New Congress Critter Survival Guide

So, you want to be a Fed Congress Critter? Good, welcome to the club.
The purpose of this guide is to hopefully prime you so that you know what to expect, before you actually get there.


The Selection Process
Every month, on the 11th, the Fed Political Director (PD) will start a thread in the Political Section of the Fed forums (https://fedparty.forumotion.com/f8-political), announcing that Congressional sign-ups for the next month are open. If you’ve been a member of the Feds for at least 30 days, you’re eligible to be considered, and this is where you’ll be announcing your desire to run. The PD and the Party President (PP) will then go over the list of candidates, and decide upon who, and in what order, will be on the final list. The criteria for this selection process is mostly observational….basically we want Congresspeople who we think are going to be active, vocal, and will best represent the Feds on a national setting. Just as important to us though, is giving new people a chance to represent us, we don’t want the same old group of people month after month, we want our newer members given their chance to shine. If you’re not selected, please don’t be discouraged. Game mechanics only allow us to have a certain number of Congresspeople, based on the number of states we have in our possession, the number of members we have in the party, and the number of votes we get in the election. Everyone who wants in can’t get in every month, but as I said; we want you in Congress, so keep trying.

All Feds wishing to run for Congress should make sure that:

a) You’re signed up in-game (Community tab, My Party, Run For Congress button). Party members can apply for congressional candidature each month between the 16th and 23rd.

b) You’re located in a state that is held by the eUS. You should pick one that also stands a reasonably sure chance of still being held by us come elections.


Elections
After the PP and PD have determined the list, it will be announced around the 20th of the month.

If you’re on the list, you don’t have to do anything further, except make sure that you’re still in a eUS-held state.

The list will be finalized in-game by the PP on the 24th. Where your name falls on the list determines in what order you will be elected. If you’re #15 on the list, and due to our vote percentage we only get 14 spots, you won’t be elected.

The 25th is election day. Vote Fed!

Access
So you’re a Congress Critter now. First off…congratulations! Go forth and do the Feds proud.
Your 1st step will be to go to the eUS forums. If you don’t have an account there already, you’ll need to register. Please use the same name you use in eRep, it will make things much easier.

After you’re logged in, head to the “The Legislative Branch” subforum, and sign your name in the “xx Congress Sign-in” thread (xx being whatever # congressional caucus you’ve just become a member of). The one as of this writing is the 71st.

This will be the the 1st of weekly required sign-ins. Each will be open for exactly 24 hours. The number of congresspeople who sign-in using this thread within the 24 hours, divided by 2, establishes the quorum for the following week. Quorum is the minimum number of votes required for a law to pass.

After you’ve signed in, and verified, you’ll be given access to the Private Congress board. This is where the more sensitive subjects of this board are discussed. Rule #1 is don’t discuss publicly what is said in the Private board, it will get you censured (kicked out of the meta portion of Congress).

You’ll also be given access to the #eus-senate channel on IRC. It’s not used much, but it’s sometimes helpful to be there.



Meta-game duties
One of the 1st things that will happen will be the selection of a Speaker of the House (SoH). This is done by nominations, followed by a vote on the nominees. This selection is almost always decided beforehand through backroom deals by the Top5 party leaders, so your Whip should inform you who the Feds are backing.

The congressional proceedings are broken into 3 parts:

Discussion:
Anyone can start a discussion at any time. A 24 hour discussion is mandatory before a law can move the the Proposal stage (may be waived by the Speaker, at his/her discretion)

Proposal:
The proposal process is strictly for approving the measure go to vote. You should refrain from commenting in this thread with anything but “Approved”. If you disapprove of the measure, simply say nothing. A proposal requires 10 approvals within a 24 hour time frame (may be extended up to 72 hours at the SoH’s discretion) before it is considered to be passed.

If a Proposal fails to get this # of approvals during the time limit (24 hours, but may be extended up to 72 hours at the SoH’s discretion), the proposal fails to meet quorum, and is considered dead.

If a Proposal passes, it will then go to a vote.

Vote:
Quorum for any given week is determined by the number of Congresspeople to sign into the weekly sign-in thread, divided by 2 (and then rounded up in necessary). If the total number of people casting a vote doesn't equal or surpass quorum, the vote is considered to have failed.

If quorum has been met, the vote will either pass or fail, depending on the number of Yes or No votes that were cast. If it receives more yes than no votes, it becomes law. By definition, this is considered to be >50% of the votes cast. A tie vote is considered a loss.

