What Should Sortition Actually Be Used For? A Different Legislative Architecture

Posted on August 19, 2026 by Henry Tuttle

I’ll start by introducing myself. My name is Henry Tuttle. My background is outside political theory. I spent about thirty years in the casino business, where designing systems around intelligent people looking for exploitable rules is normal. I developed most of what follows from first principles with very little initial exposure to the sortition literature.

I’ve been developing a legislative architecture around a fairly simple question: “what is each political mechanism actually good at, and where should it get out of the way?”. My answer is FILA: Functional Integrity Legislative Architecture.

FILA uses sortition for informed judgment, but not for everything. Proposal generation is open. Filtering is designed to handle large numbers of proposals without unnecessarily eliminating potentially valuable ones. Expertise and advocacy are provided by people selected for those functions. Binding decisions are made by temporary, single-task citizen juries that hear the competing cases, vote, and dissolve.

The basic idea is to separate functions rather than asking one institution to do everything, and to avoid creating persistent decision-makers or unnecessary gatekeepers where they provide little value.

The abstract to my paper follows. Links to the full paper and to a shorter specification are below. I’d be very interested in criticism, particularly structural problems or failure modes I’ve missed.

For centuries, debates over legislative reform have largely focused on choosing the right people or the right method of choosing them. This paper argues that these are secondary questions. The more fundamental question is whether that function is best served by a permanent body.

A legislature can lose its function without looking broken. Committees convene, votes are recorded, and procedures run as written. What is lost is functional integrity—the capacity to do what the institution exists for. A permanent body can be studied, profiled, courted, and worn down from outside, while incentives and institutional self-preservation deform it from within. Call that functional deformation: sustained divergence between what an institution exists to do and what it actually does, whether driven from outside or generated from within. Capture is one member of the family, not the family. Functional integrity is the property it consumes. No law need be broken. Permanence does not guarantee capture, exploitation, or drift, but it guarantees the conditions in which they accumulate.

If this diagnosis is correct, many familiar debates over elections, campaign finance, term limits, and representation are addressing symptoms rather than causes.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 3 Comments »

The world’s first self-run citizens’ assembly?

Posted on August 15, 2026 by Ethan McCutchen

Hélène Landemore announced on LinkedIn that the Connecticut Citizens’ Assembly had become “the first self-governed citizens’ assembly in the world.”

This morning 89 of the citizens voted for self-governance (9 against). Our brilliant lead facilitator Kenya Rutland (KJR consulting) then proceeded to select 7 representatives by lottery. The 7 accepted. They will shape the agenda for the next session until they are replaced by a new batch of 7.

The continued existence of a lead facilitator implies that not all aspects of the assembly’s governance are administered by participants. But, evidently, agenda-setting and other high-level governance decisions are in citizens’ hands in ways that Landemore, who can boast considerable scholarship on the subject, deems unprecedented.

Presumably more detail about the pioneering governance model will emerge after the assembly’s conclusion.

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Freeing sortition from the “deliberation” trap

Posted on August 13, 2026 by Yoram Gat

It is to its great detriment that sortition has become somehow tied to the ideology of “deliberation”. At best, “deliberation” is a distraction from the democratic thrust of sortition. It is often worse, an elitist idea that is in conflict with that democratic thrust. The talk of “deliberation” implies that groups of people are unable to spontaneously self-organize and coordinate in order to reach mutually beneficial arrangements. That unless experts set things up quite right – verify diversity of the forum, make sure the “shy” don’t get left out, facilitate the discussion, set up the correct incentives – then “deliberation” won’t happen and as a result “unwise” decisions will be made. “Deliberative democracy” is therefore an anti-democratic idea that all those who wish to see sortition used to democratize society, rather than to bolster the existing oligarchical arrangements or to modify the existing oligarchical arrangements into different oligarchical arrangements, should distance themselves from, both in their own minds and publicly.

I was again reminded of the harmful effects of the “deliberation” ideology by reading a post by Ethan McCutchen. There is a lot to agree with in the post, like the outright rejection of elections:

[W]e can’t and shouldn’t trust the old process, but not because we’re a nation of villainous idiots. The problem is not the voters but voting itself. Elections will not evolve from a source of feckless discord into one of fruitful discourse. Re-glorifying voting won’t somehow usher in a new era of healthy deliberation. Elections will not bring us back together. Elections are not the antidote; they are the poison.

To be clear democracy is not the poison, elections are.

