Awaiting Assent Fair Compensation Act

[Omegabiebel]

A
BILL
To

Provide for Fair Compensation[/B]​

The people of the Commonwealth of Redmont, through their elected Representatives in the Congress and the force of law ordained to that Congress by the people through the constitution, do hereby enact the following provisions into law:

1 - Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the 'Fair Compensation Act'
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by Omegabiebel.
(4) This Act has been co-sponsored by Rep. Moyfr.

2 - Reasons

1. Several high ranking positions each do an enormous amount of work, but are only compensated through ingame wages.
2. This does not accurately compensate for the work that they do.

3 - Reasons

1. The following shall be amended (with the appropriate provisions renumbered) in the Economic Standards Act:

“
4 - Government Wages
(1) For the purposes of this section of this Act, the term “salary” refers to the amount of money per 15 minutes of active playtime that an individual receives.
(a) “Active playtime” shall be defined by Staff.
(2) Legislative or Judicial salaries cannot be withheld.
(3) Changes to the salaries of Representatives and Senators (including Presiding Officers’ salaries) take effect following the next election for that chamber.
(4) A Judicial Officer’s remuneration cannot be decreased without the unanimous consent of that occupation (e.g., All Justices must agree on pay decreases to the Justice occupation).
(5) Salary Levels
(a) Level 1: $75/15min
(i) President, Vice President, Speaker of the House, President of the Senate, and Chief Justice fall under this Salary Level.
(b) Level 2: $65/15min
(i) Representative, Senator, Federal Reserve Board Member, Secretary, Justice, and Judge fall under this Salary Level.
(c) Level 3: $50/15min
(i) Chief of Staff, Executive Advisor, Press Advisor, Congressional Staff, Court Clerk, and Magistrate fall under this Salary Level.
(d) The President may decide the salaries that department positions (excluding Secretaries) receive via Executive Order. These salaries do not have to fall under any Salary Level defined in this Act, but they cannot be higher than $75/15 min.
(e) All salaries explicitly listed here within these Salary Levels, along with salaries for Department positions and any other positions that the President explicitly has the power to set a salary for, shall be paid from the DCGovernment balance.
(6) Salary Guide
(a) The Executive will maintain a guide on forums or wiki called 'Government Pay' that will list Government Salary Levels and their associated occupations.

4 - Government Wages

(1) For the purposes of this section, the term “wage” refers to the amount of money per 15 minutes of active playtime that an individual receives.

(2) Changes to the salaries of Representatives and Senators (including Presiding Officers’ salaries) take effect following the next election for that chamber.

(3) For the purposes of this section, the term “salary” refers to the amount of money the individual receives with a unit of $/week.

(a) Salaries shall be paid out at least monthly.​

(b) Salaries shall be paid out by the following or by the persons designated by them for that purpose:​

(i) The presiding officer of the relevant chambers for positions under Congress, or the Speaker if unclear.​

(ii) The Chief Justice for the Judiciary​

(iii) The President for the Executive​

(c) The Judiciary shall not receive a salary under the pay levels.​

(4) The salary of a Representative or Senator shall be docked $500 per bill not voted on.

(a) Salaries may not go below zero.​

(5) The DOE shall maintain a guide on the forums regarding the compensation for each government position.

(6) It shall be strictly forbidden to withhold the pay of pay level 1 and 2 members.

(7) Pay levels:

(a) Level 1:​

(i) Wage: $75/15 min​

​

(ii) Salary: $5,000​

​

(iii) Positions:​

(1) President​

(2) Vice President​

(3) Speaker of the House​

(4) Deputy Speaker of the House​

(5) President of the Senate​

(6) Deputy President of the Senater​

(7) Chief Justice​

(b) Level 2:​

(i) Wage: $65/15 min​

(ii) Salary: $3,000​

(iii) Positions:​

(1) Representative excluding the Speaker of the House and Deputy Speaker of the House​

(2) Senator excluding the President of the Senate and the Deputy President of the Senate​

(3) Secretary​

(4) Justice​

(5) Judge​

(c) Level 3:

(i) Wage: up to $100/15 min​

(1) Wage levels shall be set by the President for positions under the Executive.​

(2) Wage levels shall be set by the Speaker of the House for the Legislative and Congress.​

(3) Wage levels shall be set by the Chief Justice for positions under the Judiciary.​

(ii) This pay level shall apply to all positions in Government which do not have a pay level under this section.​

(8) All wages shall be paid from the DCGovernment balance, and all salaries explicitly listed here shall be paid from the corresponding budget.

