Twobagger for BCN

[Twobagger]

Hello friends. I am Twobagger, and I'm running for the BCN seat in this special election.

Many of you know who I am. For those of you that don't, allow me to introduce myself here:

SPOILER: Click to show

{A Brief Bio}I first came to this region in January 2007, a little more than twelve years ago. I was soon appointed Taco Island Mayor, which is a post I held for a year. I've been elected Senator approximately 6 times, with the most recent coming two months ago.

I've been through a lot with and in this region. I have earned about 180 TITO battle stars, and was knighted on my birthday. I've enjoyed the opportunity to contribute to many different facets of this region, including:
-As an emissary, both back in the day (to Jethnea and Equilism) and today (Greater Dienstad),
-As a Senator, where I've authored bills that passed (including the first iteration of Wages for Workers) and brought issues to the Council from my constituents,
-As Mayor of Taco Island, and
-In TITO, as a knight and former Field Officer.

Of course, there are numerous reasons why I'm running for this seat, and why you should vote for me! Let me just list all of them below:

SPOILER: Click to show

{A Pitch!}I am currently a Senator for Himes West. Recently, the Co9 passed a bill to change the duties of Himes West from the Casino to oversee RP in the region. I wholeheartedly supported this change, and believe that I am not the right person to help restart RP in the region. For that reason, I'm not running for Himes West this time around.

I believe that change in this region should come from the bottom up, rather than the top down. I believe that any member of this region can contribute meaningfully to our region. As Senator, in the past, I've brought issues from my constituents to the Council (back before we had some debates in public). Some of these ideas weren't the best - for example, extending membership to non-WA nations - but I still believed that citizens of the region should be heard by their government. As Senator, I'm committed to listening to my constituents, and connecting them with their government. I know it's easy to get disillusioned when it feels like your government isn't really responsive to your wants and needs, and I want to make sure every citizen knows that they have someone in office who is listening to them.

Finally, I think that my experience has positioned me well to be able to make good reports for consumption by other regions. I have been involved in most areas of this region, and I have served as an emissary in the past. I've read a lot of good reports from other regions... and a lot of much less good reports. As the BCN Senator, I'd be able to get a good grasp on the many events and happenings going on in our region, and present them in an attractive and compelling way.

Thanks to everyone who made it through. If you've got any questions or comments, please feel free to post away.

[Shy Guy]

So I'm just gonna steal Louis' question from Hakketomat's thread.
What would you change about the emissary report?

[Twobagger]

Mar 10, 2019 4:55:27 GMT -5 Shy Guy said:

So I'm just gonna steal Louis' question from Hakketomat's thread.
What would you change about the emissary report?

Thanks for your question. To answer it: I would change the focus a little. For a while, it's looked like the purpose of the XKI reports has been to provide a factually accurate summary of who is in charge in the region. If elected, my primary purpose for writing the reports would be to encourage nations in other regions to visit our region and participate in its events. To that end, our interregional events (e.g. Werewolf, our sports leagues, etc) would be placed prominently in the region. I'd also focus a bit on the parts of our region that make us unique, like our Poet Laureate competition. Were RP to get off the ground, I'd certainly be happy to advertise those in the reports. Of course, I'd still include the factual information, since other regions need to know who to get in touch with. But it wouldn't be the focus of reports I write.

Basically, I would focus less on just transmitting information, and more on trying to get people from other regions to participate in the appropriate regional events. I would use the report to paint XKI as the interesting region that it is. We've got a lot going on for us, and I want to let everyone else know about it. I think our community would be better off if we had more people from other nations participating in our events, and who knows? Maybe some guests would decide they like us so much that they make our region their primary region.

[Paffnia]

I'm glad to endorse you for senate, Twobagger. You've been a great (re-)addition to the Council, always providing valuable input and taking on the difficult task of restarting the lottery successfully.

[Jabberwocky]

What would you do to promote greater involvement by other party members?

[Twobagger]

Mar 11, 2019 20:18:12 GMT -5 Jabberwocky said:

What would you do to promote greater involvement by other party members?

Thanks for your question. There are a couple of things that I think you could mean by this question, and I'll try to answer the main ones to the best of my ability.

If you mean to ask how I could promote greater involvement by other members of my political party, then my answer is that I would do what I do now: reach out to them to see whether or not they would be willing to run for office, or get involved in other ways. This election cycle, I discussed running for office with some other potential candidates. In particular, I tried to get one person to run for Senator, since I think they generally have good ideas and would have a strong matchup against their potential opponent, but this person just doesn't have the time in the future. This is how I got started running for office, actually: one of my party members told me I'd be a strong candidate and should run, so I did (and won).

I also am happy to promote greater involvement in political parties in general. For example, when newcomers come around the Discord channel asking questions about political parties, I'm happy to be one of the people who supplies them with information about political parties in general. I've done that a few times in the past couple of months, including once earlier today.

I don't have any concrete laws in mind right now about how to promote involvement. I have been kicking around an idea that allows parties to claim credit for activity if its members are active in things other than running for election. For a particularly silly example, if Markanite, Sargon Reman, Tuga Nation's Dragon, and Paffnia were the only members of a party, it would be silly to characterize that party as inactive even though its members aren't running in elections anytime soon. I haven't made much progress on this idea in the last month, so I don't mind posting it here for other people to implement, but I have considered proposing something like this:

SPOILER: Click to show

{A Law Idea}Parties are "active" if they accumulate x many (probably 12 - 18) points per year.

Running for office gives a number of points - either 4 for everything or the number of months the person would serve if they won (so 2 for this seat, 4 for other Senate seats and 6 for Delegate). Maybe there would be a bonus for winning, but probably not!

Holding an appointed office (e.g. Minister, Senators appointed if someone resigns, Chief Executive) gives a number of points (probably 1 per month or 1 per 2 months) to the nation holding that office.

Sometimes I have fever dreams about more complicated things, like awarding points to parties based on the number of people who vote in elections... maybe something like 1 for 10 nations who vote in a cycle, or assigning negative points to parties who run 0 total candidates if there was a seat that didn't have anyone running for it. Sometimes I think of awarding points to the RRC or Poet Laureate, since they contribute to the region. But the first two are probably unworkable and the last one misses the point.

If I were to propose something tomorrow, it would be a requirement of 12 points per year, and you get 4 for each election contested by any party member, and 1 per 2 months for appointees. But I feel like I (or someone else!) could do better.

I'll probably post something like that to the Council Lobby when I finish thinking about it and have the time to write down the appropriate language, regardless of whether or not I'm on the Co9 at that time, unless someone else does it first.

Mar 11, 2019 19:46:37 GMT -5 Paffnia said:

I'm glad to endorse you for senate, Twobagger. You've been a great (re-)addition to the Council, always providing valuable input and taking on the difficult task of restarting the lottery successfully.

Thanks so much. I really appreciate your support.

[Paffnia]

Congrats Twobagger!

[Louisistan]

Congratulations!