The Government and You

[kendrick]

10 minutes ago, Fiendfyre said:

Additional questions - 1) are you guys writing the state constitution as well? 2) Are there going to be set parts of the US Constitution used, like before? 3) Are there going to be any supreme court cases allowed to be used on the server? We had a set list on SAMP and they came in handy 

State Constitution isn't being written by myself or Kane at this current time but that could be something we look into in the near future.

 

[i dont wanna od in LA]

18 hours ago, Kane said:

 I'm not a whole fan of the law additions and changes being IC

Why though? It worked pretty well on the SAMP LSRP except for the HOLF shooting down nearly 50% of legislation due to their own agenda. 

[Sparkles]

4 hours ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Why though? It worked pretty well on the SAMP LSRP except for the HOLF shooting down nearly 50% of legislation due to their own agenda. 

Was that Flemwad or Toretto? I know some got shot down because they were poorly written and rushed through but yeah 

[Sparkles]

21 hours ago, kendrick said:

State Constitution isn't being written by myself or Kane at this current time but that could be something we look into in the near future.

 

It’s something that’s vital to the foundation of the entire workings of the state, IC. Without it, rights aren’t laid out - heck, neither are the jurisdictions for PD/SD or powers any legal faction has. 

[Maxim]

On 1/6/2022 at 6:09 PM, Fiendfyre said:

I look forward to seeing it. 

 

Is there going to be a Senate to add/change laws IC as time goes on? 

We're not going with a state-level legislature on launch, a municipal one is our current goal. As for a State Constitution - will probably be introduced at a later point, I'm currently working on city-level documents such as the City Charter.

 

The State Senate is something we discussed and decided to NPC for now (by limiting it to a small group of individuals - faction leaders + management), it was a scene which always lacked roleplayers and it was often an issue to get things in motion, having a functioning city council is a good start imo. The way to introduce state-wide legislation will probably be through IC city bills which endorse specific issues, which then can be roleplayed as introduced and passed in the State Senate.

[Kane]

On 1/7/2022 at 1:19 PM, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Why though? It worked pretty well on the SAMP LSRP except for the HOLF shooting down nearly 50% of legislation due to their own agenda. 

 

 

I wouldn't say it worked well. Since the 2018 penal code update, there were 3 changes to it by the State Senate. We found a lot to change and some flaws while reviewing it to rewrite so I can't even say it's because there was nothing to do.

[Sparkles]

5 hours ago, Kane said:

 

 

I wouldn't say it worked well. Since the 2018 penal code update, there were 3 changes to it by the State Senate. We found a lot to change and some flaws while reviewing it to rewrite so I can't even say it's because there was nothing to do.

Look at laws and acts passed too though - not just the penal code amendments. There were a lot of issues with how Senate was ran - lack of activity was one issue, but over management caused a lot of the disinterest unfortunately.

 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Fiendfyre

[Sparkles]

7 hours ago, Maxim said:

We're not going with a state-level legislature on launch, a municipal one is our current goal. As for a State Constitution - will probably be introduced at a later point, I'm currently working on city-level documents such as the City Charter.

 

The State Senate is something we discussed and decided to NPC for now (by limiting it to a small group of individuals - faction leaders + management), it was a scene which always lacked roleplayers and it was often an issue to get things in motion, having a functioning city council is a good start imo. The way to introduce state-wide legislation will probably be through IC city bills which endorse specific issues, which then can be roleplayed as introduced and passed in the State Senate.

So if no state constitution at launch - no legal documentation outlining the jurisdictions and powers of any legal factions? It’d be pretty simple to copy the old one and amend anything needed - it was well written iirc and the parts not currently being used can easily be omitted

 

With state senate - what's the basic process for someone to bring forward a law proposal IC? And will faction leaders follow that or will their suggestions just go ooc direct to the private group? Additionally - will insight be sought from other sources (ie faction team) or just those in the group? 

Edited January 10, 2022 by Fiendfyre

[Maxim]

On 1/10/2022 at 6:12 AM, Fiendfyre said:

So if no state constitution at launch - no legal documentation outlining the jurisdictions and powers of any legal factions? It’d be pretty simple to copy the old one and amend anything needed - it was well written iirc and the parts not currently being used can easily be omitted

 

With state senate - what's the basic process for someone to bring forward a law proposal IC? And will faction leaders follow that or will their suggestions just go ooc direct to the private group? Additionally - will insight be sought from other sources (ie faction team) or just those in the group? 

It'll probably be introduced prior to the server's launch, a lot of government-related documents need a huge overhaul either because they fit the SAMP universe or because they were changed and pretty much obliterated to benefit certain groups/individuals/interests, and the amount of people who work on reforming those documents is very limited at the moment. We did adopt some of the Acts which were written during the SAMP era, and some are going to be re-introduced with changes that fit the new setting.

 

As for the Senate - the plan right now is to have the city council forward endorsement bills, which can then be forwarded to the Senate behind the scenes as actual legislation. The Council members express their view and the Senate adopts it, making it a state law. We haven't discussed legislative procedures in depth yet, so I can't really answer the other questions.

[i dont wanna od in LA]

On 1/10/2022 at 12:25 AM, Kane said:

 

 

I wouldn't say it worked well. Since the 2018 penal code update, there were 3 changes to it by the State Senate. We found a lot to change and some flaws while reviewing it to rewrite so I can't even say it's because there was nothing to do.

