NationStates Jolt Archive

The Ochiang Government swiftly got to work on its program of amending the constitution. Of course, the Government could not simply pass amendments at will. At best, it could propose an amendment to the Congress which, if it approved, could then propose it to the people. Under the current system, any proposed amendment would need to be approved by a majority in every single Member. Mr. Ochiang, of course, was aware than essentially none of his proposed reforms enjoyed that level of support. The current system of amending the Constitution was designed to make sure it was never amended.

There were a number of options open to the Government. The most obvious was to simply scrap the Constitution and call a new Constitutional Convention. However, such a move would represent the very kind of radical discontinuity that the Confederal people were simply sick of. Another option would be to place all the necessary reforms in a single amendment on the assumption that enough people knew there had to be change that nearly everyone would vote for the entire package, even though no single provision could have commanded such a majority. However, this second option would have left the inherent deficiencies of the amendment process unaddressed. Instead, Mr. Ochiang decided to rely on the near universal belief that constitutional reform was needed and to amend the amendment process to make it possible. Such an amendment would be the only time that the original process would need to be used and it was also likely to only issue on which the sort of majority envisioned by the original provisions might be found.

Mr. Ochiang thus moved that Congress submit to the people a proposed constitutional amendment allowing the constitution to be amended by a vote of a majority of the people in two thirds of the Members provided that such a majority shall also constitute a majority of the total votes. Congress passed the measure and it was sent to the people.

On the day of the referendum, the people of 128 Members gave the amendment their overwhelming approval. Sonora alone was too close to call. However, if the amendment was defeated in Sonora, it would be defeated and, despite their overwhelming success, it was unclear that night whether constitutional reform would truly be possible or not. After a full week of counting and recounting, checking and double-checking, it became more and more apparent that the Sonoran results were unprecedented in exactly how close they were. In the end, it turned out that the referendum had passed, but only by a single vote.

Mr. Ochiang then began moving to get his other proposed amendments past. He determined that the next set of amendments would all be submitted to the people on the same day so as to avoid voter fatigue and set a date a month in the future to give himself and his government sufficient time to get them through Congress. The first proposal was for an amendment which would ban alliances or intergovernmental unions (excluding, of course, the Confederated Peoples itself) between Members and allowing any such unions already in existence one year’s time to fully transition. The second proposal was for the creation of a unicameral legislature (the Confederal Assembly) based upon proportional representation to replace the Congress of the Confederation. The next proposal was for an amendment creating a Confederal Council as the Government of the Confederation. This Council would consist of seven members each with a specific portfolio. Each member would be elected separately by the Confederal Assembly for a four-year term. The President and Vice-President of the Confederated Peoples would be elected from among the Council for concurrent one-year terms. The next proposed amendment concerned the Supreme Court. It did not change anything of substance regarding the role and function of the Court but it elevated the basis of this role from a statute to a constitutional provision, thus guaranteeing the independence of the Court from the legislature. The next proposal concerned the Head of the Commonwealth, enshrining in the Constitution his status as the living symbol of the free union among the Members, guaranteeing the respect duly accorded to such a position and, more substantively, giving him authority in dynastic, as opposed to intergovernmental, diplomacy and allowing him to play a more general role in diplomacy with the support of the legislature. The last proposal which effected changes to the structure of the government itself was one forbidding any person from running for re-election to any office they currently held, although they would be allowed to again run for the same office in later campaigns.

Mr. Ochiang also proposed some amendments expanding the powers of the Confederal legislature in order to make it effective. The first of these was a proposal to grant the Confederal legislature the right to pass such laws as were necessary and proper to insure the rights of the people under the law. The second was a proposal to grant the Confederal legislature the right to regulate commerce. The third was a proposal giving the Confederal legislature the right to create an income tax. The next proposal gave the Confederal legislature the power to pass criminal laws regarding counterfeiting and criminal activity crossing Member borders. This included an exclusive right to pass legislation regarding smuggling. Next was a proposal granting the legislature the power to create Confederal law enforcement agencies for the enforcement of Confederal law, the assistance of Member law enforcement, counterintelligence, protecting the security of transportation between Members and keeping order in emergency situations which surpass the capabilities of local and Member law enforcement to deal with them.

