[SOM] Bill Types

Codex Memorial Garden The Magisterium
1

I’m mad. In fact, I’ve been mad for years. Because for a couple years now, we’ve had these handy dandy proposal tags at the top of our forum. For a couple more years, we’ve had these handy dandy [XYZ] tags in our topic titles. Recently, a lot of people do both. We’ve also recently transitioned into votes that are given their own codes, such as A-2025-1. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve been the only one who does any of this legally.

You see, for four or five years now, we’ve had the Standing Orders lay out exactly what kind of Bills exist. And for four or five years now, people have been completely ignoring it. Let me remind you all, as I tried to do often in the past, what these types are:

  1. “Proposal” – a new Act or an amendment to an existing Act.
  2. “Resolution” – a new Resolution or an amendment to an existing Resolution.
  3. “Amendment” – an Amendment to the Concordat.
  4. “Standing Orders Amendment” – an amendment to the Standing Orders.

I have held my tongue for years but it has been extraordinarily frustrating watch people call proposals amendments, or give Amendments a special label, or introduce new categories that aren’t laid out in the SOM, without having the foresight to lay out those same categories in the SOM when there is a gap, such as with Treaties or Confirmations.

However, now, when I was preparing my Deputy Provost tweaks (check those out too), I remembered this section and I was impelled to act. I decided today: Fuck it. If I can’t get you all to follow the procedures we laid out in law, I’ll just change those procedures so that you guys at least start being correct.

I apologize for the frustration in my tone. I understand that this is not a big deal, but that’s partly why I’m frustrated. It’s so easy to change the procedures or remove them entirely, so I just cannot fathom why I have been the only person in the region in five years who has followed this. I don’t think it reflects bad character and there’s no one in particular I’m mad at, but I just don’t understand why we continue to keep something on the books that we flagrantly violate every single day.

SECTION II. LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE

…2.1. The Magisterium may exercise legislative action through four different kindsthe following categories of Bills:

…2.1.1. A “Legislative Proposal,"Law" (L) (“Proposal”) defined as a bill that, upon enactment, shall form part of the binding body of law of TEP or an amendment thereof.

…2.1.2. A “Resolution,” (RS) defined as a bill outlining the non-binding opinion of the Magisterium.

…2.1.3. An “Proposed Amendment to the Concordat,” ( “Amendment”) (A), defined as a bill that, upon passing a Magisterial vote, shall be placed before the Citizens in referendum to amend the Concordat, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Concordatform a binding change to a standing Act or Resolution.

…2.1.4. A “Standing Orders Amendment,” (SOA), defined as a bill that will amend the Standing Orders of the Magisterium.

…2.1.5. A “Concordat Amendment” (CA), defined as a bill that will amend the Concordat of the East Pacific upon confirmation by the Magisterium and a referendum of the Citizens.

…2.1.6. A “Repeal” (RP), defined as a bill that will eliminate a standing Act, Resolution, Treaty, or Declaration of War upon passage.

…2.1.7. A “Nomination” (N), defined as a proposed candidate for public office which requires approval from the Magisterium.

…2.1.8. A “Removal” (RM), defined as an exercise of the Magisterium’s power to suspend or removal a public official.

…2.1.9. A “Treaty” (T), defined as the enactment or amendment of a treaty as defined by the Concordat.

…2.1.10. A “Declaration of War” (W), defined as the enactment or amendment of a Declaration of War as defined by the Concordat.

…2.2. Any Resident may start a debate on or introduce a Proposal, Resolution, or Amendment ( “Bill”). Only Magisters may start a debate on or propose a Standing Orders AmendmentBill of any kind, unless contraindicated by the Concordat, Statutory Law, or these Standing Orders.

…2.2.1. Only a Magister may propose a Standing Order.

…2.2.2. The category of Bill introduced shall be indicated in the forum tag of the Bill’s topic and indicated through acronym in the title of the vote conducted by the Provost’s Office.

2

Seems to me you’re absolutely right, and I know for sure I’ve sinned against this.

3

In my defense, I do not believe the Magisterium had a tag for removals previously. And it wasn’t a nomination so I really kinda went fuck it and posted it with the Removal tag. Apologies for adding to the frustrations

4

Don’t get me wrong – no one specifically is the straw that broke my back and no particular person or example is the subject of my ire. Every single mistake is the product of a culture of every other mistake, a snowball rolling down a mountain that started 4-5 years ago. I don’t blame anyone or have a grudge with anyone about this, I just don’t like it overall. In fact, the removal proposal was made after I started this amendment draft.

5

I like how I said this and then didn’t put treaties in my amendment. I’ll deal with that later today.

6

Well, fuck me then, I guess. My fault. I’ll whip my Deputies and myself into shape at earliest convenience.

Again, I’m not hurt either way.

7

Honestly at this point I would rather keep things going/adapt to the tags in the proposal to just prepare for the change so we don’t have to switch and then switch back.

8

We exist only to fuck with you, Aivintis.

Serious: this is good. Overdue. And clearly none of us were paying attention to the tag formatting anyway. Support.

9

I support. Titling bills with (A), (L), (RS) is much neater and simpler than the titles of current proposals. As a newer Magister, this could make everything much easier for me.

10

Yeah I support. As a fiend for good organization of paperwork I feel like standardizing this then going and retroactively fixing things would be the way to go

11

Done. I also merged Treaty and Declaration of War to prevent clutter – but I can separate them if people want.

12

If we doing CA for concordant amendment, I think we should keep SOA for standing orders amendment. Makes it intuitive

13

Done.

14

A few notes as I’ve gotten over myself:

Not a big fan of the idea of having >2 letters in a given abbreviation for the purpose of the codes. OA - Orders Amendment?

Formerly X in the CyberiumShadow standard (Lucklife has opted for RM in the latest vote). Better abbreviation in my opinion.

Other than that, my full support is granted. Makes my life easier.

15

I like OA but I’m afraid of exactly what Luck is talking about – do we think OA is intuitive enough that we won’t get people doing SOA or SOMA anyway?

16

This is a very very clerical matter and no one has indicated opposition thus far – even so we’ve seen a lot of activity which has helped me refine the proposal as much as I think possible. With that in mind, and with the caveat that new categories can be added as time goes by, I move for a vote.

17

I second the motion to vote