Proxy Laws

The Proxy Laws, enacted by proxy voters of Absalom's Grand Council in 1997 AR during the city's Age of Excess, required all municipal labor to be performed by professionals from outside of Absalom. The laws are considered to be largely responsible for the decline of Absalom's culture and decimation of its treasury during the third millennium AR and were repealed in 2920 AR.

History

Age of Excess

Absalom's native nobles increasingly refused to involve themselves in the governance of Absalom, considering both the work and the city's populace to be beneath them. They instead began hiring out their responsibilities, including voting, to foreign contractors in 1997 AR.

Soon after, these proxy agents of the Grand Council—led by the Blue Lords of Taldor and the Qadiran and Osirian Cult of the Hawk, with Willis of House Loranne as Primarch—enacted the Proxy Laws to officially require that all municipal labor be performed by outside professionals.

While the stated rationale was to allow Absalom's citizenry to focus on enjoying their wealth and success, the laws allowed these proxies the freedom to engage in unfettered corruption for centuries. The "Mount Absalom" construction boom led to the rapid and repeated construction, demolition, and reconstruction of buildings on top of each other, facilitated by the Blue Lords deregulating zoning codes, and Absalom's profile was literally raised several feet per decade by the constant churn of rebuilding.

Street cleaning, tax collection, repairs to Absalom's walls, dock management, military operations, and manufacturing interests were all privatized by foreign groups, which in turn choked out Absalom's local businesses. Foreign workers who became citizens were themselves pushed out by more foreign workers.

The corruption was such that the Arclords of Nex allied with the Absalomian magical academy of the Arcanamirium in 2850 AR and attempted to conquer the city in what became known as the Conjured Siege. Absalom's ruling cadre responded by hiring assassins and mercenaries, and by summoning fiends; they prevailed, but in such a distasteful manner that citizens could not decide which side was more villainous.

Repeal

In 2920 AR, earthquakes devastated both Taldor and Qadira, and nearly all of the Blue Lords and Cult of the Hawk left Absalom overnight, effectively leaving the few remaining members of Absalom's Low Council in charge. The government repealed the laws the following year, and after auditing the city's finances found that most of Absalom's storied treasury was gone.

Mass emigration followed, and by 2925 AR a lack of farm labor contributed to the Witherwheat Crisis, in which domestic grain production almost completely failed. The forced labor enacted by Primarch Guangevir Estobal became a precursor to the legalization of slavery in Absalom that followed in 2972 AR.