Another proposed amendment regarded the military. It enshrined in the Constitution the election of a Grand Marshal of the Confederation to serve as Commander-in-Chief during times of war or national danger. The Grand Marshal, when and if one was elected, was given the right to declare localized States of Emergency and he and his designated representatives were given extensive (but not unlimited) emergency powers in such areas. A Grand Marshal could be removed from office by the legislature either as a result of the end of the emergency situation or because, for whatever reason, they he was no longer considered the proper person to fulfill the role of Grand Marshal. The election of a Grand Marshal would also result in the automatic integration of the local militias and the Civil Defense Forces with the regular Armed Forces and would automatically transfer the Reserves to active duty. However, the Member control of the Civil Defense Forces and local control of the militias during times of peace was guaranteed. The Confederal Government was also given the right to maintain a standing Confederal military above and beyond the General Staff, the Special Command and the Confederal Deep Space Agency. Only Confederal citizens were eligible to serve without special permission from the legislature or from the chief of the department charged with maintaining the armed forces.

The last proposed amendment was a fairly broad one which some detractors referred to simply as the “and anything else we forgot amendment.” It stated that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution did not deny others retained by the people and that powers not constitutionally vested in the Confederated Peoples or denied to the Members belonged to the Members, respectively, or to the people.

The various amendments were then submitted to the people. All except for the proposal regarding the legislature and the proposal regarding term limits were accepted. The Government allowed the term limits issue to slide but the legislative proposal was the cornerstone of the entire Reform program and thus the Government set to work on a revised proposal. This new proposal established a bicameral Confederal Assembly with a proportional Chamber of Deputies and a Senate in which every Member had a single seat. All legislation had to originate in the Chamber. It would then be sent to the Senate which could pass it, reject in or return it to the Chamber in amended form. If the Senate amended the legislation, the Chamber could accept the amended legislation at which point it would become law or they could make their own amendments and send the amended bill to the Senate or they could simply drop the bill. If the Senate rejected the bill, the Chamber could drop the bill or return it to the Senate. If the Chamber returned an identical bill to the Senate three times, it would become law regardless of the Senate’s actions.

This second proposal was also submitted to the voters and it too was rejected. The Government went back to the drawing board and came out with a somewhat more complex scheme. There was to be a bicameral Confederal Assembly. The Chamber of Deputies was to be elected proportionally by Member. In other words, seats would be divided proportionally among the Members providing that every Member received at least one seat. Those Members with more than one seat would have proportional elections to fill those seats. Every Member would have one to three seats in the Senate, depending roughly on population, elected in first-past-the-post elections. Senators would be elected for staggered six year terms with no Member electing more than one Senator in any one election after the first. Deputies would be elected annually. The two houses would be co-equal in passing legislation except that the Confederal Assembly as a whole would meet to elect the Confederal Council, the Confederal President and Vice-President and, when needed, the Marshal of the Confederation and, by virtue of its superior numbers, the Chamber of Deputies would have the advantage in those elections.

Because the final proposal contained a much stronger federal element and a much weaker proportional element than what the Government had originally wanted, it was coupled with another proposed amendment regarding direct democracy. This amendment provided that if more than one quarter of the citizens of the Member involved or five million people, whichever number was lower, petitioned for the recall of a deputy, then there would be a recall referendum. If a majority of voters voted for recall, that deputy would be recalled and a by-election held for that seat. If more than one half of citizens of the Member involved or ten million people, whichever number was lower, petitioned for the recall of a senator, then there would be a recall referendum. If a supermajority of voters voted for recall, that senator would be recalled and a by-election held. If either a majority or ten million people, whichever is lower, in each of at least a quarter of the Members registered their rejection of a statute passed by the Confederal Assembly, then that statute would be subject to a popular referendum. If a majority voted against the statute, it would be repealed. This repeal mechanism could not be applied to the Confederal Budget.

Both amendments were passed by the voters and job of the Confederal Government was quickly reduced to that of a transition government preparing for elections. The last act of the Congress of the Confederation was to divide the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Senate based upon available census data. Mr. Ochiangh announced proudly that the Reform cause had been won. While there was still much for the Government and the Congress of the Confederation to do before the elections, both their responsibilities and their political credibility were greatly reduced by the fact that they were now a transitional body and many of the Representatives turned their energies to political campaigning. The journey which had begun when High Queen Agwene introduced her first program of reforms for the Danaan High Kingdom was at last completed but it felt to many that a greater journey based upon more fully realizing the dream contained in those reforms had just begun. Beset by problems and dangers both foreign and domestic, the Confederal people were nonetheless unapologetically optimistic.

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