Unfortunately, the author does his arguments the great disservice of forcing them into the “deliberative democracy” template: Continue reading →

Filed under: Deliberation, Elections, Sortition | 50 Comments »

Bagenstos on sortition in the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission

Posted on August 11, 2026 by Yoram Gat

Election Law Blog writes:

Bagenstos, “Lottocracy as a Protector of Democracy? Sortition, Expertise, and the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission”

Forthcoming article in the Wisconsin Law Review by Sam Bagenstos (Michigan):

A growing body of democratic theory contends that sortition—the selection of decisionmakers by lot rather than election—can strengthen democratic governance, particularly by defending the popular will against subversion by entrenched political insiders. Yet the sortition literature has struggled to answer a persistent objection—that randomly selected citizens lack the expertise to resolve the factually and legally complex questions that modern governance demands, and will therefore either flail or be captured by the very experts on whom they must rely. Advocates too often wave this concern away with slogans (“experts should be on tap, not on top”) or bury it under implausibly elaborate institutional designs.

This essay uses the first redistricting cycle of the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) as a case study to examine these questions. Created by a 2018 citizen-initiated constitutional amendment, the MICRC is the most strongly sortition-based redistricting body in the United States. Michigan voters gave it final authority to adopt districting plans—rejecting arguments that an unelected, unaccountable body of “neophytes” could neither be democratic nor competent—precisely to break partisan insiders’ lock on the line-drawing process. Under the amendment, commissioners are selected by a complex process involving three rounds of random draws. The amendment also imposes strict rules disqualifying political insiders from service on the Commission, guaranteeing that the Commission will have funding and independent counsel, and requiring an extraordinary degree of public participation in the map-drawing process. It serves each of the three functions that advocates of sortition have suggested a randomly selected citizen assembly might serve: final decisionmaker, democratic check on elite capture, and generator of public information.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Elections, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Hélène Landemore Making the Rounds

Posted on July 31, 2026 by peterstone

Hélène Landemore, whose work is well-known to many regulars on this blog, has been very active online promoting her new book, Politics without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule (2026). Here are a few of her more noteworthy recent appearances.

First, on February 9 she appeared on Future Hindsight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQXZ5Yz0bfc

The next day, she appeared on Re:Thinking with Adam Grant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4I9dTUjV10

On February 13, she appeared on Keen On America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPt6KJ-9FZ8

And on May 20, she appeared on the Colin McEnroe Show, a Connecticut-based podcast (where the conversation, unsurprisingly, focused upon the new Connecticut Citizen’s Assembly with which Landemore is deeply involved): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k35fdnnSdkg

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Deliberation, Effects of electoralism, Elections, Juries, Sortition, Theory | 1 Comment »

Representation in Democratic Athens: Manin’s Principles Revisited

Posted on July 30, 2026 by keithsutherland

This article by Professor Josine Blok (Utrecht University) is forthcoming in a theme-issue of the journal Representation, edited by Hugo Bonin and Henk te Velde, on Bernard Manin’s Principles of Representative Government. The article is available (open access) at https://doi.org/10.1080/00344893.2026.2688260

Professor Blok argues that Manin’s distinction between direct and representative government is in need of further refinement, based on Daniela Cammack’s analysis of the Athenian system using Frank Ankersmit’s distinction between synechdochical and metaphorical representation:

A governing body or office is representative either because its members are just a part of the whole citizenry, similar to and interchangeable with the other citizens (synecdoche) or they can stand for the whole citizeny by virtue of being different from them (metaphor) (p.5)

Professor Cammack identifies both forms of representation in the Athenian governmental system:

She finds synecdochical representation in the Assembly, which is practice always held about one-quarter of all male citizens, and the Council of 500 and the jury courts, en masse drawn by lot from all male citizens. These bodies were parts of the whole and interchangeable with the whole, for any male Athenian of the right age could participate in these bodies on the rules set by law and would do so sooner or later. (ibid.)

Metaphorical representation was embodied in the (elected) executive and military offices, the rhetores and (to a lesser extent) the minor magistracies (selected by lot). The distinction between the two categories of representation was not so much the selection method as the size of the body, along with the accounatability criteria. Synecdochical representatives were not accountable (by euthynai or graphe paranomon) simply because they were ‘parts of us’, whereas Athenians saw office holders as ‘them’.

Some of the Athenian bodies (including the Council) involved a mix of the two forms of representation, and the emphasis changed over time, however two bodies in Athens were and remained fully synecdochical: the Assembly and the jury courts:

According to Cammack, the fact that the switch to metaphorical representation did not happen here was due to the large numbers of both bodies. The power of the demos was, by definition, that of a mass in the Athenian demokratia instituted in the constitution. (p. 8).

If this is the case, then the attempt by deliberative democrats and the designers of small citizens’ assemblies to claim Athenian provenance is dubious.

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Books, Elections, History, Sortition, Theory | 23 Comments »

The New York Sun casts sortition as a leftist menace

Posted on July 21, 2026 by Ethan McCutchen

Anyone concerned about affiliating sortition closely with a US political pole should take note of last week’s New York Sun editorial [paywalled] entitled “The Newest Word From the Left — Sortition.”

