How long is it?

A quick glance will show a main document that is only one page, but there is another page with terms and definitions, and another 5 pages each with an addendum of varying lengths (some are only a few paragraphs, some cover a full page in fine detail) elaborating on particular minor details of the main document.

So 1 page or 7 pages depending on your perspective.

That's a pretty reasonable length and he will read all seven pages before venturing to comment.

Really. And there's no contradictions between the pages? He'll have to examine this closely.

Fernando's seemed like a very straightforward, self-interested loyalty test passer to her so far. Maybe he's a more interesting delegate than she thought... 

There are indeed no outright contradictions. Some of the ideas are... less developed than they could be.  Some ideas are elaborated in very specific detail!

The main text has the sort of formatting suggestive of multiple repeated scrivener's chant's, like what may happen when the spell is repeatedly recast to copy from multiple separate pages in order to join sections of text together or omit sections or add new sections in, and then that copy is itself recopied again.

A Balanced Proposal for a New Form of The Chelish Monarchy

FOR INTERNAL PRIVATE USE WITHIN THE CONSTITUIONAL CONVENTION ONLY

The organization of the legislature:

The Chelish Governmental apparatus for lawmaking shall consist of 4 Bodies of legislature, one for religious, nobility, sortition, and elected.

These 4 bodies shall each be composed of 15 legislators and be (re)formed every 7 years with a preceding general election (see addendum on general election).  The bodies shall meet over a legislative season of 6 months (see definition of terms).

Convening of the 4 bodies:
Each body shall be composed of 15 legislators in turn elected from among and by vote of a pool of 150 preliminary delegates.
The Religious Legislature shall select its preliminary delegates as follows: 1 preliminary delegate to each virtuous church, 2 additional preliminary delegates to each virtuous church that is Lawful, 2 additional preliminary delegates to each virtuous church that is Good.  For these seats they may be selected directly by the church hierarchy (if it has one) or by vote from among its empowered chosen if it has no hierarchy. 20 preliminary religious delegates are to be directly chosen by the Queen among empowered chosen of virtuous God.  5 preliminary delegates chosen from among and by vote of empowered Chelish Paladins.  Remaining out of 150 religious preliminary delegate seats are to be allocated to virtuous churches in proportion to indication of primary worship in the general election.
The Sortition Legislature shall select its preliminary delegates as follows: 2 preliminary delegates chosen directly by the Queen from each of Cheliax's archduchies.  1 preliminary delegate chosen by each virtuous church.  Remaining preliminary delegates are to be selected by lot, as managed by the Queen and whatever officials or virtuous churches she appoints to this task.  All sortition delegates must be Chelish, not already nobility, nor empowered chosen, nor currently elected to a position.
The Nobility Legislature shall select its preliminary delegates as follows: 3 preliminary delegates of a rank of baron or higher are to be selected by the Queen (or official appointed) by her from each of Cheliax's archduchies.  1 preliminary delegate of a rank of baron or higher is to be elected by the nobility of rank of baron higher for each archduchy.  Archdukes each select 3 preliminary delegates from among the nobles of the rank of baron or higher from their archduchy, Dukes each select 2 preliminary delegates from among the nobles of the rank of baron or higher from the duchy.  Remaining out of 150 preliminary delegates are to be nobles of a rank of baron or higher each selected by the Counts across Cheliax, with a rolling schedule to keep the total under 150.  (See addendum).
The Elected Legislature shall select its preliminary delegates as follows: An election for each barony followed by an election for each county.  (See addendum on general election)

Election of the 15 legislators for each legislative body is by and from among the preliminary delegates are to take place in meeting(s) 1 week before the start of the legislative season that may last up to 1 week.

Preliminary delegates are not to be compensated less than 70 days wage for their convening and voting on legislators.  The legislators are not to be compensated by less than 5 days wage per day of legislation or related activities.

Operation of the Legislation:
A President shall be appointed by the Queen.  The President is responsible for and empowered to conduct the formalities of the convention, adjudicate on procedures of the legislation, set procedures for the convention so long as they are not directly contradicted by or set by other law (see addendum).
Each body shall elect a sub-President to preside over their body specifically.
Legislation shall be drafted by committees consisting of at least one member of each of the four bodies.  Committees shall vote on their chair from among their members.  Committee shall be formed and altered in accordance to the voting rules explained below.

Voting on Laws:
For the votes on laws, the legislature must meet certain thresholds of votes, varying according to how radical the proposal or law.
The lesser voting threshold shall be a simple majority of all 60 legislators across the 4 bodies.
The moderate threshold shall be a majority in each body.
The greater threshold shall be a two-thirds majority in each body.
The grand threshold shall require a three-fourths majority of each body.

