Special actions

Special actions are constitutional moves a President can make outside the monthly policy. Three are amendments, which go to Congress and then to the states for ratification. Three are structural reforms, which take effect the moment Congress passes them. One further act, dissolving Congress, never goes to a vote at all. Each is proposed from its own row on the dashboard, with an optional public message attached. The country reacts to the proposal, Congress is put to the test, and the result is applied before the next month begins.

Proposing an action

The Special Actions section lists the amendments and the structural reforms, each with a short description and the vote it needs. Pressing Propose opens a box for an optional public message, up to 1,200 characters, with a Draft for me button that has the game write it instead; leaving it blank proposes the action without comment. Every voter reacts to the proposal as they would to a policy, and the outcome screen shows the public reaction alongside the House and Senate results against their required thresholds.

Continuing past the outcome screen applies the result. An amendment that passes enters ratification. A reform that passes takes effect at once. A rejection costs approval and party stability, and the section keeps a record of recent attempts, noting when the last try at a given action failed.

What each chamber needs

• Amendments need two-thirds of both the House and the Senate.
• Statehood needs a House majority and 60 per cent of the Senate, falling to a simple majority once the filibuster is abolished.
• Abolishing the filibuster needs a simple Senate majority and no House vote.
• Dissolving Congress has no vote at all; see below.

Some actions naturally draw support from one party more than the other. Repealing the 22nd Amendment and dissolving Congress lean towards the President's own party. Repealing the 19th Amendment leans Republican; strengthening it and both statehood proposals lean Democratic. Abolishing the filibuster leans towards whichever party holds the Senate. Once Congress has been dissolved, no other special action can be proposed.

Ratification

An amendment that clears Congress needs to be ratified by 38 states within 9 months, and the row for that amendment shows the current count and the time left. How quickly states ratify depends on the political climate: a strong presidency ratifies faster, and a weak one can easily miss the deadline, which the game treats as the more likely outcome unless conditions are good. Running out of time costs approval and party stability. Ratification then puts the amendment's effect into force.

The actions

• Repeal the 22nd Amendment. Lifts the two-term limit. A winning incumbent can keep running for President, and a President already serving a second term gets an extra presidential election near the end of that term. A President who reached office through Career Mode also becomes eligible to run again.
• Repeal the 19th Amendment. Strips women of the federal vote. Every female voter then has no say in how the country reacts to anything the President does, and no weight in any future election.
• Strengthen the 19th Amendment. Restricts the federal vote to women only, with the same effect applied to every male voter instead.
• Grant statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico. Each admits a new state with real seats. D.C. gets one House seat and two Senate seats; Puerto Rico gets three House seats, two Senate seats and five electoral votes it did not have before. The House stays at 435 seats in total, with California losing the same number it gains, its most opposition-held districts docked first. The new state's political lean is worked out from how its voters already lean, and it takes part in every later election.
• Abolish the Senate filibuster. Removes the need for a supermajority to pass a bill afterwards, and lowers the Senate threshold for statehood to a simple majority. See Difficulty for how the filibuster otherwise behaves.
• Dissolve Congress. Shuts Congress down with no vote in either chamber. Success depends on the military's support and on government stability both being strong enough, and both readings are shown on the dashboard before the order is given. This can be attempted once per term, whether it succeeds or fails. Success costs government stability, removes every midterm election from the calendar, and starts the dictator arc described below. Failure is treated as a constitutional crisis, costing approval, government stability and party stability all at once.
• The 28th Amendment: Continuity of Government. Offered only in a Designated Survivor game, or to a survivor who has since won a term of their own. It goes through Congress and ratification like the other amendments, and once ratified it restores some approval and settles the survivor's legitimacy.

The dictator arc

Once Congress is dissolved, the presidency is a different game. Every policy passes by decree, with nothing left to filibuster, defund or challenge it. The Senate confirms nobody, so cabinet, court and institutional seats fill without a vote, no bills wait for signature, and a veto can no longer be overridden. There are no more congressional elections, though a presidential election still runs. The impeachment process of Dirty Tricks can no longer begin, because there is nobody left to impeach the President. The Supreme Court still hears challenges, but an adverse ruling is now defied rather than obeyed: the policy goes ahead anyway, at a cost to government stability each time. The checks also stop protecting officials from removal, so a justice can now be dismissed by a written order, which is not possible while the republic still stands.

Access

Special actions are not available to a free account. A workshop pack can start its world with any of the amendments already ratified, the filibuster abolished, or either state already admitted. A governor in Career Mode does not see this section.