Citing articles promoting sortition by the Nation’s Bhaskar Sunkara and In these Times’ editorial team, the Sun‘s editorial directly associates sortition with “the escalating aspirations of the far left.” It further implies the assemblies would be “guided” to support a progressive agenda.

Lest anyone fear that solons chosen by lottery would deviate from progressive orthodoxy, In These Times asserts that their deliberations would be guided.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | 33 Comments »

Paul Krugman’s positive experience at jury selection

Posted on July 13, 2026 by Yoram Gat

Paul Krugman had a discussion with fellow New Jerseyans at jury selection and found them to be good people.

And it was just a far more hopeful scene — at least I found it much more hopeful — about the state of the country. It turns out that ordinary Americans — this is, again ordinary Americans from Mercer County, New Jersey, but still — ordinary Americans are a lot nicer, more thoughtful, more willing to hold interesting discussions than you might think.

And it does seem to me, given all the political news, there’s a lot of people out there, I would say primarily on the right, but not only on the right, who fundamentally hold ordinary Americans in contempt, who believe that you have to go with cheap slogans and that you can appeal to the baser instincts of everybody’s nature and that’s the way that you win.

Now, can he translate the following observation into a political agenda:

You know, this country is actually okay if we can just get past some of the people who are trying to take us down a dark path. We’re not bad people — we’re mostly good people.

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Juries, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Troesoyer: The Fundamental Problem Isn’t Capitalism, It’s Aristocracy

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Yoram Gat

Ian Troesoyer is a nurse practitioner, epidemiologist and sortition activist living in Idaho, USA. Treosoyer has recently published a very good article on Substack with the title above. The article begins as follows:

To my comrades engaged in the struggle for a more just world, let me attempt to convince you that underneath the existential problems of capitalism is a deeper problem. A problem that has ironically been shared by all the electoral “democracies” of the West as well as all the major communist and socialist governments that have existed.

The fundamental problem isn’t capitalism, it’s aristocracy: the idea that distinguished individuals – those with supposedly greater knowledge, moral standing, legitimacy, etc. – should make the decisions on behalf of the rest of us.

Aristocracy is the underlying philosophy for both elections and vanguard parties.

Now, you might be saying, “elections aren’t intended to just let distinguished people make the decisions, we pick politicians based on their ability to represent the will of the people!”

Or you might be saying, “Lenin, Mao, Castro, etc. weren’t just doing whatever they wanted, they were acting on behalf of the people!”

Here’s the thing: pretty much all aristocracies say they’re “doing the will of the people.” Kings and dictators say they’re doing the will of the people.

Don’t watch the mouth, watch the hands.

Troesoyer’s construction of his argument is very well done (including such nice details as the well-placed scare quotes in the expression ‘the electoral “democracies”’), easily outdoing the large majority of the authors writing on this subject. (As a sample of what passes for discussion of sortition see this recent Jacobin magazine piece.)

Troesoyer starts with the essential attribute of elections – the “principle of distinction”:

The only decision elections permit common people to make is which distinguished people – in other words, aristocrats – will make decisions for them. Elections appear to be based on political equality because we all get a formally equal say about which elite campaign finalist will make decisions on our behalf, but – critically – we don’t get an equal opportunity to actually make political decisions ourselves. All other things being equal, people with greater privilege have a greater chance of winning elections, so the range of policies available for us to pick from is limited to the preferences of the most privileged members of society.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, History, Sortition | 10 Comments »

Jacobin rehashes the tired old clichés of the sortition debate

Posted on July 4, 2026 by Yoram Gat

The left-leaning Jacobin magazine has offered its readers the idea of sortition back in 2018 and then last December had a couple of pieces advocating for sortition – one being an interview with Alexander Guerrero and one being an article by Terry Bouricius. Jacobin now has a debate of sorts [paywalled, but full text here] in which Anand Gopal takes the ostensibly pro-sortition position and Ben Burgis plays the skeptic.

The text methodically checks off the squares on the sortition debate bingo card: “democracy is in retreat”, “big money”, “popular sovereignty”, “democracy is not just [a system that] happens to work out best but [where] the public actually has a right to manage its own affairs”, not wanting to pick your lawyer or book agent[!] at random, “technocratic objections to democracy”, “a multicameral approach, with both lotteries and elections”, “demographic similarities”, “atomized individuals”, “we want a chamber that has a place for parties”, “accountability”, “for a country of 350 million, it doesn’t really make sense to have 350 people sitting in council”, “smaller scales”, “people systematically shirk jury duty”, “[w]ith the Zohran election, there was a tremendous sense that “we did this””, “instant recall”, etc., etc.

As usual, this format of discussion provides no rational way out of the on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other-hand conundrum. Jacobin‘s readers are left to their own prejudices to decide which hand they prefer – the one with some sortition (but not without elected officials to balance things out), or the one where sortition is deemed altogether undesirable due to this or that principle (even if it may result in better outcomes).

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | 13 Comments »

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