"

 

[Smami]

Nay, compensation for particularly our elected officials is already enough. By providing them payment for being online and in game it rewards our representatives for actually interacting with the players and engaging with the server. Rewarding us for further isolating away into our private channels and servers creates a disconnect between ourselves and the player base.

Note: The public discussions that happen on Discord are not representative of a typical player, as only the most politically engaged players show up for those discussions.

 

[Omegabiebel]

Nay, compensation for particularly our elected officials is already enough. By providing them payment for being online and in game it rewards our representatives for actually interacting with the players and engaging with the server. Rewarding us for further isolating away into our private channels and servers creates a disconnect between ourselves and the player base.

Note: The public discussions that happen on Discord are not representative of a typical player, as only the most politically engaged players show up for those discussions.

The Representative works off of flawed assumptions. First of all, not every Representative is ingame as much as they are (which is reaching crazy levels). I personally dislike the ingame wage, because it doesn't accurately compensate for the work you do. IMO it can be removed, however I feel like this would meet serious resistance.

Secondly, a lot of the work is done outside of the game in google docs, drafting bills. Interaction with players on discord is representative of the typical player. After all a lot of players ask questions on discord and one shouldn't forget casual conversation. Just DMing players, asking for ideas, opinions and thoughts often gives fresh insight. We don't need to tunnelvision on ingame. We have a range of tools, let's use them.

Thirdly, there is zero reward for "isolating away into our private channels". I personally don't know what the Representative is talking about. Maybe a personal reflection? After all the electorate still has the final say on Congressional accountability and if you're hiding away I doubt they will reelect you.

 

[Omegabiebel]

revote record

 

[Smami]

Nay (again), as I have stated before it is not unreasonable in the slightest to expect a congressperson to do something as simple as log onto the game in order to receive their vastly increased UBI that they are already entitled to. I recognize the work that congresspeople put into creating bills but it does not rise to the level of inability to play the game they claim to represent the players in.

 

[juniperfig]

Veto

While I agree with the concerns raised by Representative Smami, I don’t think they rise to the level of justifying a veto on their own. That said, there are several other issues with this bill that, taken together, convince me a veto is necessary.

Wage level 3 is set as "up to $100/15 min". All positions in Government which do not have a pay level are given this wage level. However, no default wage is set. This leads me to the conclusion that by default, all Government positions are paid $100/15 min unless otherwise defined, which is higher than the Presiding Officers, President, and Chief Justice. This oversight should be fixed.

Federal Reserve Board wages are no longer defined, yet there is no mention of who would set them under this bill. This leaves them all receiving the assumed default wage of $100/15 min, which is absurd, or $0/15 min, which is also absurd.

The President, Vice President, and Secretaries are given a salary. Salaries are paid out "from the corresponding budget". It is unclear to me if Secretary salaries are meant to be paid out through their Departmental budgets or another source. There is no indication of where President and Vice President salaries are meant to be paid out, and they do not have a corresponding budget. If the intention of the legislators was for the President and Vice President's salaries to be paid from the President's discretionary fund, that is not allowed (as per the Appropriations Process Act of 2024), as those funds are explicitly to appropriate to Executive departments as required. The President and Vice President cannot be paid from that budget. I cannot think of any other budget from which that money can be sourced.

It is forbidden to withhold the pay of level 1 and level 2 members. There is no mention of withholding the pay of level 3 members. By the negative-implication canon (the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of others), this implies that it is not forbidden to withhold the pay of level 3 members, which I disagree with.

The current guide regarding the compensation for each government position is hosted on the wiki, which this law disallows. The DOE would rather keep it on the wiki, and I encourage Congress to enable the DOE to do so.

(b) Salaries shall be paid out by the following or by the persons designated by them for that purpose:
(i) The presiding officer of the relevant chambers for positions under Congress, or the Speaker if unclear.
(ii) The Chief Justice for the Judiciary
(iii) The President for the Executive
...
(c) The Judiciary shall not receive a salary under the pay levels.

This is admittedly a small nitpick, but another oversight by the legislators that leads me to believe this bill was, at best, poorly thought through.

Additionally, the removal of certain clauses makes little sense to me.

(d) The President may decide the salaries that department positions (excluding Secretaries) receive via Executive Order.

The President no longer sets the wages of Departments through Executive Order. How, then, are they meant to set the wages?

(4) A Judicial Officer’s remuneration cannot be decreased without the unanimous consent of that occupation (e.g., All Justices must agree on pay decreases to the Justice occupation).

I see no justification for removing this clause.

This bill requires more thought, debate, and revision before it is legally sound and administratively workable.