Link to the original news post
Newly elected President Thyme has issued an Executive Order (EO) yesterday - on the 13th of July - kickstarting a new “tau4bills” initiative, like she promised in her campaign statements before the election.
This actually was one of her first day-one Executive Orders, with the two others being joke EOs; one establishing her favourite song as the new national anthem and the other creating a "cemetery" discord channel.
In concrete terms, the EO establishes a new forum channel in which ordinary everyday citizens can submit bills written by themselves to be commented on and reviewed by both the President herself and the general public. If the President approves of a bill, she will petition the Senate to put it on the docket, hold a debate on it, and eventually vote on whether to pass it or not. Writers of a successful bill would receive a compensation of 150 tau for the hard legislative work put into writing it, despite not being in the Senate themselves.
Upon interview request, she cited her “hopes to allow the people [to exercise] their implicit right to legislate” as reason for issuing the EO. She said she wanted regular people, who might be a bit less involved in the politics surrounding SimDemocracy, to “get more involved with our government and the processes that make it what it is”.
On the other hand though, her aspirations for the success of her program were rather low, saying she “quite frankly didn’t know”. Still, she hopes for there to occasionally be good legislation originating from tau4bills, and to get more people writing and engaging with SimDemocracy’s legislative system. Furthermore, the President also believes to be able to heighten the quality of the writing found in SimDem laws, as bills going through the tau4bills systems would be going through much more peer-review than bills undergoing the “regular” process.
The program has been in effect for about a day now with three bills having already been submitted to it - two in jest and one serious. But this can hardly be taken as indication for possible future success due to the small amount of time already elapsed since the program’s establishment.
Full interview with President Thyme
Q: Why did you establish the tau4bills initiative?
A: I established tau4bills in the hopes to allow the people the motivation to exercise their implicit right to legislate. It's my dream to have regular people get more involved with our government and the processes that make it what it is.
Q: How successful do you think the initiative will be (in amount of bills proposed to it and the amount of bills actually passing)?
A: I quite frankly don't know. The goal isn't to pass a metric fuck ton of laws. It's to present the Senate with more options and to get the people writing. My hope is for some really rad bills to come out of this. But I have no aspirations beyond what I've said.
Q: Do you think this initiative will increase quality in legislative writing, or rather reduce it?
A: I believe this initiative will greatly improve legislative quality since a bill that comes from this will have to pass through both the Executive and Legislative branches in order to qualify for the prize money.
Q: How exactly did you arrive at the amount of 150 tau?
A: I was torn between 100 and 200 tau and then got bored and said ehhhh split the difference.