Text Me Back Clarification Act

[Gluonmaster]

CONGRESS OF THE
COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
​

---

A BILL TO

Clarify the Text Me Back Act and Remediate Loopholes




​

---

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:


​

PART I — PRELIMINARIES

1. Short Title and Enactment

(1) This Act may be cited as the ‘Text Me Back Clarification Act’

(2) This Act shall be enacted immediately upon its signage.

(3) This Act has been authored by RainbowHorsecake.

(4) This Act has been sponsored by Representative Gluonmaster.

(5) This Act has been co-sponsored by Speaker of House Antonfr.

(6) This Act amends the following acts:

(a) Text Me Back Act

2. Reasons and Intent

(1) The current wording of the Text Me Back Act leaves several ambiguities and loopholes that may lead to an individual being unfairly undercompensated or overcompensated.

(2) This Act seeks to remedy these issues without significantly altering the substance of the original bill.

(a) For instance, this Act includes a provision that requires applications to be open and applicants to meet all objective requirements. This is a common-sense provision that closes a major avenue for abuse and will relieve some of the fiscal strain Redmont faces.

(3) This Act also intends to clarify and simplify the process of calculating late fees to ensure applicants are fairly compensated and reduce the current workload faced by the Executive.

(a) It is currently unclear whether the total amount owed by a department is calculated by simply substituting into the provided formula, or by summing the late fees owed for each day. The latter interpretation appears to contradict the stated intent of previous amendments, and would drastically reduce the time a Department has to respond to an application before late fees reach the maximum.

PART II — AMENDMENTS

3. Amendments

(1) Section 3(1) of the Text Me Back Act shall be amended as follows:

“(1) Executive Departments are required to provide a final decision on any new applications within a period of 14 days.

(a) If a Department fails to provide an acceptance or a denial within the specified time frame, they areA Department shall be obligated to compensate the applicant with a late fee only if all of the following conditions are met:

(i) the Department failed to provide an acceptance or denial within the required time frame;​

​

(ii) applications for the relevant matter were officially open at the time of the application’s submission;​

​

(iii) the application met all objective and publicly posted requirements that were in effect at the time of submission, including but not limited to required playtime; and​

​

(iv) a Discord Ticket was opened in accordance with (1)(b).​

(b) In order to be eligible for the late fee, the applicant, or an authorized representative of the applicant, must open a Discord Ticket, after the expiry of the 14-day period specified in subsection (1 of this section,) or other applicable deadline, and remind the department of the unanswered status of the application and the date the application was submitted.

(i) This ticket shall not be closed until the application has been answered, and the individual has been compensated under this act.​

(c) The late fee will be calculated using the formula (7.3x^3+500) dollars, where x represents the number of days that pass after the notification in subsection (1)(b) of this section., with each day's fee being added to the cumulative total amount owed.

(i) The cumulative late fees owed by a Department per application cannot exceed a total of $25,000 and shall not be less than $1,000. The minimum applies immediately after the opening of a valid Discord Ticket.​

Spoiler: ”Late Fees”

Time After Ticket (Days)	Late Fee ($)
0-4	1000.00
5	1412.50
6	2076.80
7	3003.90
8	4237.60
9	5821.70
10	7800.00
11	10216.30
12	13114.40
13	16538.10
14	20531.20
15+	25000.00

(d) Congress retains the authority to access information regarding Departmental payments, enabling them to question the Executive in cases where late fees have been incurred due to delayed application processing.”

(2) Section 3(2) of the Text Me Back Act shall be amended as follows:

“(2) If a Department provides a written response to the applicant within the initial 14-day period of the application’s submission specifying a definite date or time range (not to exceed 14 additional days) for when a final decision will be provided, the deadline for providing a final decision shall be extended by the specified timeframe. Late fees will only begin accruingThe late fee calculation will only begin after this extended deadline has passed and a Discord Ticket is subsequently created as outlined in subsection (1)(b) of this section.

(a) If a Department requests additional information or documentation from the applicant reasonably necessary to evaluate the application, the 14-day deadline shall restart from the date the applicant provides the requested information.

(i) If a Discord Ticket as outlined in (1)(b) has already been opened before a Department requests additional information, the number of days elapsed for the purpose of calculating the late fee shall be preserved. The late fee clock shall pause until the new 14-day deadline has expired, at which point it will resume from the preserved number of days.”​

PART III — Transition

4. Transition

(1) The provisions of this Act shall apply to all pending applications for which a late fee claim has not been created at the time of enactment.

(2) The provisions of this Act shall not apply to any pending or unpaid late fee claims at the time of enactment.

(3) Any late fee that was paid out before the time of enactment shall not be recalculated or otherwise altered by this Act.

 

[Franciscus]

Presidential Assent

Common sense bill. Thank you to Gluonmaster for proposing this and RainbowHorsecake for authoring it.

This bill is granted assent and is signed into law.