Bills & Legislation

Bill Types#

Every bill needs a category. Policy bills need at least one provision (legislation type + policy option); custom bills may have no provisions.

Policy Bills (current implementation)#

• Description: Bills built from legislation types with named policy options and economic/social integer scores (-3 to +3; 0 = center). Each type has 7 options (3 left, 1 center, 3 right) with a primary axis (economic or social) per type.
• Creation: Any sitting Congress/Parliament member, or admins via Admin override
• Content: Title, summary, category (required), and provisions (1-3 per bill). Each provision is a legislation type + policy option (or effect direction). Provisions can store optional economic and social integers. Category limits which legislation types can be added (e.g. Healthcare → Medicare, Medicaid; Economy → Tax Policy, Minimum Wage, Social Security).
• Categories: defense, economy, education, environment, foreign policy, healthcare, industry, immigration, infrastructure, public safety, social, tax, trade, agriculture, technology, state ownership, custom. Defined in shared/constants/legislation.ts10d ago (BILL_CATEGORIES); each maps to one or more policy domains. Custom is always proposable with no provisions (flavor/roleplay).
• Provisions: 1-3 per bill (MAX_PROVISIONS = 3 in shared/constants/legislation.ts10d ago). Each provision is one legislation type plus one policy option (or effect direction). When the bill is signed, every provision’s effect is applied to the relevant state/national metrics.
• Cost: PROVISION_COSTS = [5, 10, 15] national influence for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd provision respectively. Admins exempt. Balance shown in propose form; backend deducts on submit for non-admins. Proposing a bill (any bill, national or state) also costs a flat BILL_PROPOSE_ACTION_COST = 10 action points.
• Effects: When a bill is signed (or pocket-signed), applyLegislationEffect() in src/lib/legislationEffects.ts3d ago applies each provision’s delta to its legislation type’s effectTarget metric.

LegislationType Fields#

Key fields on the LegislationType interface (src/lib/db/types/legislation.ts2d ago):

US Tax System, 11-Bracket Model#

All 9 US tax legislation types (income_tax, corporate_tax, capital_gains_tax, payroll_tax, estate_tax, excise_tax, carbon_tax, wealth_tax, financial_transaction_tax) use an 11-bracket scale (indices 0-10) with LARP-style bill names:

Each bracket has an explicit economic score (−5 to +5), a social score (0 unless cross-axis), an annualCostPerCapita representing total per-capita revenue impact, and a LARP-style title and description. This replaced the prior 6-8 option scale.

Absolute Cost Model#

annualCostPerCapita on every US legislation option is an absolute spending level, not a delta from baseline:

• $0 means the program is fully abolished at that option.
• Higher values mean larger government spending on that program.
• Tax types use negative values to represent net revenue collected.
• When a bill is signed, the budget system sets the program cost to the new absolute value (not adds a delta).

This contrasts with the old delta model. Re-seeding policies resets to the baseline option's absolute value.

Natural Metric Decay#

All metrics now decay naturally toward their baseline value at 0.25% per turn when no active policy is pushing them. This prevents metrics from permanently deviating from realistic ranges after extreme legislation passes and then expires or is repealed. At 0.25%/turn, a fully-deviated metric takes approximately 20 game years (~960 turns) to return to baseline with no opposing policy active.

Implemented in src/lib/demographicEffects.ts2d ago.

Federal Effect Division#

Federal bills apply their metric effects to every US state. Each state receives 1/50th of the full effect per turn (previously was 1/3). This prevents a single federal bill from dominating state-level metrics and ensures the sum of per-state effects roughly equals the intended national total across 50 states.

Configured via FEDERAL_MULTIPLIER in src/lib/demographicEffects.ts2d ago.

US Legislation Type Changes (v3 overhaul)#

• Removed: medicare, removed as redundant with federal_healthcare_funding and drug_pricing_medicare.
• Added: state_spending_stimulus, state-level economic stimulus spending legislation.
• Added: state_housing, state-level housing and development legislation.
• All ~45 remaining non-tax US types reworked with LARP-style bill names, absolute annualCostPerCapita values, and explicit dual-axis (economic, social) scores.

UK Legislation Types#

55 UK-specific types (seeded via scripts/seeds/legislationTypes.ts10d ago) cover both national (Parliament) and regional (Council) legislation. All have countryScope: "uk". National types have allowedScope: "national"; regional types have allowedScope: "state". Each has 7 policy options (spending types) or 11 brackets (tax types) with LARP-style titles, descriptions, and £/cap costs. Baseline policy values start at centrist (option #3). Seeded via admin Universal Seeder > UK Legislation, or seed-legislation.ts.

34 National (Parliament) types across 16 categories: Healthcare (4), Education (4), Economic (2), Infrastructure (2), Environment (2), Law & Justice (2), Defence (2), Foreign Policy (1), Welfare (2), Immigration (2), Labour (2), Housing (2), Governance (3), Media (2), Civil Liberties (2), plus 5 national tax types (Income Tax, NI, VAT, Corporation Tax, Excise/Customs).

