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"I am wondering whether we shouldn't consider extending the UH terms to 3 months. We got off to a good start this term, but then things became crazy, I became depressed, and progress halted a bit. I was surprised to hear Doc mention that we were already left with only about a quarter of our term left. My fear is that a UH in a similar situation in the future would rush the remaining items on its agenda, and thus not give things the thought they deserve.

Additionally, we can make the whole voting process easier on everyone if we have UH and Thane elections together all the time."

(Yes, I just copied and pasted exactly what I wrote in the UH topic. No, I am not ashamed)

Discuss away. Doc has already raised a few interesting points about this.

I mean, if we just moved to an Open Assembly, this wouldn't be a problem in the first place since there'd just be one unending term for everyone, so no need to worry about terms ending to get stuff done...

But if we must keep the current system, I think this is a good idea. Too many times has the UH not gotten anything done because simply a week passed due to a forum game or something coming up IRL so there wasn't enough time to do anything anyway.

I understand that reducing the number of terms in a year will reduce the likelihood of new citizens getting involved in Wintreath politics, but if we really cared about that, we'd just go for an OA.

I understand that reducing the number of terms in a year will reduce the likelihood of new citizens getting involved in Wintreath politics, but if we really cared about that, we'd just go for an OA.

Good point let's do that 

A three-month term was initially discussed during the drafting of the Fundamental Laws (and IIRC, I actually argued for it for a time), HOWEVER the two-months was decided partially due to familiarity (Spiritus used two-month terms IIRC) and also because it is long enough that you should be able to get done what needs to be done. If you fail to actually do the jobs you were elected to do, then that is somewhat on you. Furthermore any matters not dealt with can simply be rolled into the next term should you be re-elected.

I don't really see any point.

As Chanku mentioned, two-month terms was something that was inherited from Spiritus. I think we decided to have our elections on the opposite months that Spiritus had elections, because most of our early members were dual-Citizens and this let them better plan around that since they'd never be running for both legislatures at the same time. Obviously, this is no longer relevant to modern Wintreath, but there remains some benefits to having Underhusen elections six times a year, namely that inactive Underhusens don’t remain in office for that long and newcomers never have to wait that long to run for election.

And let’s be honest, often Underhusen elections generate more activity than the actual Underhusen terms.

In recent years, I’ve become a fan of the season system, which Thane elections run on and the Storting recently defined into law. For Cabinet positions, I think this makes perfect sense in that you need a little more time for new thanes to settle into their positions, and I love the theme of things changing with the seasons. Obviously when it comes to the UH, there’s the disadvantage of having fewer elections and potentially longer inactive sessions, but there are also advantages. If the season system were adopted, all regional elections would be aligned, reducing the number of total election periods in a year from 8 to 4. This would presumably make it easier for people to remember when elections are as well as require me to administer fewer elections.

The real question is though which system promotes an active Storting, and I think it could be argued either way to be honest. Having the entire region running on the seasons system is personally appealing to me, but I think it really needs to be considered whether the benefits of three-month UH terms outweigh the loss of two elections in the process.

I'd argue in favor of extending the term for this reason. Our UH term is arguably quite active but some discussions we are having now likely won't be resolved by the end of our term. Having an extra month would certainly benefit these discussions taking place.

With an extra month the regional reconciliation act likely would have been passed by the term that introduced it last session and we wouldn't have had to start our term finishing old unfinished business.

Chanku argues in favor of leaving your problems for the next term in this current system I argue that's highly inefficient and unreasonable to the newly elected UH to have to decide what to do with previous legislative action.

When it was revealed we were already as far into our term as we were I had a mild panic attack for failing to achieve much of anything yet. Between learning the ropes, werewolf and real life covid I've hardly had the time to focus on actually achieving noticeable action. Now that I am able I feel that we won't have adequate time to work on my proposals before the term ends.

I'd argue in favor of extending the term for this reason. Our UH term is arguably quite active but some discussions we are having now likely won't be resolved by the end of our term. Having an extra month would certainly benefit these discussions taking place.

With an extra month the regional reconciliation act likely would have been passed by the term that introduced it last session and we wouldn't have had to start our term finishing old unfinished business.

Chanku argues in favor of leaving your problems for the next term in this current system I argue that's highly inefficient and unreasonable to the newly elected UH to have to decide what to do with previous legislative action.

When it was revealed we were already as far into our term as we were I had a mild panic attack for failing to achieve much of anything yet. Between learning the ropes, werewolf and real life covid I've hardly had the time to focus on actually achieving noticeable action. Now that I am able I feel that we won't have adequate time to work on my proposals before the term ends.

But with all due respect, the reason that these conversations likely won't be resolved isn't because there wasn't enough time in the term, but because many of them didn't even start until two weeks from the end. Even if we extend the term to three months, what’s to keep an UH from being distracted or busy for two and a half months and running into the same situation?