Your Whip may give guidance or suggest how Fed leadership feels the vote should go, but the choice on how you vote is entirely up to you. There’s no repercussions for voting against the “party line”, you should always vote your conscience. The proper format for voting is by replying in the vote thread with:

Code:

Your name
Feds
Yes/No/Abstain


An "Abstain" counts as being "present" for establishing quorum purposes, but not towards the votes cast. One who abstains acknowledges the vote, but does not wish to cast a vote due to a conflict of interest, political reason, uncertainty, etc. It is not counted in the total number of votes.

Example:
Quorum for the week is 10.
5 yes votes, 4 no votes, 1 abstention.
The vote passes since quorum was met (10 people either voted of abstained), and a majority of the votes that were actually cast were YES (9 votes cast - 5 yes, 4 no).


In-game Duties
You will be informed via an in-game alert whenever a new law proposal is waiting for you to vote.
Every month, in the eUS forums, there will be a list of foreign nations who the Country President (CP, or PotUS) plans to sign Mutual Protection Pacts (MPPs) with. If the in-game vote is for one of these, either your Whip will tell you if it’s a Yes or No vote, or you can just refer to the list. Sometimes the vote will be for transferring money from the treasury to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In months where we have no PTO congress members, these votes will almost always be yes. Check with your Whip if in doubt. If there are PTO members in congress, you should always hold your vote until you hear from your Whip, or if you know 100% that the person proposing the law is a non-PTO’er.

This is the most important part of your job as a congressperson. Only congress members can grant eUS citizenship (CS) requests. If you’re new to eRep, you might not know that we came close to being taken over politically, through rogue CS approvals. Congress members let in foreign hostiles, who then got themselves elected to congress, and in turn let in more hostiles, creating a vicious circle. It took months and months of work to get these people out of a position where they could harm us. We cannot ever let that happen again. If you grant CS to anyone without 1st getting approval from IES, whether that person is hostile or not, you will be censured from congress for the remainder of the term. If you knowingly let in a hostile foreigner, you will be censured, and most likely permanently blacklisted from ever being a congressperson again. These are eUS rules, not Fed rules, and are absolute.

That being said, the IES rules are pretty simple….don’t approve anyone unless they’ve been cleared by IES 1st.  You can see a list of people approved for CS at THIS GDOC
If they’re on that list, on the “Approved” tab, they’re safe to grant CS to.

If you're ever approached my anyone (especially Ronald Gipper Reagan) about selling a CS approval, contact your Whip, PP, or the Director of IES immediately. Don't be tempted, it's not worth it.

If you have a friend who is in a foreign country, and want to vouch for them, you can do so in this subforum on the eUS forums: http://eusaforums.com/forum/index.php/board,20.0.html
In that subforum, post a new thread following the outline of the other threads that are there.

YOU MUST STILL WAIT FOR IES APPROVAL TO BE GIVEN BEFORE GRANTING CS

This is merely a method for you to let IES know that the person is someone you know, and to ask for an expedited approval process. It does not replace the IES approval process. Failing to wait for approval will still get you censured, even if you have vouched for the person. Usually in this case, someone will directly contact you when it’s ok for you to approve the person. Wait for that message.
The full IES rules can be read at: http://eusaforums.com/forum/index.php/topic,14322.0.html

That’s about all there is to it. Even when things get heated, as they sometimes do, try to remain somewhat respectful, even when the other person is being a douche. Remember that you’re representing the Feds, and make your party proud (and horny). If you have any questions, always feel free to ask your Whip or the PP. There’s also always a Fed Caucus group PM in-game that you can use to get answers or advice from any of your fellow Fed Congress Critters. They’re all there to help, and they want you to succeed.

At 1st, the meta aspect might seem daunting to you. Some veteran congress members might talk down to you, or make you feel like you shouldn't be disagreeing with them. It's up to you as to whether you back down, or stand up & push back. Just remember: Your vote counts for 1, just the same as their's does. They might have been in Congress 100 times before, but you're both there now, and that's all that counts.

One last thing: It’s congressional custom to donate the 5 gold you get for being elected to the charity of your choice. It’s not a rule, but if you keep it, you’ll probably be publically shamed.   I usually give mine to SHIELD or to the Department of the Interior, but that’s entirely up to you. There’s a donation thread in the eUS congress board for stating who/where you donated to.

As always,
Stay P/H

Great article, thanks!

nice one...! Well my golds belong to SHIELD mhuahauaa

this is awesome and a pretty good read! Thank you for this post of knowledge!

All congressmen should have the following in their profile

"For citizen requests use http://tinyurl.com/eUSIESApp"

You will get a lot of messages about CS. Give them that link