Passed Motion to Amend the Rules of Procedure (3)

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Asdersland

Asdersland

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It appears Druing's bill writing has reached the floor of this chamber once more. To her I yield the floor for her introduction.

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Coat_of_Arms_UDS.png

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A MOTION​

To Amend the Rules of Procedure of the Senate
Presented to the Senate of the Union of Democratic States on the 8th of April, 2021.
Sponsored by Druing.
As follows:
​

NOTICING that the General Assembly have provisioned for the primary sponsor to withdraw a bill that they have proposed within reasonable circumstances,

UNDERSTANDING that the Senate has yet to do the same,

CONSIDERING that with the success of the existing provision in the lower chamber, that this would be a useful and necessary tool for a Senator to be able to utilise,

BE IT ENACTED by the Senate:

Section 1: Provisions
1. Section 3, Clause 2, Subclause A shall be amended to read: “Hierarchy of Motions

I move to protest violation of procedure
I move to withdraw the bill from the Senate
I move to extend the current period
I move to close the current period
”

2. The following Subclause shall be inserted following Subclause C of Section 4, Clause 3: “Frivolous motions to withdraw.”

3. Two new clauses shall be inserted in Section 3, between Clauses 5 (“A senator may, at any time, protest to the Speaker against an action the senator believes has violated these procedures, and the Speaker shall evaluate the claim, and take whatever restorative action is necessary.”) and 6 (“A Simple Majority shall mean a majority of votes of all Senators present and voting. A Supermajority shall mean a four-fifths majority of all Senators. An Absolute Majority shall mean a majority of votes of all Senators.”), with the subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly:

A. “Except under circumstances outlined later within this section, the primary sponsor for the motion is entitled to motion to withdraw the motion and may cite their reason for doing so. This action is only available to the primary sponsor and they may only do so during the motion’s debate period, following the provisions for such in Section 7.”

B. “The motion to withdraw may not be initiated when:
a. The bill originated in the General Assembly.
b. The bill is returning to the Senate from the General Assembly.”

4. Section 7, Clause 4, Subclause A shall be amended to read: “The debate period will last 48 hours from the opening by the Speaker, during which the primary sponsor may motion to withdraw the bill.”

5. Two new subclauses shall be inserted following Section 7, Clause 4, Subclause A:

A. “If, during this period, the primary sponsor motions to withdraw the motion which remains unobjected to within the following 24 hours, the motion passes.”

B. “If, during this period, the primary sponsor motions to withdraw the motion which is objected to within the following 24 hours, a vote is initiated to withdraw the motion, following the standard provisions for voting on a procedural motion.”

6. The following clause shall be inserted in Section 7, between Clauses 4 (“The speaker shall then declare the bill open for discussion by other Senators, who may then formally and respectfully declare their views on the bill at hand.”) and 5 (“Upon conclusion of the debate period the Speaker will move the bill forward to the amendment period which will last a further 48 hours.”), with the subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly:

A. If the motion to withdraw has been invoked and subsequently passed, following confirmation from the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, the motion shall become withdrawn and will progress no further.
 
Thank you.

One of the many interesting points of Mad President Druing's presidential term, is that they... Not quite introduced, but made more explicit, a method for which a primary bill sponsor may withdraw their bill from the General Assembly, intended such that if they catch major flaws with the proposal, they may not need to have procedure needlessly drag on - Even though it was technically provisioned for under their new RoP with the fairly abstract concept of members being able to 'make any reasonable motion,' I had discussed with the RoP's author about the concept, since it was originally being drafted for the prior RoP, and they agreed that such a thing was necessary to have in an exactly defined fashion, such that it may serve as an emergency button of sorts.

Additionally, Glac, the VP at the time, was consulted during the draft for their input - Which is primarily the reason why Clause 5, its Subclauses and the procedures they provision, exist in the fashion that they do.

This amendment to the Senate RoP, while near-identical to the GA RoP amendment, actually serves a different purpose. While GA amendment makes more explicit and concrete, a procedure that was already available, this amendment provides the utility in the first place - This is because Senators are currently unable to make generic, flexible motions, as both RoPs are fundamentally different in what they provision. Whether or not the Senate requires such a similar and drastic overhaul with increased abstractness and flexibility is not the contention of this amendment; I'll leave that for others to determine. For now, with this, I simply wish to better equalisation regarding the procedural capabilities of the GA and the Senate.

The previous Senate struck the amendment period and implementing the current system of allowing the proposal of amendments during the debate period, to later be voted on following it - As they recognised the increased efficiency and flexibility that the same system in the GA allows for simpler and better processing of legislation there.

