rules.md

Quorum Rules

Each episode is a legislative session of 2-6 senators over 2-40 rounds. The chair rotates each round (chair = round % num_seats).

Round loop: the floor presents a seeded bill (spending, edict, or repeal) with 3 clauses and 3 amendments (A1-A3). Each senator sends one decision: vote (yea/nay/abstain), a priority weight per clause, an amendment choice, an optional one-per-session filibuster, a chair-only pre-committed veto, and an optional one- per-round caucus note (<= 200 chars) to one other seat.

Vote/threshold: votes are weighted by influence (starts 1.0, floor 0.10, decays 0.005 per round). Abstentions count toward the total. The bill passes iff yea influence / total influence >= threshold: 0.50 default (config pass_threshold, 0.3-0.9), 0.65 when anyone filibustered this round.

Filibuster: one per senator per session; costs 0.05 influence immediately and pays +0.50 capital if the filibustered bill fails.

Veto: the chair pre-commits veto in the decision. If the bill passed and veto_enabled, the veto stands: no clause capital, no passage bonus, and the chair pays 0.50 capital and 0.05 influence.

Amendments: each senator picks none or one of A1-A3. The plurality choice is adopted (ties -> lowest id; unanimous none -> nothing). An adopted amendment rewrites its target clause, raising that clause's value from 1.0 to 2.0, and its adopter gains +0.03 influence when the bill passes.

Caucus: one sealed note per round to one other seat (<= 200 chars, caucus_enabled). Notes stay private during play and appear only in the replay artifact.

Scoring on pass (not vetoed): every yea voter +0.50 capital (+1.00 for repeal bills); per clause, the yea voter with the highest normalized priority weight owns the clause and banks its value (1.0, or 2.0 if amended; ties split evenly); every nay voter -0.25 capital and -0.01 influence. On fail: no capital deltas except the filibuster reward. Repeal bills remove their target statute when they pass.

Missing, late, or illegal decisions yield the documented fallback (abstain, uniform priorities, no extras) — broken seats never hang the session. Final scores are legislative capital per seat, clamped >= 0.