How A Bill Becomes A Law…and the People Who Make It All Happen
- The Territory will be run by a Governor, who will serve for four years, and until he (they were all he's back then) has a successor, or until he's removed by the POTUS himself.
- The Governor will live somewhere in the Territory and will serve as the state military's commander-in-chief.
- The Governor can grant pardons, respites, and reprieves for criminals, and he can commission people to serve as officers of the law and make sure they're doing what they're supposed to.
- There's going to be a Secretary, and he will hold office for five years unless the POTUS removes him sooner.
- It's the Secretary's job to record, preserve, and make and mail copies of all the Governor's and the Legislative Assembly's laws and proceedings.
- Bureaucratic paperwork starts here: One copy of the Legislative Assembly's laws and journals go to the POTUS within thirty days of the end of each session; one copy of all executive proceedings and official correspondence go to the POTUS on January 1 and July 1 every year; and two copies of all laws will be made, with one going to the President of the Senate and one going to the Speaker of the House.
- (Bet those Secretaries wished they had one of those nifty copier-scanner-fax machine combos.)
- Also, if something happens and the Governor can't fulfill his duties, the Secretary fills in for him until a replacement is appointed.
- The Governor and a Legislative Assembly hold the legislative power in the Territory, which means they're the folks in charge of making laws. The Legislative Assembly will be made of two groups: a Council and a House of Representatives.
- The Council will have thirteen members (eligibility described later) that will serve for two years.
- The House of Representatives will start out with twenty-six members, each serving for one year.
- The total number of Representatives can go up as the population of voters increases, but it can't get bigger than thirty-nine people.
- The territory is going to be divided up into counties and districts that are roughly equal in population; Councilmen and Representatives need to live in the district/county they represent.
- The first round of Councilmen and Representatives will be appointed by the Governor after he conducts a census; after that, there will be elections, and the person who gets the most votes in each race, wins.
- (This seems kind of obvious to us now, but back in the day, this stuff had to be laid out in writing.) If there's a tie, the Governor is to order a new election.
- The Governor gets to pick the time and place for the first meeting of the Council and the House, but after that, the Legislative Assembly needs to make laws about when they meet, where they meet, and for how long.
- BTW, those meetings can't take up more than forty days per year. Except the very first meeting. That one gets sixty days, because there's a lot of stuff to discuss.
- The right to vote belongs to free white males age twenty-one and over who are U.S. citizens, unless those free white males are also in the military, in which case they don't get to vote. These are also the qualifications for holding office.
- Everyone who lives here is subject to the laws here, as per the Constitution. There are three rules for making…rules:
- Don't make laws telling people what they can and can't do with undeveloped land
- Don't tax United States property
- Non-residents pay the same tax rates as residents
- Once a bill has passed both the Council and the House, it must be approved by the Governor. If the Governor approves, he signs it into law.
- If he doesn't, it goes back through the Council and the House to be reconsidered and reworked, and it has to pass both houses with a two-thirds vote.
- The Governor has three days (excluding Sunday) to return the bill to the Legislative Assembly; if he doesn't return it within those three days, that puppy becomes law.
- Unless, of course, the Legislative Assembly isn't there to accept his returning the bill.
- All other public officials in the Territory can be elected or appointed, whatever the Governor and Legislative Assembly decide to do.
- The Governor gets to appoint the first go-round of officers.
- A member of the Legislative Assembly (exception: members of the very first Legislative Assembly) cannot appoint himself to an office that was created or enhanced while he was in office or for one year after he leaves office.
- What does this mean? Basically, they don't want people creating cushy public service jobs and then putting themselves in said cushy jobs.
- Also, anyone holding any position for the U.S. Government (exception: postmasters) cannot also hold a position in the Legislative Assembly or anywhere else working for the Territory.
- Because that would be a conflict of interest, y'all.