The lesser threshold of votes shall be required for laws that do not override, replace, or alter other legislation voted on during the 6 month season, nor override previous legislation, nor override the direct will of the Queen, and are in the remit of matters explicitly put to the convention by the Queen.  The lesser threshold of votes is required for minor adjustments to procedure that do not contradict the president or procedures established by law.  The lesser threshold of votes is required to form committees.
The moderate threshold of votes will be required for laws that at most make minor alterations to previous legislation (for example alterations explicitly allowed by the legislation, additional enumerated provision in the same style as previous enumerations, and small changes), do not override the direct will of the Queen, and are at least primarily within the remit of matters put to them by the Queen.  The moderate threshold of votes is required to dissolve committees and remove specific members from committees.
The greater threshold of votes shall be required for laws or proposals that make major alterations to previous legislation and are partly within the remit of matters put to the legislature by the Queen.
The grand threshold of votes shall be required for laws or proposals that override or rewrite the constitution itself, make major alterations to the basic operation of the current or future legislature, contradict the President's rules for the convention, replace the President, directly circumvent the will of the Queen, or are not within the remit of matters put to the convention by the Queen.

All laws except for those voted for by a grand threshold shall not go into effect until the end of the current legislative season.
The Queen may veto any laws she disapproves of that have less than a grand threshold of votes.
The Queen may specify matters (i.e. foreign policy) as outside or within the remit of the legislature as she pleases.

The addendums and additions are as follows:

• A page on definitions of terms.  Various terms are defined (i.e. Empowered Chosen to mean cleric, inquisitor, or paladin, a legislative season to mean the 6 month period during which a body of legislators forms and votes on laws).  Some of the definitions include various notes on operationalizing the definition (i.e. start and end dates of a legislative season).  Some of the definitions seem a bit off or a bit wordy but overall seem reasonable?  At least... Fernando didn't mean to add in traps or loopholes but a paranoid Chelish mind used to Asmodean contracts might imagine some very easily.
• A page with assorted notes on formally defining the role of the president.  They aren't exactly clear, more like a list of disjoint thoughts trying to formalize the Archmage's role in the convention.  The notes and thoughts for sub-presidents are even more disorganized.
• A set of voting rules to get 15 legislators from among 150 preliminary delegates via vote.  Slightly complicated by rules accounting for ties and edge cases.  ...In the edge case rules... Fernando was also kind of starting to go for some rules to make strategic voting unnecessary, but didn't properly solve the problem.
• A complicated scheme for allocating preliminary delegate selection to Counts.  (Again complicated by locking the number to an amount totaling to 150 when added with other preliminary delegates selected by the Queen/Archdukes/Dukes).
• A set  of voting rules for the general election, some of them copied verbatim from various decrees relating to the current constitutional convention elections.  (Again complicated by locking the number to 150 total).  The voting rules also have the addition of rules on including a poll of primarily worshipped Gods for the purpose of allocating religious delegates seats!
• Other disjoint miscellaneous notes on varied things, such as defining what a Chelish person is.  One notable clarification is that the Queen/virtuous churches preliminary delegate selected for the sortition preliminary delegate pool are explicitly allowed to hide this fact and mix anonymously with the genuinely random delegates.

Fernando doesn't have any formal legal education and it shows especially badly in the addendums, with terms invented when existing terms would have sufficed and actual legal terms misused frequently.

Despite the elaborate detail (especially in mathematical procedures, such as the procedure for totaling the number of delegates to 150), several potentially key things are missing such as how abstain votes effect reaching a majority!

"I uh.. uh."

He's stuttering hard now.

"The exact numbers and durations and dates and details in the addendums are just meant as a first pass idea, I'm particularly opening to dramatically reworking them.  Uh... not that I'm not open to reworking the rest of it.  Like I said, it's a first draft of ideas meant to get us started on Cheliax's actually constitution and not just recommendations on laws like the other committees or reviewing other governments like we've been doing."

His voice is showing a lot of nervousness now.

Two of Jilia's staff take the addendums and read them, then murmur their impressions when she finishes the main body. Amateur, but competently done. But also completely unprecedented and potentially a complete disaster, which means it wouldn't possibly pass even if it was a good idea, which she really doesn't think it is. Even apart from some of the stranger details like secret non-sortitions which... okay, she can see why you might think the archmages did that. You really wouldn't want to admit to it, though. But what to say, to not discourage the man entirely...

"It's radical, to be sure. Not everyone is convinced the present Convention is serving the country's interests, and if they aren't, they will surely be skeptical of this, because it hasn't been tried any other way. That is a serious and weighty objection, and would be to anything along these lines. I don't think we could possibly adopt it in this form. But as an initial proposal to structure the legislature along the lines of the convention's composition, it seems like fine work."

The archduchess is saying it’s too radical?  If she’s saying it’s radical it must really be extreme?  Or wait, maybe since she’s a radical she calls conservative stuff radical, and his constitution is actually moderate?  Fernando isn’t really sure, he’s only barely picked up on the fact that the archduchess is opposed by a lot of other nobles.