14 Regional (Council) types plus 2 regional tax types (Council Tax, Business Rates). Regional types are subject to the budget constraint system, total enacted regional spending cannot exceed the region's budget (Council Tax revenue + Business Rates revenue + Westminster grant).

7 tax types use 11 brackets with explicit rates, LARP-style titles, and economic scores. National taxes: uk_income_tax_rate, uk_national_insurance, uk_vat, uk_corporation_tax, uk_excise_customs. Regional taxes: uk_council_tax, uk_business_rates.

Key national type: uk_local_government_funding controls the Westminster grant to regions. The seated Chancellor of the Exchequer can allocate that pool through the cabinet allocation route; src/lib/turn/regionalBudget.ts6h ago applies the configured percentages, defaulting to an equal split.

UK-specific metrics: 14 metrics unique to the UK (e.g., nhsWaitingTime, childPoverty, housingAffordability, devolutionSatisfaction, bbcTrust). 4 US-only metrics excluded from UK (uninsuredRate, affordabilityIndex, highSchoolGradRate, collegeEnrollment). National effect division uses UK_FEDERAL_MULTIPLIER = 1/12 (12 regions vs US 50 states).

Regional Budget Constraint: UK regions operate under a balanced-budget requirement. Revenue = Council Tax + Business Rates + Westminster grant. If enacted spending exceeds budget for more than 1 turn, forced austerity downgrades the most expensive programme one option level per turn until balanced. Property and commercial value bases drift dynamically based on investment levels (25%-300% of baseline guardrails).

Full spec: the design archive

Bill Lifecycle#

Bills move through a strict status pipeline managed by the turn processor each hour:

Proposal#

1. Cost: Flat 10 action points to propose (BILL_PROPOSE_ACTION_COST). Additional provisions (2nd, 3rd) cost national influence (5, 10 respectively, on top of the 1st provision's 5); admins are exempt.
2. Availability: US, House or Senate members. UK, Commons members. JP, Shūgiin or Sangiin members (origin chamber matches the sponsor's seat). Admins can override in all countries.
3. Required: Category and at least one provision (legislation type + policy option). Category limits which legislation types appear in the form (see GET /api/game/legislation-types?category=...).
4. Activation: Bill immediately enters active status with a 24-hour votingEndsAt timestamp set at submission
5. Origin chamber is recorded from the proposing member’s selection (House, Senate, or Joint)

Voting#

1. Window: 24 hours per chamber
2. Vote Options: For / Against / Abstain (changeable before voting closes)
3. Eligibility: Only members of the current chamber may vote
4. Result: Simple majority (For > Against; abstentions are neutral)
5. Tie Votes: Vice President breaks ties in Senate
6. Re-voting: A member may change their vote at any time while voting is open

Bicameral Process#

1. Bill opens for voting in the origin chamber (House or Senate)
2. Voting closes at votingEndsAt; turn processor tallies all votes
3. Passed: status advances to active_other for the second chamber with a fresh 24-hour window
4. Failed: status set to failed
5. Second chamber vote closes the same way; if passed → enrolled

Presidential Action#

• Sign: Bill becomes law (signed); effects apply
• Veto: Bill fails (vetoed)
• Pocket signature: If the President takes no action within 10 hours of enrollment, the bill is automatically signed (signed)
• Only the character currently holding the President office sees the action panel

Senate Filibuster / Cloture#

Implemented, US Senate only (src/lib/legislature/commands/nationalBillActions.ts9d ago); a bill with countryId !== "US" is rejected.

• Who can invoke: Only a sitting US Senator (officeType "senate"). Once per character per bill.
• Cost: 25 action points + 5 National Political Influence (NPI).
• Effect: Extends the Senate's voting deadline by 12 hours, adjusted by the invoking senator's Statecraft stat (via statMultiplier, roughly a +/-20% band, so a stronger senator delays it more), and sets a cloture threshold of 3/5 of votes cast to pass the bill (instead of a simple majority).
• Not usable on a bill in status active_both (both chambers voting concurrently), since there is no single chamber clock to delay in that state.
• Can be disabled: A Senate rule change (a statePolicies doc with legislationTypeId: "senate_filibuster_rules" and effectDirection: -1) abolishes the filibuster; simple majority applies again.

Veto Override#

Implemented. A vetoed bill can enter status veto_override with its own separate voting deadline (overrideVotingEndsAt / overrideVotingEndsOnTurn).

• Who can vote: Any member of either chamber, via action veto_override_vote.
• Weighting: Votes are weighted by seatsHeld.
• Tally: Tracked in vetoOverrideVotesFor / vetoOverrideVotesAgainst.

