Community Profile

Hearings
Unlike normal bills, the scope of a hearing expands to encompass a number of measures and proposals. Put simply, a hearing is a collection of rapid-fire bill proposals all intended towards one larger goal. In a hearing, councilors can propose amendments and bring new measures to the floor. They are required to present their proposal and why it should be enacted, after which other councilors may make speeches for or against the proposal and propose their own amendments. At any time after a proposal has had 24 hours of debate time, a vote may be held to end deliberation, which opens the measure up to an actual vote on whether to enact it or not. Hearings are usually held when a matter is too complex to simply pass with a single yes-or-no vote, and they give the council greater ability to deliberate and tweak measures before implementing them.

When posting a hearing, create a main thread to request permission to bring a matter to the floor. The moderator of the hearing (the one who posted the hearing) may approve or deny it, although they are required to give a reason to deny a request. Should a request be denied, seven votes in favor of bringing the matter to the floor can override the moderator's denial.

Once your measure has been approved, post a thread giving a dissertation on why you feel the measure should be enacted. That thread is open for discussion, and others can reply with their own dissertations in favor of or against the proposal. Subtle slander is encouraged! One of the best ways to call someone's idea into question is attacking them personally!

24 hours of real time after a measure has been proposed, anyone can bring the measure to a vote. Once there are ten votes in favor, reply to the original thread with a vote, which can either be yea, nay, or return to the floor for further discussion. In the latter case, another 24 hours of real time must pass before it can be brought to a vote again. Once a measure passes or fails, it cannot be proposed again during the hearing (although many times people will propose modifications to a passed measure or present a modified failed measure, or a similar measure to the one that failed in order to try to pass it again).

A hearing ends when a measure to close the hearing is passed, or when councilors get bored and wander out.

Standard Bills

In each bill, create two threads, one for the discussion of the bill and one for voting on the bill.

Only councilors may vote on bills. Any councilor may propose a bill on their own, Agents can propose bills with the support of 5 other Agents (for a total of 6). Enforcers supporting a bill count as two Agents for the purposes of the proposal (so you need 6 Agents, 3 Enforcers, 4 Agents 1 Enforcer, etc.)

When posting a bill, please use the following template:

<b>Councilor's Name/Supporting Agent and Enforcer names:</b><b>Bill to Propose:</b> (Title and brief description go here)<b>Additional Notes:</b> (The nitty-gritty details of what exactly you're trying to make happen with the bill)