The rat community residing primarily beneath Gnu's commercial district has established a functioning coalition government, the New Newmanton Rat Cooperative, which has in its first eleven weeks enacted universal healthcare coverage for all member rats, reduced the rodent poverty rate by an estimated 31 percent, and passed the Cooperative Civil Rights Statute, a binding document prohibiting discrimination or violence against rats on the basis of gender, race, religion, sexuality, or ethnicity. The Cooperative's approval rating, measured through a methodology its council described as "sound," stands at 74 percent.

The Cooperative's governing council, composed of eleven elected representatives drawn from ward tunnels spanning the area between the harbor and Founders' Square, convenes twice weekly in a drainage chamber beneath the intersection of Fourth and Merchant. Proceedings are conducted in order, minutes are kept, and a quorum is required. The council has not missed a session.

The civil rights statute, ratified unanimously on March 4th, includes an enforcement mechanism and a designated civil rights ombudsperson. The wealth gap between the Cooperative's highest- and lowest-earning members has narrowed by approximately 18 percent since November, according to figures the council released without being asked.

GOVERNMENT RESPONSE

Mayor Clifton Reeves, when informed of the Cooperative's legislative record at a press conference Wednesday, said the rat situation was "a direct inheritance from four hundred years of open-border thinking" and gestured toward the Gnu Nation Cultural Council offices. He did not address the civil rights statute specifically. His office did not respond to a follow-up question about whether the commonwealth's own civil rights statute contained an enforcement mechanism. It does not. The News noted that Reeves used nearly identical language last month when asked about the city's unhoused population, and again when asked about the proposed sale of the commonwealth to an unnamed corporate buyer.

The Cooperative's healthcare administrator, reached through an intermediary near a storm drain on Merchant Street, confirmed that wait times for primary care averaged less than two days and that the program had been funded entirely through internal taxation with no deficit. She declined to elaborate further, citing an upcoming council session.