The Senate

· ·2 min read

SAVE Act struck out 3–2, and with it the case for the SDIOA

brandmal's bill would have reinstated the oversight authority word for word — an agency that set its own budget, held a five-cycle term and could not be overruled on classification. Its argument for all this was that its critics were crooks. notcom's amendment leaves eight words about Creative.

A bill whose case for SimDemocracy’s oversight authority was that only corrupt people complained about it has been struck out of existence by the Senate, 3–2.

The motion, moved by notcom, removes every word of the SAVE the SDIOA Act and substitutes one section:

Article 1 - Creative Excommunicado

§1. Creative is officially condemned with distinction.

“To avoid doubt, all other text in this legislation shall be removed aside from the above text,” the motion reads.

The case that was made for it

brandmal’s bill opened with two recitals. The first: “The SDIOA was around for a long time because it is one of the greatest achievements of our democracy.” The second, in full: “Only corrupt people complained about it.”

That was the argument. The Plan B Act, which abolished the authority, had put the charge plainly: the SDIOA “has been around for a very long time and there are constant complaints they do nothing.” The SAVE Act did not answer the charge. It questioned the motives of those making it.

Three senators were unpersuaded. Two were not.

What restoration would have brought back

Article 1 would have repealed Plan B in full and reinstated the Government Oversight Act 2025 “as though it was never repealed.” Article 2 then reproduced that statute word for word, so that what returned could not be argued about.

What returned would have included an agency that set its own budget. Under Part 3 of the reinstated text the Ombudsman determines the SDIOA’s funding, and the Senate may not reduce it without a supermajority. The Ombudsman’s term runs five Senate cycles — longer than any elected office in SimDemocracy. Access to government documents runs “regardless of their classification level,” and “cannot be overridden by executive orders.”

The check on all this was to be an oversight panel that, by its own article, “shall have no authority to interfere.”

Two defects in a text drafted to be enacted verbatim

The bill promises the exact text of “Article 20b Obstruction of Oversight” of the Criminal Code. The text supplied beneath that promise is headed “Article 20a. Obstruction of a Financial Investigation” — a different number and a different offence, carrying a fine of up to 10,000t.

In the reproduced oversight act, Part 5 states its Article 1 §2 and its Article 2 §2 as the same sentence twice, and the article headed “Referral Mechanism” has no §1.

Article 2 existed precisely so the restored text could not be disputed.

What is left

Should the bill pass as amended, the statute book will carry an Act titled “SAVE the SDIOA Act” that says nothing about the SDIOA. The Plan B Act stays in force, the Government Oversight Act 2025 stays repealed, and the oversight authority stays abolished.

The condemnation is unexplained. The text gives no reason for it, and does not say what “with distinction” adds.