Detail Page (/congress/bills/[id])#

Each bill has a dedicated page showing:

• Timeline stepper, proposed → origin vote → second chamber → president → enacted
• Live countdown timer while voting is open
• Vote bars for both chambers (For / Against / Abstain percentages)
• Vote buttons for eligible members; re-voting moves the previous vote
• Presidential action panel (Sign / Veto), visible to the President only
• Co-sponsors list and full bill text
• Sidebar quick-facts (status, origin chamber, sponsor, key dates)
• Placeholder card for future Amendments
• Senate Filibuster / Cloture and Veto Override are implemented (see below), not placeholders

NPP Auto-Voting#

See NPP System for full documentation. Federal and local NPP legislators now use the same deterministic cross-pressure model:

• Forces: ideology + whip + district/home-region + donors
• Federal scope: House / Senate / Commons / upper-chamber federal votes read the baseline weighting
• Local scope: stateSenate / regionalCouncil bills use the same model with heavier district pressure and lighter donor pressure
• Whips: hard whips still force an immediate hidden-roll vote when issued; soft whips only add advisory pressure into later autonomous voting
• Multi-seat weighting: NPP blocs contribute their full seatsHeld weight to vote tallies
• Catch-up: Runs every turn so NPPs that gained seats after a bill opened still vote before the bill closes

Admin Tools#

Accessible via Admin → Legislation tab:

The turn processor runs processBillLifecycle() every turn; all status transitions happen automatically without admin intervention in normal play.

Bill Effects#

Policy Bills (signed legislation)#

• Each provision has a legislation type with an optional effectTarget (metric category + metric id + scope). When the bill is signed, applyLegislationEffect() applies a small delta (see getLegislationEffectDelta in shared/constants/formulas.ts10d ago) to that metric for all states (national) or per-state.
• Bills with multiple provisions apply each provision’s effect in sequence.
• Legislation types are seeded via scripts/seeds/legislationTypes.ts10d ago (npm run seed:legislation). Base policy (national and state) is seeded via scripts/seeds/basePolicies.ts10d ago and scripts/seed-policies.ts (npm run seed:policies or npm run seed:policies:reset).

Archetype Approval Impacts#

When a bill is enacted (signed into law or veto overridden), legislators who voted FOR the bill receive archetype approval changes based on the policy shift:

Example: Federal Education Funding moves from index 1 (left) to index 4 (center-right), a +3 shift.

• Evangelicals (affinity +35): 3 × 35 × 0.15 = 15.75 → clamped to +10
• Public sector (affinity -40): 3 × -40 × 0.15 = -18 → clamped to -10
• Libertarians (affinity +30): 3 × 30 × 0.15 = 13.5 → clamped to +10

Implementation: DOMAIN_AFFINITIES and calculateShiftImpacts() in src/lib/archetypeAffinities.ts2d ago.

Data and APIs#

• Legislation types: GET /api/game/legislation-types (optional ?category=...). Types include policyOptions with economic and social scores for the proposal UI.
• Current policies: GET /api/game/current-policies?stateId=federal returns { legislationTypeId: policyOptionIndex } map for shift-based UI previews.
• Propose: POST /api/congress/bills with title, summary, chamber, category, and provisions: [{ legislationTypeId, effectDirection?, economic?, social? }]. Backend validates category and domain; deducts national influence for non-admins when provisions.length > 1.
• Policy (base law): GET /api/policy?scope=national or GET /api/policy?scope=state&stateId=... returns per, legislation-type records with economic, social, and policyOptionName (the option that best matches the stored position). Used by the national Policy page and the state page State Laws & Policy tab.
• Committee assignments: See Legislation System Completion Audit. Committees tab on Congress page; admins assign via Admin → Legislation.

Base policy and state laws#

• Collection: statePolicies stores the current base policy per legislation type for the nation (one record per national-only or shared type) and for each state (only for non, national-only types; see nationalOnly on legislation types).
• Position model: Each record has economic and social integer scores (-3 to +3; 0 = center). The API matches the stored (economic, social) to the legislation type’s policyOptions and returns policyOptionName (exact or nearest by Manhattan distance).
• Seed: scripts/seeds/basePolicies.ts10d ago defines national defaults (per-type, e.g. tax +1, healthcare -1) and state defaults from state.politicalLean (bluer → more negative, redder → more positive; clamped to -3..+3). Run npm run seed:policies to upsert, or npm run seed:policies:reset to clear and reseed.
• National Policy page: /policy (USA nav) lists all national policies grouped by domain; each row shows current base policy option name and Economic/Social positions.
• State Laws & Policy tab: On each state page, a single State Laws & Policy tab shows state-level base policy for that state: policy area name, current base option name, and Economic/Social positions. If the list is empty, run npm run seed:policies (and ensure seed:legislation has been run so legislation types exist).

Future Expansions#

Committee System#

• Bills go through committees first
• Committee approval required before floor vote
• Status: Planned for later

Leadership Control#

• Speaker/Majority Leader controls agenda
• Decides which bills get voted on
• Status: Speaker of the House, House Majority/Minority Leader, Senate President Pro Tempore, and Senate Majority/Minority Leader are all implemented (24-hour plurality elections). Motion to Vacate the Speaker is also implemented. Leadership control over agenda/committee assignments is still planned. See Congress Leadership.

Corporation System#

• Corporations affected by policy bills
• Economic simulation layer
• Status: Planned for later

Legislative Strategy#

Coalition Building#

• Players must build support for bills
• Need majority in both chambers + presidential signature
• Bipartisan support may be needed for controversial bills
• Vote whipping (to be added)

Bill Priorities#

• Limited actions mean strategic choices
• Writing bills vs. voting on others
• Supporting party agenda vs. personal priorities
• Voting record affects your policy positions