The Region That Has No Big BanksBoard

Hello residents and citizens of TRTHNBB! I am The Kaverian, a Member of Parliament, major legislator, and Chairperson of the Activity Committee here. I would like to have your vote to become Speaker of Parliament for the next election!

While I am a newer member of this region, only really becoming active in December of last year, I am one of the most active legislators (only second to the incredible incumbent Speaker, America the Greater) and have many new, out of the box ideas. I also have a great knowledge of our regional law and constitution, as seen by my participation in the Confirmation and Activity Committees. Every day I am active on NationStates thinking of ways to improve the region. While I am a very opinionated person when it comes to being an MP, it has been proved that I am neutral when I put my Confirmation Committee member “hat” on. I intend to do the same as Speaker and run Parliament as a neutral manager.

I am dedicated to this great region, with this being my only NationStates account ever since I became active in this region. Despite that, I have been on NationStates for 3 years and have founded several of my own regions. In that time I searched for something that I was never getting from any other region in this entire universe of regions: other people like me. I believe I have found the region that is right for me, the region I was always supposed to be at. Since I started writing legislation a few months ago, I have been dedicated to you, the citizens of this region. I plan to do the same for a long time. That’s not all I plan to do, however.

I plan to:

1. Make parliament an even more open forum for citizens to express their ideas and concerns in the way of debate, legislating, and voting.
2. Continue to propose and encourage amendments to the constitution to increase its clarity and effectiveness, especially with the grey area that exists around it now.
3. Listen to MP’s with differing viewpoints and act as a neutral moderator while performing Speaker duties.
4. Introduce amendments pertaining to the Regional Court, due to it having a lack of mention within the constitution.
5. Prevent motions to expand gatekeeping and elitism within Parliament or take power away from the people.
6. Expand Parliamentary power in order for the citizens to have more influence in regional affairs.
7. Encourage activity by MPs and cooperation with Ministers in order to create progress.
8. Continue to run the parliamentary committees.
9. Update the Code of Conduct.
10. Move parliamentary debates onto NS.
11. Create a “suggestion box” for those not in parliament or those not wanting to write legislation to suggest regional policy.
12. Continue the new legislators program that got me to start legislating.
13. As part of 11 and 12, I plan to use the suggestion box as a means to prompt MPs to become even more active in the legislative process (such as an incentive or award).
14. Introduce a citizen registry of some sort (ran by the MoDA perhaps).

A few months ago, the idea of me running for a regional office here would be crazy to me. Now, after making a difference, I believe I have more of a chance to impact the future of this Region. I want to be a part of helping my absolute favorite region in NationStates! So I implore you to Vote The Kaverian for Speaker of Parliament!

I endorse Mjau for Prime Minister and Western Arba Fir for Deputy Prime Minister!

Join the Parliamentarian Party! Link is in the header.

The Kaverian Legislation Counter: 10 (4 yet to be voted on)

Fun Fact: The official pronounciation of “Kaverian” is “Kuh-vehr-EE-in”

Endorsements to me:

America the Greater, Incumbent Speaker, TPP Leader
Mjau, Incumbent DPM, PM Candidate, TPP Member
Western Arba Fir, Diplomacy Officer, DPM Candidate, TPP Member
The Washington Federation, Incumbent PM, PM Candidate
New United Common-lands, MoFA, past PM
Ardeyn, PM Candidate
Pyhdon, PM Candidate
Gine Caruttiva, DPM Candidate
Puttt, DPM Candidate
Lemona, RP Admin
Flomonga, Confirmation Committee Member

And to clarify, you don't have to take any of my advice here. None of it's mandatory, it should just help you get started while you figure out what process works best for you.

FIRST: Make sure to check out THIS dispatch! Using this, and practicing a bit, is going to clear up 99% of the problems you'll run into.

Confirmation Committee and Debate:

People are going to send you some bills. Before you ask for votes, it's best to talk to the Confirmation Committee. Their job is to look over every bill and report back to you with info about where each bill might conflict with the Constitution or existing regional law. If there are any conflicts, it's your job to talk to the bill author and get them sorted out before a bill goes to a vote. Make sure that you check carefully so that you don't accidentally bring an illegal bill up to vote!

Once the Confirmation Committee has looked over the bills, it's time to announce the Session, which I'll go into in our next section. After that's done, talk to the Rules Committee and get to work on the debate!

Debates are a good way to get people talking about the bills at vote, and it helps ensure that people really read the bills and know what they're voting for. Your job is to encourage this debate, on whatever platform you and the Rules Committee choose, by asking questions. Keep the questions impartial and just look for places that you think might clarify specific parts of the bill. If you're confused about something, chances are somebody else is too, so you should ask about it! See if you can get everyone to fully explain their position, so you end up with a couple tidy arguments to publish on the RMB.

Announcing the Session and Results:

• RMB:

  To begin with, I usually announce the session by making a list of each bill. I'll explain how to do that in a second. After that, I'll talk about the important changes that each bill would bring, and encourage every MP to vote. It's a pretty simple process.
  When I announce the results, I like to follow a specific format. I begin with a basic explanation of what happened during the Session, maybe clarify any questions that came up, and then make a Spoiler leading to the list of results. Within that spoiler, I put a list, which has an entry for each new bill. Like this:
  

  Results

  • Example bill 1, authored by America the Greater, has passed with a vote of 2 For - 1 Against - 0 Abstain.

