Act of Congress Stop the Slop Petitions Act

[HatManMC]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT​

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A BILL TO
RAISE THE REQUIRED AMOUNT OF PETITION SIGNATURES FOR IT TO BE ANNOUNCED IN GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCEMENTS

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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:
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PART I: PRELIMINARIES
1. Short Title and Enactment
(1) This Act may be cited as the "Stop the Slop Petitions Act" or "StSPA".
(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.
(3) This Act has been authored by Speaker HatManMC, coauthored by Deputy President of the Senate _GreyMC, with significant inspiration from Clerk xEndeavour's suggestion "Increase petition support required for a referendum" in #suggestions.
(4) This Act has been cosponsored by Representative lovepurplepoodle.
(5) This Act amends the following Acts:
(a) Referendum Act

2. Reasons and Intent
(1) Nowadays, most petitions on #petitions are slop - not policy requests as they are meant to be, but simply memes to try and get on #government-announcements (see "Petition to Make Hat Man Announce This Petition" for a more literal analysis of this point).
(2) The best and easiest way to combat this is to increase the amount of ayes required to get on #government-announcements, as to promote only actual policy from being put on there.
(3) I'm tired, boss.
(4) This Act serves to raise the number of ayes required for a petition to be announced.

PART II: AMENDMENTS
3. Referendum Act
(1) The following amendment shall be made to the Referendum Act:
...
(2) A petition must:
(a) Be listed in the #petitions channel of the DemocracyCraft Official Discord.
(b) State clearly what it asks for;
(c) Be supported by at least 3060 citizens;
(i) Support must be demonstrated by reaction.
(d) Not repeat an ongoing or rejected petition from the last 30 days.
...
(3) If a petition receives the necessary support, it must be announced to Congress by the Office of Congressional Affairs for consideration. This shall not happen if:
(i) This shall not happen if the petition was created over 30 days before the petition receives the necessary support.
(i) the petition was created 30 days before the petition receives the necessary support;
(ii) the petition has been vetoed by staff;
(iii) the petition has been renamed;
(iv) the petition repeats an ongoing or rejected petition from the last 30 days; or
(v) the petition has been rescinded by its proposer.
(4) A petition cannot be renamed. Should a petition be renamed, the petition is rejected.

PART IV: IMPLEMENTATION
4. Implementation
(1) The Office of Congressional Affairs is authorized to make any changes involving renumbering of sections as a result of edits made in this Act.

 

[EmeraldGuuy]

- i can agree with this

 

[greymc]

- needed

 

[antonfr]

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Presidential Assent

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The Stop the Slop Petitions Act raises the support a petition needs before it is announced to Congress. Under the amended Referendum Act, a petition must be listed in #petitions, state clearly what it asks for, and be supported by at least 60 citizens through the aye reaction, up from 30. This is meant to keep joke petitions and memes off #government-announcements, so that only real policy requests reach Congress.

The Act also moves the rules on when a petition is not announced into one list. A petition will not be announced if it was created 30 days before it receives the necessary support, has been vetoed by staff, has been renamed, repeats an ongoing or rejected petition from the last 30 days, or has been rescinded by its proposer. Renaming a petition no longer rejects it outright. It simply stops the petition from being announced.

However.. the threshold is a fixed number, so it will not adjust as the citizen count changes, and a high figure could keep genuine but niche policy requests from ever being announced. The 30-day rule is also worded loosely, so the Office of Congressional Affairs should apply it carefully.

Overall, this is a practical update that keeps petitions focused on actual policy and keeps the announcement channel useful.

I thank Speaker HatManMC and Deputy President of the Senate _GreyMC for authoring this bill, Clerk End for the suggestion that inspired it, former Representative Mura for cosponsoring it, and Congress for passing it.

This bill has been granted assent and is hereby signed into law.

antonfr
President of the Commonwealth of Redmont​