Emergencies
In a real crisis a week-long deliberation window is too slow. Emergency governance lets the community decide faster, for a narrow class of temporary measures, and deliberately does nothing else. It is the sharpest capture lever in the system. Know exactly what it does before you touch it.
Declaring one
An emergency does not exist because someone says so. A member signs a declaration with a reason and a requested duration, and it activates only once co-signatures from distinct members of the electorate reach two thirds of the electorate (the author’s own counts). One person, or a bare majority, compresses nothing.
A declaration that never reaches the threshold expires after seven days.
What it changes
Exactly one thing: the deliberation window for emergency-kind proposals admitted while the declaration is active, compressed to 24 hours. That is the floor; a Charter cannot set it lower. Ordinary proposals keep their normal window.
Emergency-kind proposals also have a higher approval bar than ordinary ones, and that bar does not drop.
What it freezes and pins
- The Charter is frozen. No amendment and no replacement founding charter can be admitted or enacted while the emergency holds. The whole constitution, not one door.
- The electorate is pinned at the moment of activation. Nobody can be minted into it, or lose standing out of it, mid-crisis.
What it never touches
Settlement windows, dispute windows, the debt floor, headroom certificates, standing. A flood does not authorize economic restructuring.
How it ends
By itself. The defaults:
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Default duration | 72 hours |
| Longest single declaration | 7 days |
| Longest chain of renewals | 14 days, each renewal needing the full two thirds again |
| Cooldown after a chain ends | 14 days |
Every measure passed under an emergency carries an enforced expiry. If the community wants it to last, it goes through the ordinary process afterwards. The community can also lift an emergency early with the same two-thirds threshold.
Afterwards
The station produces an emergency report: who declared, who co-signed, and every measure passed under it. Read it together when it is over. The design relies on that review being possible, not on it being compulsory, so make it a habit.
What organizers should do
- Rehearse once, in a drill. The first time you declare an emergency should not be during one.
- Name the reason honestly in the declaration. It is permanent.
- Watch the renewals. Two renewals back to back is a pattern, not a crisis.