an Vizier. That someone also wants AMOM to keep sitting as a vizier.
The end result of voting would be skewed not based on logic because it’s two big decisions bundled into one
Leaving aside my thoughts on how the presented argument is a false equivalence, I think in that example the appropriate response in that situation would be to say to the Sponsor “I think there’s harm in removing AMOM as a Vizier, so I’m going to vote against this if you motion it like this. If you raise the vote to elect Luck as a Vizier separately, then I’ll vote for that.”
That’s the point of the discussion phase of Proposals, something that’s that much more important when you consider that if something quorate fails that it can’t be raised for the rest of the Magisterium Session.
If the Sponsor can’t convince the Magisterium to their viewpoint or make their Proposal palatable for the Magisterium then they run the risk of their vote failing to pass. Something that I think is potentially more likely to happen under a Merge category unless the Sponsor is particularly careful.
In response to not respecting the spirit of voting, there is a requirement that the effects of the Proposal are stated up front - the Proposal can’t be motioned until any repeal targets are identified. The Magisterium has every opportunity to identify if what they’re being asked to vote on is palatable to them or not, and if not, not vote for it - the very spirit of voting.
That then ties back into my point above that if, after these discussions, you’ve stated that you can’t support repealing the target and the Sponsor motions it anyway, that you should vote against the Proposal.
I see three main benefits. From the strongest argument for the amendment to the weakest:
The intent of the legislation is explicit and harder to miss.
It also makes it easier for legislators to know what Acts they should be reviewing to ensure that everything from the Laws that are intended for repeal are addressed in the amended text, because it has to be explicitly stated what is being replaced, and what is being repealed.
It reduces the risk of us retaining redundant legislation if the updated Law is implemented but the redundant Law(s) are retained.
Going back to a real example where this could have been used, when we replaced the Standard Date Time Act and the Law Standards Act with the Formatting Standards Act, that would have been a prime candidate for the Merge category.
There are fewer administrative issues. No matter how we run concurrent votes (single topic for the same category or multiple topics for multiple categories) the vote is always out of sync.