Speaker of Osolia

From Osolia Wiki
Chiefdom of Osolia
Speaker
Incumbent
TheRandomMelon
since August 16, 2024
StyleSpeaker
(formal)
Member ofOsolian Assembly
AppointerGeneral election
Term length2 months
Formation15 December 2023; 11 months ago (2023-Error: Invalid time.-15)
First holdertz_scion

The Speaker of Osolia is the leader of the legislative branch of Osolia and the head of the Assembly. The Speaker's general duty is to represent the will of the Assembly by conducting votes on bills (i.e. laws) and on special measures such as removing/appointing a citizen to the Chief's Council.

Additionally, the Osolian Constitution grants the Speaker the power to maintain order during Assembly hearings/debates, establish committees to provide recommendations on specific issues, and the authority to officially conduct Osolian elections.

History

Beginnings and precedents (December 15, 2023 - August 16, 2024)

The Speaker position was created alongside the Chiefdom of Osolia itself on December 15, 2023. tz_scion was elected unopposed to become the first Speaker, and he has enacted numerous decisions that were previously vague in the Constitution, setting important precedent.

For instance, the first, and arguably the most important, thing he did as Speaker was write a majority of and lobby for the passage of the official Constitution of the Chiefdom of Osolia, which establishes how the general government system operates. This standardized many Assembly procedures, such as a minimum 24 hour voting period for bills and measures.

He also ran the first election in Osolian history, establishing precedent such as keeping candidacy open all the way until election day and guiding everyone through the first election to use the my.osolia online voting system, the June 2024 Osolian general election.

He also was the first elected official to utilize the Constitution's power to assign an "acting" person in place of himself when a short-term personal issue affected him on June 27, 2024. He chose Michael Webb, the first and former Chief of Osolia, due to his long-term experience in Osolian politics. During this time, Acting Speaker Webb passed the Post Office Act, establishing the Osolian Post Office and the mail system in general. Speaker Scion set a precedent in this by giving a time when he would re-establish control over the Speaker role, instead of simply taking it back immediately upon becoming available again as is described in the Constitution. He would again use this acting person power on July 13, 2024, this time for multiple days due to power outage issues. He took back the Speaker position on July 17, 2024.

Speaker Scion was also the first Speaker to establish a committee per the Constitution; the Engagement Committee. The Engagement Committee is dedicated to finding and proposing policies to make it more appealing to regularly log into the Osolian Minecraft server. They are still actively working on new methods to engage citizenry, such as employing occasional Osolian Hangout Nights to encourage a large group of citizens to come online at the same time and invoke a sense of community. Speaker Scion also currently serves as the chair of the Engagement Committee.

Speaker Scion decided not to run for re-election during the August 2024 Osolian general election, at first due to running for Chief instead, but later dropping out from Osolian politics entirely, at least temporarily. He held the Speaker position until a new Speaker was elected to replace him on August 16, 2024. This marked the first time since Osolia's founding 7 months prior that a Speaker other than tz_scion would be elected.

A new Speaker (August 16, 2024 - present)

Term 1 (August 16 - October 16, 2024)

Speaker Michael Webb was elected on August 16, 2024. He immediately pushed for change in the Speakership role, such as announcing the first formal Assembly meeting on August 19, 2024, which would take place on August 25, 2024.

Before that took place, however, he also formed the Intelligence Committee on August 19, 2024 in secret to protect the information and whistleblowers involved in the committee. This committee was established to write a formal report regarding findings that show Cieurnish interference in the Chiefdom of Osolia, such as attempts to obtain private information about some Osolians, hiring a spy within Osolia, and trying to formulate plans to invade the Chiefdom government with Cieurnish officials.[1] The Committee was disbanded immediately following the release of this report to prevent further secretive government activity.

On August 25, 2024, the first Assembly meeting officially took place, which instituted new changes to the Assembly, such as the introduction of the Assembly Rules, a set of rules that standardizes how official Assembly proceedings should be conducted, and the #assembly-discussions Discord forum channel, which better structures and compartmentalizes important discussions going on, such as economic reform and the debate on removing treaty formation from the Constitution.

Webb also was tasked with moderating and moving forward the highly-debated treaty reform discussions, which lasted for several days, and its result was put into the Server Security Amendment, which was the first bill passed under Webb's Speakership. For instance, treaties are properly defined and regulated in this law. Furthermore, It is made unlawful for the Chiefdom of Osolia to cede territory to any jurisdiction apart from itself, and the terms of a treaty must be in accordance with Osolian law to be allowed to be voted on. It also clarifies what happens when a citizen leaves the Discord server and allows pre-emptive bans of users from Osolia by confirmation from the Assembly. The law passed unanimously amongst those who voted on August 30, 2024.

That same day, on August 30, 2024, Webb brought forth the Public Investments Broadening Act for a formal vote, which allowed the Public Investment Pool of the Chiefdom of Osolia to be used for more governmental purposes, such as for funding events, stimulus checks, and more.

On September 4, 2024, Webb instituted a new ping role system utilizing a Discord bot called RoleBot and the channel #get-roles. This allows citizens to self-register for various ping roles to reduce the frequency of pings if a citizen desires such. Citizens can currently claim ping roles for each of the currently recognized news and media organizations, and the activity roles Active Assembly and Events Ping, which allows pings for invitation to discuss something in the Assembly and for new events information respectively.

On September 11, 2024, Webb utilized the powers granted by the Speaker in the Server Security Amendment to begin votes to pre-emptively ban people from the Chiefdom of Osolia. In four seperate measures, he requested that the Assembly vote to ban four users as per the recommendations of the Intelligence Committee - IsoKamikaze, Tavatone, Bannerman, and Moadroon. On September 12, 2024, the Assembly voted unanimously amongst those who voted in favor of the bans, except for Moadroon's ban vote, which had an 80% approval rate amongst those who voted. All four of the users mentioned in these measures were be put on the Chiefdom of Osolia Ban List and will not be allowed to be invited to the server unless a successful unban vote takes place later on.

On September 18, 2024, Webb announced that himself and his girlfriend, The Celestial Jellyfish, had parted ways via the publishing of a letter originally sent to Chief CalvinX. This temporarily slowed down Webb's progress on various projects, such as economic reform.

On October 14, 2024, Webb published the full logs of Intelligence Committee proceedings in a 72-page report. This report details all conversation that occured between members of the Intelligence Committee during their investigation into espionage against Osolia, and includes new details not originally shared in the report, such as the full exchange between Speaker Webb and Alanguiano, a former Kaiser of the Cieurnish Empire who currently owns and had declassified the Minerva server used for espionage against Osolia.

List of Osolian Speakers

Speakers Scion and Webb are currently the only Speakers in Osolian history.

Face Name Term
1 tz_scion December 15, 2023 - August 16, 2024
2 Michael Webb August 16, 2024 - present
  1. Chiefdom of Osolia, Intelligence Committee. Formal Report on Cieurnish Interference with the Chiefdom of Osolia, published on August 20, 2024.