Equality by lot

Posted as a comment by Ronald Mercer (coach1640280)

Narrative description:

Time: Not too distant future.
Setting: America after the second democratic revolution.
America has undergone a second democratic revolution where the constitution was significantly altered to adjust to new global economic, climate, and security (terrorism) conditions.
A constitutional convention was held. A new congress was formed, among other things, keeping the basic congressional house structure and reforming the senate by making it a chamber of 300 sortitioned senators serving 5 year terms.
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In his 1970 book, After the Revolution?, Robert A. Dahl suggests appointing by lot advisory committees for the president of the U.S., for congresspeople, for state governors and for large city mayors^[1]:

Let us imagine that the membership of each advisory council were to consist of several hundred constituents picked by the same procedures used to ensure randomness in modern sample surveys; that the citizen selected would be required to serve […]; that suitable provisions would insure against hardships arising from the obligation to serve – for example, the citizen selected would not only have all relevant expenses taken care of but if he (or she) were poor or unemployed he (or she) might receive a stipend, while an employed person would continue to receive his (or her) regular pay; that one would serve for a year and be ineligible for a second term; that a council might meet at intervals for a total of several weeks in the course of a year; that it would have its own presiding officer (and a professional parliamentarian); that it would invite the elected official to meet with it, to answer questions, hear the debate and discussion…

A timid thinker would have focused on making the argument supporting such an idea against “conventional critics” who would argue that “the proposal goes too far”. Dahl, however, dismisses those critics with one paragraph, and spends the rest of the discussion (pp. 150-153) arguing against “a less conventional critic” who argues that the proposal “does not go far enough” because it does not suggest using the lot to replace elections for selecting government officials.

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Where’s the Democracy?

The annual British Academy lecture was delivered this week by M.H. Hansen, a leading authority on Athenian democracy and the ancient Greek polis. Professor Hansen’s thesis was that Montesquieu’s doctrine of the separation of powers – the model used by the founders of the American constitution – is well past its sell-by date. This is because a) the leaders of modern ‘democracies’ have assumed powers that are normally associated with seventeenth-century absolute monarchs and b) because the prerogative of modern legislatures is regularly usurped by the judiciary.

Positive action or a portrait in miniature?

Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed on Sunday that it is time for “positive action” to end the predominance of “white, middle-class lawyers” in parliament. Speaking ahead of an online conference, Human Rights in the Post-Election UK, he called on the three main party leaders to ensure that the next generation of MPs more accurately reflects the social makeup of the population.

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