The RWA Draft

The Preamble

We the nations of The United States, in the interests of forming a more perfect region, based on the virtues of a vibrant and interactive online community of Nation States establish this Constitution for The United States.

Article I - The Legislative Branch
Section 1: The Legislature

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of

the United States, which shall consist of The Senate and The Assembly.

Section 2: The Assembly
The Assembly will consist of every respective citizen of The United States.

Clause A: The Assembly will have the authority to draft any law, regulation, amendment, or order to govern the region that does not unduly inhibit the constitutional authority directed to the other branches or the nations of the region.

Clause B: Such drafts, after the majority approval of at least 51% [See Article IV, Section 1: Standing Orders] of the bodies members, then go to the Senate for further review. [See Section 3, Clause B]

Clause C: The Assembly will also be given the authority of starting all charges of impeachment (of elected officials) or treason, they may also call for a criminal case against a non-elected official in the government, to be tried by the [insert court name] all under the majority vote of at least 51% of the bodies members.

Section 2: The Senate
The Senate will be comprised of a select number of elected members. The number of seats will be relative to the number of Citizens, which for starting purposes shall be set to 5 Citizens to 1 Senate Seat. The timing of elections, as well as the ratio of citizens to seats shall be governed by a Senate Standing Order (see Article IV, Section 1: Standing Orders) However, elections must begin by the 7th day of this Constitutions passing.

Clause A: The Senate will have the authority to draft and make law any, law, regulation, amendment, or order to govern the region that does not unduly inhibit
the constitutional authority directed to the other branches or the
nations of the region.

Clause B: In order for this legislation to pass, a majority vote is required, relative to the number of Senate Seats, unless a member specifically abstains from voting. In order to become law, the Consuls signature is required and in the case of constitutional Amendments a 3/4ths vote, as well as a majority vote in the Assembly. Drafts from The Assembly may be altered in any fashion, however The Assembly with a 3/4ths vote may block the move of the legislation to the Consul and demand a committee to be formed. (see Article IV, Section 1: Standing Orders) This committee must then adjust the legislation so that both bodies approve.

Clause C: The Senate will handle all trials of impeachment or treason, expect in the case of one of its own members - in this case the [insert court name] will run the trial. Standard voting rules apply.

Clause D: Appointments of [insert court name] [insert judge title] will also be confirmed by the Senate, by standard vote, as well as any appointments to a Consul or legislative created position or office within the Executive.

Section 3: Legislative Heads
The Assembly will be lead by the Speaker of The Assembly and The Senate by the President of The Senate. Each will be elected at the start of a term according to the standard vote rule. Each can be removed in the same fashion. They will help keep order in both bodies and operate them per the Standing Orders.

Article II: The Executive Branch
Section 1: The Consul
The Executive Branch will be lead by the Consul and all Powers of the Executive as outlined in Article II, Section 2 will be his or his deputies.
Section 2: Powers of the Executive
The Consul of The United States shall be the commander and chief as well as the formal head of state. An election must begin by the 7th day after the ratification of this document. Elections will be governed by Standing Orders.

Clause A:The Executive Branch shall be responsible for recruitment, maintaining foreign embassies (both on our forum and foreign forums), running elections, maintaining citizenship rolls, running the military and handling WA policy.

Clause B: The Consul may also issue Executive Orders, which may only govern matters in which the Executive controls. Such Orders may be declared unconstitutional by the [insert court name] or declared conflicting with current standing legislative law by the [insert court name] or standard vote of both The Assembly and Senate.

Clause C: Additionally the position of WA Delegate will fall under Executive Authority. This official position will fall under general appointment rules and will be responsible for assisting in WA policy as directed by the Consul. The Consul may also appoint nations to assist in carrying out his duties per Standing Orders & Executive Orders.

Article III: The Judicial Branch
Section 1: The [insert court name]
All Judicial Powers herein granted shall be vested in a panel of nations, the [insert court name] of the United States.

Section 2: Appointment & Seats
The number of seats on the court will be set by the Senate, relative to the census conducted by the Executive. The number of seats must always be odd, and for the purposes of the start up of the region - will be set to three. Two will hold the title Tribune and one the title of Chief Tribune. All will serve a life-term, or until resignation. In order to be appointed the Consul must select them and the Senate approve. To remove a Justice a Consul may ask The Assembly to begin removal proceedings, with the Senate having final say.

Section 3: Powers of the Judiciary
The [insert court name] will have the final authority on matters of the Constitution and criminal matters. (They may review Senate decisions on Treason at the request of the Consul or nation on trial and with a unanimous decision overturn) Standing Orders will govern the day to day operation of the court.

Section 4: Activation Clause
Due to the undo need of such an organization directly at the "founding" of a region, this Court will remain inactive until September the 1st, 2010. However, a vote of The Assembly, The Senate and an Executive Order from the Consul can decrease the deadline, or if deemed necessary delay it.

Article IV: Matters of Governance

Section 1: Standing Orders
Each branch of Government is expected to maintain at LEAST one constant Standing Order list. This list will have details on how to conduct the day to day operation of the various aspects of our government. Standing Orders are determined by the heads of each branch, Consul for the Executive, Chief Tribune for the Judiciary and the Speaker of The Assembly and the President of the Senate for the Legislature.

Section 2: Citizenship
The original citizens of the region will consist of the list created during the 7 day period prior to August 1st, 2010. The future of Citizenship however, will lay with the future legislature.

Section 3: The Legion
The military of the United States will be known as The Legion. The military will maintain the sovereignty and regional security of the region and her allies.

Section: Amendments
Realizing the imperfection of any document, Amendments to the Constitution can be made in the manner described in Article I, Section 2: Clause B.

I don't like Article 1.

