"I accept being nominated to the chair, and by the delegate with the initiative to start this committee idea." (A wink to Dolca)

"Now I'm not going to say increasing salary is good or bad. I like money, but the arguments against it are strong too. So how about we set a room aside to have those arguments in. What's the word for when you do that... I'm just a sortition so I don't remember, but I think it started with a C."

"I don't think it's a good argument to stop a committee from being made just because you don't like what they might come up with. If you don't like it, vote against it, and if it's a bad idea then we all vote no and there's no problem. One good argument for not making the committee is that we should debate these rules on the floor, instead. That makes sense, except we're not allowed to do that? We can only vote for something if it went through a committee, but we can't form a committee on rules changes because they should be decided by the floor? I'm just a sortition so I don't know all the laws, but it doesn't make sense to me."

"Let's have the committee. Thank you."

Jordi steps away and immediately heads for the back of the line, in case he needs to reply to someone replying to what he said. 

s i g h

"Earlier the archmage told us people were being bribed for their votes last week. Now that we have secret ballots, we should re-vote on some of the proposals that got voted down. I say we vote right now on whether to permanently let all delegates out of being taxed forever, and if we're not allowed to vote on that now the Forms Committee should go propose we vote on it so we can."

yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

Oh for the love of - every noble in the realm is still sitting over there!

Yeah, we are! And this time I can vote for it without my archduke getting rid of me over it.

They couldn't even remember the second one, the one that covered non-nobles and their heirs?

It's going to pass this time. Republicanism will be discredited wholly and permanently and deservedly and they're not even going to end slavery first - no. It needs to go through a committee first. They will at least get slavery ended and then Republicanism will be conclusively demonstrated to be giving a bunch of toddlers torches with which to light their orphanage.

Way more of the nobles voted against that one! He was watching!

All right, to the line again. Absolute fucking -

"I don't see why we should care if this means less money for the orphanages," a sortitioned woman says contemptuosly. "You'd really rather give money to a little baby then have it for yourself?"

He stands up to get in line, sees that Korva is already going down there, and sits down again.

...This was not how she expected the convention to fail but in retrospect she would have predicted it if she had been less busy this morning. Her voice... No, some of the liberal nobles are already in line. They'll do this better.

She doesn’t want the country to be financially ruined, even if she and her abbey could weather it… maybe a tax exemption for just the sortitioned?  She’ll get in line also.  Oh wait Korva is getting in line just a bit ahead of her.

She wishes message was a cleric orison. Instead of it, she has to lean around a few people to whisper to Korva.

“I’ll propose the tax exemption only be for sortitions.  Do you think that will work?”

"Other three will vote it down, but you can try," she whispers back.

She kinda hoped the clerics would have more wisdom than that and the nobility be tied to the country’s success, but yeah…

“Maybe sortition and elected, but it ruins the rhetorical point I had as pretext to add elected.”

Jonatan is desperately trying to figure out if there are obvious paths to prevent the "bankrupt the country" proposals from passing. There have already been speeches about this very proposal suggesting that he's been engaging in improper procedural trickery; if he gets up to speak against this committee in particular, even if he's completely honest, it's as likely as not to backfire.

Is there something else he could say? He could offer to pay for legitimate expenses, if there are sortitionates who are somehow genuinely unable to do so, but that just incentivizes more attempts of this nature. He could attempt to feed his allies lines about what Heaven has to say about enriching oneself at the expense of others, but he doesn't think there's anyone who doesn't understand that, they just lack the virtue to care. 

He could try to sign up for the committee, and vote down anything that would be ruinous? That only works if the chair is sensible — so, not Mont, and he'd prefer the Archduke to Oriol, but it can't hurt to try.

"If you're gonna do it, just Sortition with good rhetoric; the others might be willing to buy them off in particular. Worth the try, I guess."

“Thanks for the advice.  Yeah, worth a try I figure.”

And now she goes to thinking of her speech.  She needs to get better at this.  Maybe she should try reading foreign poetry, it seemed to have worked for Korva.

Does the president think voting by head was a mistake, yet?

This again? They've already done this debate and everyone voted. Why are they going over something they've already decided on, just because it's been a week? Do these people have no care for the reliability of their laws? (Trick question: they don't, and she knows this already.)

"It is a Vexing Absurdity that only now, when the Most Venal Delegates desire to Enrich Themselves at the Public Expense, is any Concern for Rules Evinced, when at Earlier Times the assembled were Quite Happy to let this Anarchy continue."

"It is as Ever the Case that Rules and Procedures are Despised and Roundly Mocked! But only until that Time arrives when, sorely feeling their Lack, those harmed Cry Out, 'where then were the Rules?' Why, they are where you have Left them; they are Forgotten, Trampled Upon, and one can Scarcely Read Them for the Amount of Mud applied by the Crude Brushes that are the Boots of Six Hundred Delegates."

"But, alas! Rather than Careful Drafting at the Outset, this Convention has seen fit to Invent Rules as it Goes Along, scurrying to Plug the Previous Hole in the Great Bucket of Debate while the Ever-Drilling Auger of Chaos has Moved to the Next Outrage."

"I thank the Duchess of Chelam for, having seen the Anarchy of Insufficient Rules, changing her earlier Position. She is Entirely Correct; Rules of the General Floor are the Concern of the General Floor. If there is to be a Committee on Rules then it must by All Rights be the Committee of the Whole, numbering All Delegates, but such a Procedural Fiction is not to my mind a Necessity."

"Only if a Committee sets Rules within its own Meetings is the Membership of a Single Committee sufficient for the Task."

"Though earlier Spurned I bear no Grudge, and would happily once again Lend my own Careful Drafting and Diligent Labor to the task of Rules both Simple and Orderly. First if not Chiefly among them I would propose that No Measure relating to the Stipend of Delegates, or Abridging the Taxes, Fees, or Duties for which Delegates are Liable, may have Effect on any Delegate Eligible to Vote on said Measure."

Her earlier rules proposal being insufficient to re-propose, alas, because it assumes a President who is actively engaged in the floor debate, of course, rather than only being roused to arbitrarily ban dueling. The floor needs more dueling, not less.

He'll applaud at Lluïsa's proposed rule.

He'll boo. The whole point of changing the rules is to give them money, not whatever poor saps they kidnap in forty years!

(Victòria had totally been planning on voting for the committee to give delegates more money — sending letters to Valia is going to cost about a third of her stipend — but she hadn't really been thinking about where the money would come from. Korva has a good point, she doesn't want orphans to starve just so she can have more money to spend. Probably Lluïsa's idea would make it so that doesn't happen, she thinks? She's not sure, she hasn't thought about it that much, but it sounds like a good idea. Clap clap clap.)