I suppose that's slightly out of context man. Also, as far as I know the PC changelog thread wasn't actively updated cause I myself have pushed at least 2 penal code additions/changes in 2020. While I can absolutely agree that the legal faction team might wanna "gatekeep" the state constitution and penal code for the sake of balance, I still stand by my opinion that state legislature is simply necessary in order to make the legal roleplay more appealing. At the end of the day, LSRP never had a very strong legal focus, and I believe that a new server also opens more possibilities to open up for that kind of roleplay. 

Edited January 11, 2022 by i dont wanna od in LA

[i dont wanna od in LA]

39 minutes ago, Maxim said:

It'll probably be introduced prior to the server's launch, a lot of government-related documents need a huge overhaul either because they fit the SAMP universe or because they were changed and pretty much obliterated to benefit certain groups/individuals/interests, and the amount of people who work on reforming those documents is very limited at the moment. We did adopt some of the Acts which were written during the SAMP era, and some are going to be re-introduced with changes that fit the new setting.

 

As for the Senate - the plan right now is to have the city council forward endorsement bills, which can then be forwarded to the Senate behind the scenes as actual legislation. The Council members express their view and the Senate adopts it, making it a state law. We haven't discussed legislative procedures in depth yet, so I can't really answer the other questions.

City/county legislative has absolutely no say on state legislative tho. It's all about lobbying at the end of the day, but it's not often that you see city officials actively liasing with state legislative. Makes no sense to rp it as such. I'd much rather see both LSGOV and SAGOV as two separate entities, with both being fully functional from the very get-go. While the city govt. has the authority to impose their own city statutes, the latter has the authority to implement actual laws and PC changes. 

[Maxim]

7 hours ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

City/county legislative has absolutely no say on state legislative tho. It's all about lobbying at the end of the day, but it's not often that you see city officials actively liasing with state legislative. Makes no sense to rp it as such. I'd much rather see both LSGOV and SAGOV as two separate entities, with both being fully functional from the very get-go. While the city govt. has the authority to impose their own city statutes, the latter has the authority to implement actual laws and PC changes. 

They don't have a say, I didn't mean city legislators are going to forward state-level legislation. The City Council endorses legislation which can then be adopted by the State Senate as their own piece of legislation, this is to promote legislation on a state-level as the Senate is not going to include any actual legislators for now. Maintaining both LSGOV and SAGOV is not viable as of now as we simply don't have the manpower for it. I'd love to field both LSGOV and SAGOV as well, don't get me wrong - but it's just not an option right now.

[i dont wanna od in LA]

1 hour ago, Maxim said:

They don't have a say, I didn't mean city legislators are going to forward state-level legislation. The City Council endorses legislation which can then be adopted by the State Senate as their own piece of legislation, this is to promote legislation on a state-level as the Senate is not going to include any actual legislators for now. Maintaining both LSGOV and SAGOV is not viable as of now as we simply don't have the manpower for it. I'd love to field both LSGOV and SAGOV as well, don't get me wrong - but it's just not an option right now.

Seems like you're pulling this out of nowhere honestly. Did you run a community poll or something? I'm not sure how can you possibly say that something isn't feasible, without doing as much as at least gauging the interest within the community. And don't get me wrong I'm not saying all of this to get at anybody, no. I'm thinking about it in a realistic perspective which means a huge influx of legal roleplayers from another community, which has to be somewhat accounted for as well.

Edited January 11, 2022 by i dont wanna od in LA

[Maxim]

9 hours ago, i dont wanna od in LA said:

Seems like you're pulling this out of nowhere honestly. Did you run a community poll or something? I'm not sure how can you possibly say that something isn't feasible, without doing as much as at least gauging the interest within the community. And don't get me wrong I'm not saying all of this to get at anybody, no. I'm thinking about it in a realistic perspective which means a huge influx of legal roleplayers from another community, which has to be somewhat accounted for as well.

I'm pulling this from past experiences and from discussions I had with other players and with server management, who have the consensus that the focus should be on LSGOV for the time being - which I agree with. Even that "another community" had issues with their government, from inactive Senators to an LSGOV who as far as I know had a problem with activity as well. Not to mention their attempt of fielding both LSGOV and SAGOV was challenged by the server management over there due to its effectiveness. Interest is a tricky thing, we had interest on SAMP as well, but it didn't mean people were interested in roleplaying with the government - they were just supportive of the concept.

 

I did propose an IC Senate initially but as I said the idea was cast aside for the time being. I don't mind bringing it up again and seeing if it's possible, but we definitely won't have a fully functioning SAGOV for now.

[vrb]

It's better to focus on having a single layer of government and maintaining the three institutions it relies on to achieve the checks and balances than try to support single institutions of different levels of government. 

 

The city and state governments are the same things but abstracted differently. Choosing which layer to use should primarily revolve around the setting of the roleplay environment. Since the map revolves around a single city and a single county, it's best to go with a city/county government. 

 

I understand in many cases; some laws would realistically be state laws and not city laws. However, if we're going through the trouble of maintaining elections and a player-based legislature, they should have a say over all laws imposed on the players. 

 

An easy way to deal with this is to say that the NPC senate would automatically accept the city council's resolution expressing change to state law. The governor's signature would be management's approval since the penal code often has OOC implications which affects the illegal community; therefore, it's best for management to look at anything changing it. I think this is what @Maximis saying above. 

 

I can't stress enough what a waste of time and unnecessary OOC drama we had to go through in the "other community" due to having two layers of government. It's much more efficient to just work on one layer of government and leave it at that.