Regarding point 5 -- Left-Wing Discussion

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Date Posted: Sun 2003-08-31 11:40:23
Author: goobergunch
Subject: Regarding point 5
In reply to: Redeye 's message, "Re: Responses to your points" on Thu 2003-08-28 21:27:49

5. Digression: that makes sense... However, this begs for a lot of leeway depending on the type of legislation. I support minimum debate times for laws, which get higher and higher as we move to higher levels that need to decide on more important affairs. For example, an L0's minimum debate time might be 3 hours, an SL's might be 6 hours, a DL's might be 12, and Congress' might be 24. Now, maximum debate times are problematic because not always all issues will've been resolved by the deadline. As for poison pills, all that's needed is a procedure rule that states that just before the final vote, each amendment or section of a bill is voted on independently. Thus, representatives will be able to vote the poison pill down and let the rest of the bill pass.

That's called a "line item veto", and it was just given to the US president in 1998, although it has been common in Parliamentary democracies for some time. I'm not a parliamentary procedure guy, so I do not know if what you propose would work in a legislature. For example, how could guys make any kind of compromise deal if the compromise could be undone by double-crossing whichever of the bundled proposals is brought to the floor last.

The "line item veto" was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997. (link) I don't support it for an executive (because I'm not a big fan of giving a lot of power to one person), but it makes sense to vote on each part of a bill separately for a legislature. This is referred to as seriatim consideration (Robert's Rules of Order Revised, page 93) and is occasionally used in Congress (for example, impeachment).

As for minimum debate times, I'd argue that debate times should decrease as we get to bodies that handle more business. For example, a bill in the U.S. Congress will get more debate time in committee then on the floor.

This is a fascinating read, but a lot of it's going over my head...I'm going to print it out and read it fully in my spare time and post my full comments later. And of course there's always school...

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