  • Example bill 2, authored by America the Greater, has failed with a vote of 1 For - 2 Against - 0 Abstain.
    

  If you're confused about how to do this, click that little green button at the bottom that says Raw. It'll let you find this section of the text and see exactly what I typed to make that spoiler box appear.

  Once I've done that, I wrap up by explaining any important changes that have been made by these bills, and then I close the Session.

• Discord:

  On Discord, it's really simple. Just take a look at the RMB post you've already made, and click on the part that probably says "Seconds ago," or maybe "2 minutes ago," etc. Grab the link to your post and ping Members of Parliament on the Parliament channel, and let them know that a Session has been either announced or concluded. That's it! Keeps things simple.
  

Here's an example of one of my announcements: page=rmb/postid=55467459

Here's an example of one of my conclusions: page=rmb/postid=55576804

Hosting the Session:

Hosting the session can be a little more tedious, especially the first time. I like to use Google Forms. To begin with, I make a new form, and title it something like "TRTHNBB Parliament Voting Session: February 31 - February 38", it's descriptive and simple. After that, I check a couple settings:
Don't ask for email addresses.
Don't give a link to vote again.
If you want, you can go ahead and make a custom message like "Thank you for voting!" when people submit a response, but you don't have to.
Also, make sure every question is required.

I begin by asking for everyone's nation name and whether they're a Member of Parliament. You can ask for text responses for the nation name, and use options for the rest.
After that, I like to make a Section. I usually make one section for Amendments and Repeals, one for General Legislation, and maybe one for something like Appointments or Motions of No Confidence, if any of those are there.
In those sections, I first add a bit of text. That text just has a link to the bill in question, and credits the author(s) of the bill.
After that, I add a question. Basically it's just "How do you vote on [this bill]?" followed by creating options for For, Against, and Abstain. Do that a bunch of times, once per bill that's being voted on.

Displaying the Results:

This is really up to you. I put some extra work into this because I want the results to look pretty, and maybe if you ask me, I can do this for you or show you specifically how it's done in detail. But here are the basics:
On the Google Form with the election stuff, I click the button in Settings that says Link to Sheets. Open up that sheet and take a look, it'll populate the spreadsheet with a Timestamp, followed by each answer a nation gives. For, Against, Abstain are all there, along with Nation name and Are you an MP? You'll see a lot of data here.

First off, I like to use Conditional Formatting to make every Yes appear green and every No appear red. Look up conditional formatting to see the specifics of how that's done.

If you want to go above and beyond, look into using Sheets formulas to count up votes and display whether each proposal will pass or fail. Here's a link to my own results page, you can click on any cell to see the formula involved and figure out how it works: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PhVA2CCO83XoelrYk_sqtY3nqUOMTs38X_v6e-RPwxk/edit?resourcekey=#gid=1813231563

How far does your responsibility to remain impartial go?:

This is a tricky subject, and really it's up to every Speaker to draw their own line. Here's the way I see my position. I have a responsibility to give every bill a fair chance, as long as it's not illegal. I make sure that each bill gets equally broadcast, and is voted on in the same way as other bills. I also make sure debates stay about the topic at hand, without devolving into arguments, even if the 'winner' is the person I agree with. It's your job to do all of that, because making sure everyone has their say is what Parliament is all about. However, if you disagree strongly with a bill, I think it's your duty to speak up as an MP. You're still a citizen and an MP no matter your title, so make your voice heard. If you argue against or for every single bill, it's going to drown people out and make Parliament feel unwelcoming. But sometimes you've got to take a stand, and I encourage that.

Maintaining the Dispatches:
The good thing about this part is that theoretically, the MoDA is responsible for this stuff. Hopefully you'll be working alongside an active Minister of Domestic Affairs who may be willing to take on this part of the work.
If you want to, or have to, do it yourself instead, here's how it goes:

• Book of Laws:

  Similar to the announcement and results, you're going to make a separate spoiler for each bill. I like to structure it like this: (remember, click on Raw to see my formatting)
  

  Bill Title

  This is filler text, and the URL down there is unrelated.
  

  Authored by America the Greater, passed 25 April 2024

  Each bill goes in a specific section, so General Legislation is any bill that does something new. Amendments and Repeals is kinda self-explanatory, and the bottom section is for all appointments and Honorary Titles. If you need to add a new section, go for it!

  If you add an Amendment to a piece of legislation, not the Constitution, then you should find its entry in the Book of Laws and make the necessary changes. If you add anything, make sure to italicize it so people know it's from an amendment.

• The Constitution:

  If the Constitution is amended, it's easy to change it. Just add/remove the text people specify and italicize any new parts so it's clear that it's an amendment. You can mess with the formatting so it looks nice, as long as everything says what it's supposed to.

That's basically it! If you have any more specific questions or want help getting started, feel free to send me a telegram or a Discord message for as long as I'm still around! Hopefully that'll be a long time to come.

Thanks for reading and good luck in the election, or congrats if you've just been elected,

America the Greater,
Speaker of Parliament, November 2023 - May 2024