By intermediate, the document explained it was meant for colony populations between one million and one hundred million inhabitants. Arcadia was therefore currently within its scope.
Matt Chen-Jasic also got a copy of the document in his mail, together with a note that it had been sent to all the delegates.
The various committees of the constitutional convention dove into the document, each concentrating on its own assigned part of the problem.
Adriana Zielinski read the entire document through once, quickly, then read it again slowly, tracking its internal cross-references. She got together with her vice-chair, the runner-up for the chairmanship elections, Indira Bakshi.
“Where did the document come from, do you know?” Bakshi asked.
“I think it’s pretty clear it’s from the Chen,” Zielinski said. “He is quite the student of history, and is always one of the highest-logging users of the library, which is in the computers of the school building.”
“Well, whoever sent it, it is rather a remarkable document. The colony headquarters considered all these issues we face now over half a century ago.”
“And documented them, to our great benefit. There were a lot of far-seeing people involved in the colony effort.”
“They got that from their leader,” Bakshi said. “Janice Quant was a remarkable person.”
“Yes, she was. But they considered all these issues, and then settled on the city council model for the initial colony governments.”
“I think it’s pretty clear why they did that. The initial efforts were all part of building a city – laying it out, putting in place the basic infrastructure like housing, water, sewer, electricity, streets, initiating bus service. That’s all civic stuff.”
Zielinski nodded.
“But they also saw the need to transition at some point,” she said. “I like the transition concept the document discusses. Cutting between the civic functions and the – what would you call them? – the national functions. We partition what we have, leaving in place all the things we need. We need just need to make sure each is on the correct side of the split.”
“Yes. We should probably start another committee to make recommendations on that division.”
“That makes sense to me. One point of interest is that your functions and my functions probably split internally, with the low, middle, and high schools being administered under the city, and the university being under the national government. And with the hospital being under the city, and medical research under the national government.”
“I’m not so sure on that,” Bakshi said. “You then put a burden on the outlying areas to staff their own hospitals and schools. If we continue to use the colony’s shuttles as ambulances from the farther cities, as we do now, one central hospital trauma center still makes sense for us. And with on-line curricula and in-person help on-line as well, centrally administering education still works.”
“For a while at least. OK, I agree with that. We’ll transition in the medium-term. We ought to figure a way to do that as well.”
Bakshi nodded.
“What about the discussions in the document about the legislature?” she asked.
“I was strongly leaning to a ‘one representative from a district’ approach, as opposed to an at-large system. But there’s some benefit to the ‘three representatives at-large from a district’ approach.”
“Yes, I was struck by that as well. In that way, the minority within a district gets representation. It makes it harder to gerrymander the lower house.”
“And the upper house being one representative from each district, with the same districts?” Zielinski asked.
“That makes it harder to gerrymander, too. You would be trying to optimize your election results in two different houses with the same districts. The upper house would also be more weighted toward the majority, while the lower house would be more of a free-for-all. I kind of like it.”
Zielinski nodded.
“Well, whoever sent us this document sure gave us some things to think about.”
MingWei joined Matt Chen-Jasic for tea on Friday afternoon, the fifth day of the deliberations of the delegates.
Taking tea together was their normal Friday ritual. They sat on pillows in the large teak-beamed doorway of Matt’s tea room, looking out at the gardens. JuPing – the daughter of Matt’s second wife YanXia’s youngest son – served them tea and withdrew.
“Did you read the document I sent you?” Matt asked.
“Yes, Chen Zufu. It is a very interesting document. The colony headquarters thought of all these things before we even left Earth.”
“Yes. The other thing that is interesting about the document is where did it come from. It is in the colony headquarters archives in the library – I checked – but who found it and sent it around now?”
“You did not send it to the delegates?” MingWei asked. “I know they received it.”
“They received it, I received it. I sent it on to you, but it did not originate with me. Much like the accounting records and account access for Chairman Kendall, it just appeared. On Wednesday morning, there it was. No explanation. No ‘From:’ address.”
“It seems we have a hidden benefactor.”
“Apparently so. We will have to make sure we are not being steered to someone else’s purposes.”
MingWei nodded.
“Still, the document is on point and helpful,” he said. “And we know it is authentic.”
“Yes. How are the delegates handling it?”
“The committees are digging into it. It looks like much of the document’s prescriptions for an ongoing government will be followed.”
“Good,” Matt said. “I was impressed with the arguments in the document as to why they recommended the path they did. A lot of historical background there.”
MingWei nodded.
“It was well-researched. No doubt about that,” he said.
They sipped their tea and sat quietly for several minutes. They watched a bee making its rounds from flower to flower. It was MingWei who broke the silence.
“How will all the legal things work out, Chen Zufu?