I don't like the idea of a bicameral legislature, I believe it will make the democratic process more complicated than necessary. If we only had a group of selected officials that made laws and such it would speed up the process and make it more efficient.

The Assembly is purely token. It isn't necessary to do anything other then begin impeachment proceedings.

If it does become serious it will have quite a bit of power. It all balances out.

First of all tl;dr

Secondly I don't like giving the assembly power to vote on amendments, nor do I like them being able to start impeachment proceedings. The main purpose of the assembly that I outlined was to serve as a place to new and inexperienced members to participate in the government without the ramifications of said individuals inexperience. If we grow as much as we should the assembly will likely consist of a significant number of retards and allowing them to impeach someone or to veto an amendment is too much. The main goal of the assembly in my eyes is to create an environment where every nation regardless of experience can feel important (without giving them too much power) and also to scout which members can turn into fully fledged protective nations, and which members are simply along for the ride. Remember RWA for every Tigg/Miles/Gray we get we're going to get a Breanna. Other then that I like it alot and tomorrow I'll compare both your's and Daynor's more directly.

There also needs to be mention of a cabinet. Though I support the delegate having some say over what positions he creates I feel it is necessary to mandate certain things. While I don't think this document needs to mention any specific positions I think there should be some mention over the delegates responsibility to maintain his cabinet and the assemblies duty to assure that the cabinet is sufficient to maintain the growth of the region. Though you'd think this would be best left up to the consul you don't remember way back when Huck wanted to abolish the cabinet. None of us here would go that far but if this region is to succeed in the long term its possible that people we don't even know yet will one day lead us. Thats a relatively minor issue.

Also president>consul and if I referred to said position as "delegate" in my previous paragraphs thats my bad. I'm so used to the position being called as such its hard to break old habits.

Just to point out, the assembly wouldn't be 'filled with retards' because ALL citizens are in the assembly, which would mean for a considerable time the senate would probably be a majority of the Assembly anyway. So no matter how many Gossies we get there will always be more of .. well us.

As for the cabinet, it was my thoughts that a Consul should use some cabinet positions to help him but maybe not every single one. If the consul wanted to handle one or two areas personally I don't think that'd be disastrous. I wouldn't know how to make that a formal rule though...

I think having senators in the assembly kind of defeats the purpose. I don't know if RWA outlined in his proposal but senators and the head of state shouldn't be a part of the assembly. I also think that an activation clause is needed for the assembly too. Until we have enough citizens to fill a senate of 5 plus the head of state plus an assembly of at least 5 and a supreme court of at least 3 a kind of second body is redundant. How many active citizens to we have now? Certainly not 14. But we should have way more than that by September if we get out shit together.

Well I suppose that would be dependent on the quality of the new nations we get, if you remember the CC got up to 150ish one time, but we still didn't have many more active nations than when we were at 60. I certainly hope we do get a lot.

Thats what I mean active citizens. We have to concede that most of the nations we recruit won't do anything useful or anything at all, but they inflate our numbers which is a good thing.

I like the general idea of an assembly but personally I think it should be purely for the creation of draft laws, which can then be voted on by the senate. Representative democracy is usually best IMHO. Perhaps their could be a clause for senators to call regional referendums if they feel the entire region must decide on regional policy.

Also I agree with Anti, separation of powers please.

Other than that I like this a lot. Especially the romanish theme . God Job RWA.

Separation of powers are not needed at these early stages. And such a thing would be covered by legislative law, not constitutional law.

The rest of your points will be addressed when I've had some coffee.

Yes, other than my personal complaint, I like the rest of it a lot.

Oh and Zan the main idea of The Assembly is to appease people like you. You do remember some of your complaints over the several months? Similar to CWR and like.

Ok, ok, lest we begin another argument, I like the idea, but only for impeachment, and I don't think it's necessary for a whole other assembly. Just give the citizens the right to call an impeachment.

Zann it may not make much sense now but once we have like 5-10 active citizens who have no positions to fill it will. By giving them a place to participate in the government without really weilding too much power we not only appease people like you but it allows us to seperate who can actually become a productive member in the future and who is just here to talk about shit and who's here to troll.

It would act as a good testing ground for potential senate members actually, would give me an idea of what they are voting in.

Exactly. This is what we've needed for a long time. This way unproven nations don't have any considerate power but can still participate and we can see if they've got what it takes. And it'll ease the complaints that we're bound to get about the same people having power blah blah blah.

I'm merely unsure about including something that only might become useful some unknown amount of time down the road. :-/

I'll be home sometime tomorrow... Need some serious recruitment going on... :/

If there isn't ever a need for it then we're fucked anyway because this whole assembly is reliant on us getting a large population of active members and if we can't do that then theres no point in it all.

Agreed the whole thing should be set up with the presumption of active members otherwise we're fucked anyway.

Okay.

So we have four basic sections, the preamble, legislative, executive and judicial. (And mine separated mine split military from executive section).

As far as preambles go, I like mine better personally for being more detailed.
I like RWA's legislature.
The only difference in the executive sections is the executive order process, mine allowed orders to cover any part of the government and went into effect immediately, but had to be approved by senate to remain law (and was only made null by senates disapproval). Mainly I had patches of inactivity in mind for that, if there was a particularly inactive congess or something, the Consul could still keep the region afloat. It does however, mean paper work for an active congress...
I like RWA's judicial, as we still don't have a name, I don't have a problem with the Tribunal of The United States (or The United States Tribunal).

What does everyone else think about the different parts of each draft?

I like Daynor's draft more, but they're both well written...

And Tribunal is awesome.

Personally I think they are both very good but my weight would probably fall behind this one, the content is similar but RWA has a knack for law writing. Note to RWA become a senator.

Edit: A real life senator that is.

You should know that is where I want to head first, I have a habit of writing lots of laws off the bat.