It was also for this reason, that General Assembly Members were largely in favour of the explicitisation of the then-abstract motion to withdraw - While yes, it was available to them, it was not a clearly defined procedure and in the event that this would have been exercised prior to the amendment to the GA's RoP, may have generated uncertainty on the Chair's side as to how to process such a motion, as well as unclear motions on a Member's part feeding into that uncertainty, as the lack of a clear procedure for bill withdrawal, which could have potentially dragged on the procedure until a resolution was determined or worse, rendered the motion unreasonable, giving the Chair reason to reject it entirely; The explicitisation then, gives the sponsor a simple, guaranteed push-button process, that the Chair can then easily follow through on and resolve in a much cleaner manner.

Of course, that's in the General Assembly. Again, here this would be an implementation of that function. So not only do we have the benefit of having an explicit procedure as opposed to a generic one, we would have the benefit of having it in the first place. As of the time of writing, to my knowledge, the motion to withdraw has not yet been initiated (unless of course, you count Kade's attempt, which, while many would argue was an appropriate use of it, but was not congruent with the provisions for such, as there are restrictions on the motion to withdraw, which we'll get to, yes there is more to this introduction CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? I HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO WRITE, WHY AM I WRITING SO MUCH? I DON'T NEED TO WRITE THIS MUCH, IT'S LIKE I'M COMPELLED TO ARTICULATE ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, YOU ALREADY GET WHY WE NEED THIS AMENDMENT, THIS IS COMPLETELY REDUNDANT. THIS IS STUPID. THIS POST AT THIS POINT IS JUST ME BEING A TOTAL IDIOT. HELLO MY NAME IS-), but generally it is better to have something of this nature and not need it, rather than it having been more efficient and streamlined of a sponsor to have withdrawn a faulty motion under the circumstances, yet have procedure continue unnecessarily. Or something like that.

Additionally, even though this went undiscussed in the original GA RoP amendment, I should point out that the motion to withdraw takes priority over motions to extend or close. This is important for two reasons; Firstly, if the motion to withdraw is initiated, it affects the entire proceedings of the bill and, if withdrawn, may render any further deliberation, such as moving to an amendment or voting phase, wasted time, counter to one of its goals of increased efficiency. Secondly, the motion may only be initiated during the debate period - So in conjunction with the prior reasoning, it should take precedence over a motion to close.

So now the restrictions of when the motion to withdraw may be initiated. Firstly, as aforementioned, the motion is only available during the debate period. Even though amendment periods no longer exist in either chamber, it was being authored during such a time that there were and that draft still stipulated the same; The purpose of this is to prevent unnecessary encroachment into the legislative process - Additionally, it would not be sensible to allow for its usage near the completion of its being fully processed by the first chamber. Which brings me onto the other major restrictions; Effectively, a bill can only be withdrawn during its infancy in the Legislature - That being, when it is still in the chamber it was originated in and not returning from the opposing chamber.

In our would-be case, if the bill did not originate in the General Assembly and it is not returning to the Senate from the General Assembly. ...The reasoning for this is that, not only would the prior reasoning still apply, but also it would add unnecessary complication, as well as the potential for huge, unnecessary interruption. At that point, the bill is already either being effectively amended or struck down as necessary. The purpose of the amendment is to provide a grace period to retract the bill shortly following origination and thus, sponsor's time to intervene has long since passed.

This is already unnecessarily long at this point - But the last things of note are that the amendment also allows for the necessary discipline of abuse of the function and that in original debate, there was question about whether the motion to withdraw should mandate reasoning for doing so, rather than it being optional; Again, in the very original GA RoP draft, this was the case, but further review deemed it too restrictive. I did invite the Assembly to vote on whether that should have been the case through amendment, which failed 3 Nays to 2 Ayes. I will of course, offer this again to the Senate, with the following additional contentions to consider:

Firstly, making a reason for withdrawal absolutely mandatory, while more transparent, adds a complication to the motion, in that it is more complex to initiate and in the event that it is initiated without reason, which would most likely be due to forgetfulness on the sponsors part, would mean the Speaker would have to deny the motion, which may have otherwise been needed, depending on the nature of the bill.

Secondly, the Senate has elevated powers when compared to the General Assembly. As it stands, we exclusively may propose amendments or other forms of actions regarding the Constitution, which is the most important legal document of the region. Additionally, unlike the General Assembly, we are exclusively an elected body. As such, mandating that we must state why we are retracting a bill would greatly help with our monthly reports and the purpose they serve, as transparency in the Senate is arguably more crucial, than in the General Assembly.
 