I think the reality is that sometimes you’re not going to finish up everything in a term no matter how long it is, especially in an era where there’s so many things going on in the region and so many things that need to be developed and advanced and discussed. We have to be honest with ourselves here, extending the term isn’t going to be the cure for what ails us in this particular case.

In this particular case, I’m wondering if there are alternatives that would be more helpful. You imply at the end that you weren’t aware of how far into the term we were until now...would two week reminders be helpful (ie. we’re a quarter into the term, we’re halfway through the term, we’re three-quarters of the way into the term)?

Reminders likely wouldn't have mattered, we are all dealing with unprecedented real life issues that are largely diverting attention.

And when it took almost a month to simply resolve an issue that should've been finished last term it largely limits the likelihood that we could ever have finished everything on our agenda.

Unless the goal is to just throw everything into the machine at once (which is kind of what's happening now) but I'd argue that prevents every issue from recieving due attention.

Ultimately I'd rather just have my legislature reform get passed so that we don't have to worry about time limits for issues being discussed and worked upon but in absence of that happening giving UH terms one extra month would from what I've seen largely be more beneficial than harmful.

It's already too late for us, Hapi. Even if we get these terms to be extended by a month, that would have to be ratified in the next election, so there's no way to extend our term.

But yeah, I'm not making excuses here. I should certainly have chosen my priorities a bit better when the Werewolf game began. The depression thing, though, is something that is not within my control. My mood has started lifting along with the meds kicking in, and a longer term would have made that less of an issue.

It's already too late for us, Hapi. Even if we get these terms to be extended by a month, that would have to be ratified in the next election, so there's no way to extend our term.

But yeah, I'm not making excuses here. I should certainly have chosen my priorities a bit better when the Werewolf game began. The depression thing, though, is something that is not within my control. My mood has started lifting along with the meds kicking in, and a longer term would have made that less of an issue.

Oh yeah I'm aware of that but considering the last terms failure to finish the reconciliation act. And our struggle to finish our agenda I largely see this as beneficial overall moving forward

I can understand the reasons and motivations behind the desire to extend the UH term by a month - I know I was part of inactive terms (and have been inactive myself within them) and it's frustrating to come to a close without having achieved the things you set out to achieve at the start of the two months.

Moot's semi-suggestion of moving to a seasonal election system, in line with the rest of our appointed positions, also has merit and would in effect see the same outcome - another month on the Underhusen term.

Personally, I am of two minds here. I think there is a lot to be said for bringing Underhusen terms into the same cycle as the rest of the region, but I also think there's merit in keeping them separate and more frequent - this way, not everything is up for grabs/re-election at the same time. Of course there are cross-overs here and there where the two cycles inevitably intersect, but that's not a huge issue.

On the other issue as raised, that of not having enough time in the term to complete desired reforms/pass into law desired changes... I understand and sympathise with how life can get in the way of regional politics. However, one of the merits of our current two month term is that if people fall inactive or are otherwise unable to perform the duties required of them (for whatever reason), it's usually not long before they can step aside or be replaced - or, if they want, run for re-election.

A two month rolling election cycle also has the added side benefit of not quite being so long as to put those who didn't make it in last election off trying again next election. The cycle passes fast enough that those who are interested will (hopefully) stick around to try again next time, and also allows for regular, not-too-separated periods of regional activity and frequent discussions of how people are finding the direction of our politics and the region more generally.

On the whole, there are no practical reasons why an Underhusen cannot achieve in the first two weeks of its two month term everything it sets out to achieve. In simple terms of can it feasibly be done, the answer is yes - write the Bills, discuss them, put them to a vote and pass them. In more realistic settings, that isn't always the case and there will be dissent and disagreement, there will be real life matters that prevent members from engaging as much as they'd want to.

On the whole, I believe a two month term period has several benefits that might be lost with a three month term and - without being insensitive - I think that part of the motivation behind people suggesting an extension to UH terms is because they've found themselves blindsided by the end of term for entirely valid and unfortunate reasons more than a genuine belief that it'll be a good thing going forward.

In this instance, I'd simply stand for re-election and bring legislation that didn't make it into this term on to the next term

This is off-topic, but as an aside, can we take a moment to appreciate how we have twelve months in a year, so that we can have both even two-month and three-month terms occurring on the same months every year without issue, so that we can be debating this in the first place?

I'd argue in favor of extending the term for this reason. Our UH term is arguably quite active but some discussions we are having now likely won't be resolved by the end of our term. Having an extra month would certainly benefit these discussions taking place.

All the better if time does run out, that way people have to set out in clear terms their position on this issue which nobody was thinking about when the last election happened.

I personally think that Weissreich's post was very convincing here.