Yatian Senate
How the Yatian Senate actually manages to conduct business and manage the day-to-day affairs of the Citystate belies common sense. To most observers, Senators spend the bulk of their time in Yaty's many cafes, sipping wine, eating grapes, and conversing with the merchants and craftsmen that voted them into their position. The listen to stories of drought from the southern farms, marauding giants from region around Mora, and the woes of price fluctuations in markets across the Inner Seas. With saged head nods and sympathetic pats on the shoulder, the Senators compile all of their constituents woes in the cramped handwriting of small leather bound journals or in mere in the recesses of their minds.
It is only on Ninthday, when the rest of the city is winding up the drudgery of another denary, that the 25 Senators, robed in white with stoles of brilliant color, trudge their sandaled feet up the great hill to the Forum to discuss matters with their comrades. These discussions, where eloquence and rhetoric seem to mean far more than the substance of the words themselves, last all day. On rare occasion a vote will be held but it is just as common for the Senators to elect further to table a vote, holding further, exhaustive discourse on the matter. It seems that only by the grace of Kayla does the Citystate continue to function. Imagine if Senators did not need to wait three years before serving again? They would spend the whole of their five-year terms in discussion.
In truth, the real work of the Senate happens in committee. These three person teams meet regularly throughout the denary. It is here that budgets are assembled, edicts drafted, and the hundreds of questions from the various citizens that are paid by the Citystate to perform essential services are answered. Sessions are closed to the public, though key experts are often brought to provide advice. There are at least two dozen committees, with no trio matching from committee to committee and their make up shifting every year with the Senate's election cycle. This constant reorganization of government keeps any one person or group of people from acquiring undue influence. It also means that progress is achingly slow, with little real work done in the moons lead up to and after the election.
The elections themselves are conduction a truly democratic fashion which each citizen give their vote to one of the Electorate. During the denary of the election, most flock to the city to cast their votes. Taverns and cafes swell and as all of Yaty takes on the atmosphere of a party, the citizens swelling with pride at their ideologically pure government in action. For those that cannot make the journey, the electorate, particularly priests of Chetria and Kayla, travel the nearby farmlands to collect their votes, returning to the forum to join their brethren in the final tallies and the grand announcement, usually on Kingsday, the denary after voting closes.
Founding Date
306 AC
Type
Governmental, Senate/Parliament
Parent Organization
Location
Notable Members