Quite an introduction there, but seeing as it is complete, we move to the debate period for this motion.
 
So I need to propose two distinct amendments. The first deals with an inaccuracy regarding the bill - It's not a part that actually does anything, but it's important to reference the right things. With that being said -

I move to amend Section 1, Clause 6 to read: "The following clause shall be inserted in Section 7, between Clauses 4 (“The speaker shall then declare the bill open for discussion by other Senators, who may then formally and respectfully declare their views on the bill at hand.”) and 5 (“Upon conclusion of the debate period the Speaker shall move the bill to the voting period which will last 48 hours. If the bill has proposed amendments there will be two distinct voting periods. The amendments will be voted on individually in a single voting period.”), with the subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly:"

This is to make it more accurate to the current version of the RoP.

Now as I mentioned in my introduction:

I move to strike the first "may" from Section 1, Clause 3, Subclause A (at "[...] and may cite [...]") and replace it with "are required to".
 
I do love numbering headaches, but the amendments are accepted and will be voted on in the appropriate period.
 
I mean no issues here, I could potentially find something problematic about it if I decided to dive deep but it seems More than good enough
 
With the debate period closed without other amendment, I hereby open this amendment for voting.
 
Last edited:
With 4 in favor, none opposed, 1 abstaining, amendment 1 passes.
With 1 in favor, 2 opposed, 2 abstaining, amendment 2 fails.

The text of the motion now reads as follows:

​

Coat_of_Arms_UDS.png

​

A MOTION​

To Amend the Rules of Procedure of the Senate
Presented to the Senate of the Union of Democratic States on the 8th of April, 2021.
Sponsored by Druing.
As follows:
​

NOTICING that the General Assembly have provisioned for the primary sponsor to withdraw a bill that they have proposed within reasonable circumstances,

UNDERSTANDING that the Senate has yet to do the same,

CONSIDERING that with the success of the existing provision in the lower chamber, that this would be a useful and necessary tool for a Senator to be able to utilise,

BE IT ENACTED by the Senate:

Section 1: Provisions
1. Section 3, Clause 2, Subclause A shall be amended to read: “Hierarchy of Motions

I move to protest violation of procedure
I move to withdraw the bill from the Senate
I move to extend the current period
I move to close the current period
”

2. The following Subclause shall be inserted following Subclause C of Section 4, Clause 3: “Frivolous motions to withdraw.”

3. Two new clauses shall be inserted in Section 3, between Clauses 5 (“A senator may, at any time, protest to the Speaker against an action the senator believes has violated these procedures, and the Speaker shall evaluate the claim, and take whatever restorative action is necessary.”) and 6 (“A Simple Majority shall mean a majority of votes of all Senators present and voting. A Supermajority shall mean a four-fifths majority of all Senators. An Absolute Majority shall mean a majority of votes of all Senators.”), with the subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly:

A. “Except under circumstances outlined later within this section, the primary sponsor for the motion is entitled to motion to withdraw the motion and may cite their reason for doing so. This action is only available to the primary sponsor and they may only do so during the motion’s debate period, following the provisions for such in Section 7.”

B. “The motion to withdraw may not be initiated when:
a. The bill originated in the General Assembly.
b. The bill is returning to the Senate from the General Assembly.”

4. Section 7, Clause 4, Subclause A shall be amended to read: “The debate period will last 48 hours from the opening by the Speaker, during which the primary sponsor may motion to withdraw the bill.”

5. Two new subclauses shall be inserted following Section 7, Clause 4, Subclause A:

A. “If, during this period, the primary sponsor motions to withdraw the motion which remains unobjected to within the following 24 hours, the motion passes.”

B. “If, during this period, the primary sponsor motions to withdraw the motion which is objected to within the following 24 hours, a vote is initiated to withdraw the motion, following the standard provisions for voting on a procedural motion.”

6. The following clause shall be inserted in Section 7, between Clauses 4 (“The speaker shall then declare the bill open for discussion by other Senators, who may then formally and respectfully declare their views on the bill at hand.”) and 5 (“Upon conclusion of the debate period the Speaker shall move the bill to the voting period which will last 48 hours. If the bill has proposed amendments there will be two distinct voting periods. The amendments will be voted on individually in a single voting period.”), with the subsequent clauses renumbered accordingly:

A. If the motion to withdraw has been invoked and subsequently passed, following confirmation from the Speaker or Deputy Speaker, the motion shall become withdrawn and will progress no further.
We will now take a final vote on the motion as amended.
 
Aye. With three votes the motion passes and the Rules shall be changed accordingly.
 
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