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Title
1. This act is to be cited as Resolution to Establish the Standing Committee on New Citizens.

Resolution
2. The Underhusen, understanding that our six years of continuous existence has created common rules, procedure, and expectations that new citizens and new Skrifa may not fully understand or comprehend, and with a desire to teach these new Skrifa and new Citizens how to navigate the Underhusen along with providing an avenue for them to operate within the Underhusen does hereby resolve that a new Committee, named the Standing Committee on New Citizens, be established following the requirements of this resolution. The Chairperson of the Committee may appoint non-skrifa members to the Committee that meet the new citizen requirements, with the approval of the Speaker

3. A New Citizen defined as any Citizen who has been a Citizen for less than three months for the purposes of this Resolution.

4. Oldest Skrifa is defined as the Skrifa who has been a Citizen longer than any other Skrifa in the Underhusen.

5. The Committee is comprised up of three Skrifa. Two Skrifa are to be New Citizens selected by the Speaker of the Underhusen and the Oldest Skrifa. The Oldest Skrifa is to be the Chairperson of the Committee. If any Skrifa refuses menbership or resigns membership, it is to go to the next available Skrifa. Resignation from the Underhusen is an automatic resignation from the Committee.

6. All New Citizens are granted a Standing Invitation to Speak before the Committee, and the Chairperson may invite any person before the Committee.

7. New Citizens may submit legislation to the Standing Committee on New Citizens for review and introduction to the full Underhusen. Any Legislation submitted in this way may not be submitted to the full Underhusen until approval by Committee.

I intended to bring this forward last session, but ended up not doing so.

I'm not sure what problem this is supposed to solve...it vaguely mentions new Skrifa not understanding the rules of the UH, but if this is a problem wouldn't something like a Skrifa handbook be more helpful? I know I wouldn't mind having such a thing to link to in UH election announcements so potential new Skrifa could get a head start.

It also seems unfair that proposals submitted to the committee have to be approved by it before it can be taken up by the full Underhusen, effectively making it another layer of bureaucracy that has to be overcome to get legislation even considered, much less passed. To me that seems like it would discourage people to use it, which to me seems to be the opposite of what is wanted here.

Finally, the proposal says that the committee would be composed of two New Citizens appointed by the Speaker and the Oldest Skrifa...what if there are no new Citizens in the UH? What if the Speaker and the Oldest Skrifa disagree on who to appoint?

I'm not seeing the relevance that would justify establishing what's essentially another level of bureaucracy.

I'm not sure what problem this is supposed to solve...it vaguely mentions new Skrifa not understanding the rules of the UH, but if this is a problem wouldn't something like a Skrifa handbook be more helpful? I know I wouldn't mind having such a thing to link to in UH election announcements so potential new Skrifa could get a head start.

It also seems unfair that proposals submitted to the committee have to be approved by it before it can be taken up by the full Underhusen, effectively making it another layer of bureaucracy that has to be overcome to get legislation even considered, much less passed. To me that seems like it would discourage people to use it, which to me seems to be the opposite of what is wanted here.

Finally, the proposal says that the committee would be composed of two New Citizens appointed by the Speaker and the Oldest Skrifa...what if there are no new Citizens in the UH? What if the Speaker and the Oldest Skrifa disagree on who to appoint?

I'm not seeing the relevance that would justify establishing what's essentially another level of bureaucracy.

Basically it's meant to allow new Skrifa that are directly elected to have an area where they can get help from the oldest one, in addition to allowing new citizens to have more of a direct voice to the Underhusen. Furthermore, the requirement of approval applies only if someone willingly submits their laws to the Committee. If they opt not to do so, then it doesn't apply, however they can chose to do so to get feedback and to allow people to work on it. Also for new Citizens it defines it, and also allows for any Citizen to be given a seat if they are new, I would be willing to change the non-Skrifa requirement, but it was designed that way so as to prevent the Chairperson from just appointing whoever they want.

I think I kind of get where you're coming from, but I do agree that in a way, it does sound like another barrier or piece of bureaucratic red tape to get through if we're talking about introducing a committee for people to submit laws.  And on the flip-side of that: If nobody submits laws to the Committee, what would be the relevance of it then?  Like Moot said, we can always create guides for new members that can be pinned in the UH indefinitely to help them get started in their new roles.  Likewise, links can be posted in said guide to past legislation discussions and votes to give them an idea of how the role works.  Going further, there's nothing preventing members from receiving feedback on laws already (as that's what the Citizen's Platform is for in the first place), and likewise there's nothing stopping anyone in the Storting from receiving feedback or help currently from any active storting members, OH members, or Wintermoot himself.  They are always encouraged to PM another member of the storting or chat them up if they have questions/concerns about their legislation that they're writing and can even post on the forums (Because there is still a place that we could use that for, since it rarely ever gets used anyways).

On top of that, there's also Discord where new UH members can always talk at any time to get any advice or help from any of the other UH members or even OH members.  We have the Cit. Platform on there where citizens can talk directly to people from the UH when they have issues or have ideas, and we have the Storting for when we want to bounce ideas off each other.

When there's other solutions out there that seem at least a bit more effective than creating an entirely new committee (at least in my opinion), I don't see the point of adding what would essentially feel like another barrier when we're trying to remove any already existing barriers and even possibly open it for everyone anyways.  We already have a few existing ways that already exist that we could just utilize more (which was one of my things I promised I'd try to get us to work on anyways), and a "So You're New to the Underhusen" type of guide that explains the process and provides links to example topics would be effective enough without having to create a Committee.

Like Moot and Pengu have mentioned, I don't really see the point of this legislation. New members are always welcome to ask questions, and maybe it's worth having a mentor system for the UH but that should be an internal UH thing or something involving our current mentor program. Creating a committee would only serve to slow stuff down.

Having a clear mentor system would be a good idea though. Not just for RP but maybe something else? Maybe it's something that'd fall under @Mathyland's jurisdiction?