"I like it! Good work! Just one small fix-change 'Baron' to 'Count' everywhere! Just like they did this time, right! You don't want to be telling the queen she made a mistake not inviting the barons!

Responding to the Archduchess…

“Oh well, uh, um… I was trying to do something like the convention’s basic organization, it seems like the Queen and her Archmages have a clear intent with that, but with some adjustments to fix the current issues with the convention.  So a smaller (and more select) number of delegates, so it’s a more manageable group and not too many important nobility and clerics are called away from their important duties.  And then with less of them called away by it, it means they can afford to stay longer and take their time, which should counteract the urge to rush through things.  And I think we need something like the voting thresholds idea I had, so minor trivial things can be passed easily while radical proposals require a strong consensus.”

Fernando’s voice picks up confidence as he goes on, restating his reasoning behind everything reassures him of the individual points, even if the resulting draft combining the points isn’t actually workable.

Turning to the Condesa.

“I wouldn’t say the Queen made a mistake for such an important event as this, but going forward with future legislative seasons… my idea was the Counts and Dukes such could select Barons to represent their interests if needed, since the higher nobility’s time is  obviously so important that many of them can’t afford 6 months every 7 years. And obviously if they can afford the time they can select themselves.” 

Hopefully that idea doesn’t offend any nobles?

"But it says '1 preliminary delegate of a rank of baron or higher is to be elected by the nobility of rank of baron higher for each archduchy.' I think you should just cut that part!"

“Oh uh, that’s only 7 delegates, 8 if the Queen reclaims Molthune.  I uh…”

In all honesty he was throwing random ideas for selecting delegates together, but he can’t actually say that.

“Was considering a heterogeneous mix of procedures for accounting for the role of the nobility in Cheliax’s government… but you’re probably right about that part.”

“And the actual proposal that gets brought to the floor will likely need to be brought in the simplest chunks possible so people are willing and able to consider it, so cutting out some of the extraneous bits makes sense for that reason alone, I just wanted to get all my ideas down for the first draft.”

"It might make sense to first bring to the floor a very brief outline of what you propose the Constitution cover, to avoid laboring under a disagreement about the correct scope."

“That makes sense!  We could do, a uh, non-binding resolution, like how the slavery committee did a resolution before our actual proposal.  So like a resolution on what the actual main constitution will cover.  I think the main thing is the organization and basic operation of a legislative body?  With basic fundamental rules on stuff like votes and such so that the legislation isn’t scrambling every time it reconvenes to establish or reestablish or alter the rules?”

"You are right that we should be working on articles for the actual constitution, and this is a start on that. I think I am of a mind with you that we should at least in part recreate the structure of the Convention; the churches, the nobility, and the commons each have their own interests that should be represented in any legislative body. But I think it might better protect those interests if each individual legislative subcorpus had particular powers, in addition to the assent of each being required to pass a new law... For example, laws regarding heresy or public morals might only be allowed to originate from the assembly of the religious.

Beyond that, as Select Artigas says, we may wish to clarify the scope of the constitution which the convention will allow. And, relatedly, this part - 'The Queen may specify matters as outside or within the remit of the legislature as she pleases' - I think it would be wiser to spell out in the constitution which matters are for the legislature and which are not. While I know it may seem presumptuous, I have it on good authority that while the Convention may not itself conduct foreign policy, the queen and the archmages would accept us writing a constitution which empowered the legislature to do so, so we may decide which powers are best vested in the monarch and which are best vested in another body."

The problem is that he doesn’t really trust the convention to vote reasonably, and he wouldn’t trust a legislature that much either, so he wants to keep their remit narrowly circumscribed.  Then in the future the Queen could issue the legislature successively wider authority as it proved competent.

He can’t just say that… actually, since this isn’t a loyalty test he supposes he could just outright share this concern?

“One challenge in coming up with set areas of remit is that some matters I wouldn’t trust a legislature with right now or in 7 years I might trust in 14 or 21 years.  This is true of the nobility as foreign nobility learns how Cheliax operates, and the virtuous churches as they develop more experienced clerics within Cheliax, and of course of the common people.”

“So maybe we could come up with a schedule of the legislature taking on authority over its successive meetings?  Does anyone have suggestions on how to divide authority between the legislature and Queen?  Or for that matter how to divide up responsibilities and powers between the bodies, the uh subcorpus, of the legislature?  I suppose dividing up authorities among the bodies might moderate my concern if each body had powers appropriate to them, like the churches writing heresy laws instead of the nobility.”

The only reason Fernando had the nerve to talk like this is all the blatantly idiotic disrespect he’s seen for the Archmages and Queen and (Iomedae’s) Church throughout the convention.  Hopefully he didn’t miscalculate and that privilege wasn’t only for nobility or something like that.