Batres: Morena will select congressional candidates by sortition

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Morena – Movimiento Regeneración Nacional, National Regeneration Movement – is a new left-leaning political party in Mexico. Morena was founded by Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), who was a presidential candidate for the PRD, one of the two major parties in Mexico, in 2006 and 2012 – losing both bids.

In what seems to be the most significant application of sortition of the modern age, Martí Batres, the party president, announced in December that Morena will select some of its candidates for the upcoming congressional elections by sortition:

The National Regeneration Movement (Morena) will select its candidates for proportional representation congressional seats by lottery, party president, Marti Batres, said Friday.

“While the traditional parties use the PR candidacies to secure elected positions for their main leaders, Morena will allot these candidacies among the members,” said Batres, according to a press release.

This, he explained, “ensures that even the humblest party supporter” can become a congressional delegate.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Applications, Elections, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

The January Parliament

Posted on January 21, 2015 by Yoram Gat

The Week:

The January Parliament: marking 750 years of British democracy

On 20 January 1265, knights, burgesses and aldermen met in London for the first real parliament in British history. Of course, the representatives were ‘elected’ in a far less democratic way than they are now, but the meeting is still seen by academics as the birth of British parliaments.

The January Parliament was summoned by French-born noble Simon de Montfort.

Montfort ordered each county of England to send two knights, says the Telegraph. Towns were asked to send two burgesses and two aldermen. The delegates were ‘elected’ locally – in some cases chosen by lot.

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Ahmed Teleb on Citizens’ Initiative Reviews

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Yoram Gat

A new post by Ahmed Teleb:

Citizens’ Initiative Reviews: Democracy via Vicarious Deliberation?

Although there has been much discussion in deliberative democracy circles on both the potential and possible drawbacks of “intensive” citizen deliberation–especially on Equality by Lot–there has been less awareness and discussion of deliberative forums in practice. Below is a video interview (first 16 minutes only) of two panelists from last fall’s Citizens’ Initiative Review pilot in Colorado. Further below, you will find links to two peer-reviewed articles evaluating the 2010 CIR in Oregon. Oregon is, to my knowledge, the unique contemporary example of a permanent incorporation of citizen deliberation into its political system. The link at the end of the post is to Oregon’s CIR Commission and to the Oregon Statutes that govern it.

Filed under: Academia, Applications, Ballot measures, Press | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

Robbins: Democracy: What Would It Be Like?

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Arthur D. Robbins writes in the Sri Lanka Guardian:

What would it be like if we really lived in a democracy? These days just about everybody seems to be enjoying the benefits democratic government, that is if you believe government propaganda and you are one of the credulous many who are eager for a sense of well being at any price. But what is usually called democracy is in fact an oligarchy of elected representatives responsible to the business interests who bankrolled their campaign. If people were actually given the opportunity to choose democracy, they might do so, provided they understood what the word actually means. Our one uncontested example is ancient Athens.

Note the difference between “equal speech,” or “political speech,” the right to debate and legislate, and what today we call “free speech,” the prohibition against being denied the right to speak. We could be speaking on a street corner or marching in a protest. “Free speech” says we have the right to do that. It says the right cannot be taken away. “Free speech” has no particular context. We are granted the right to say what we want, provided, it turns out, we do not threaten the governing powers. “Free speech” is a civil right. It is not a political right. It does not give us the right to set national policy. “Equal speech” in ancient Athens did.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, Elections, History, Participation, Press, Sortition | Tagged: , , , | 32 Comments »

Chwalisz: Are we electoral fundamentalists?

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Claudia Chwalisz writes in 3am magazine:

Representative democracy today seems to be at an impasse. Low voter turnout, falling party membership, plummeting trust in politicians, the fierce rise of populist parties. These trends, together with political fragmentation, disengagement among young generations, and backlash against the political elite who have failed to govern responsibly, highlight democracy’s dilemma. Though much has been written about this democratic crisis, less has been proposed in terms of solutions. Belgian historian David Van Reybrouck’s recent book, Contre les élections [Against Elections], attempts to fill this gap of ideas. Although it has not yet been translated into English, as is obvious from what I discuss below, his analyses are critically important in the current climate.

Chwalisz’s long article mostly revolves around Van Reybrouk’s book, but also mentions Gilens and Page. She seems to some extent skeptical of Van Reybrouck’s progressivist outlook and ends thusly:

[T]he dilemma of how to get elected elites to relinquish their grip on the seats of power remains unresolved. Perhaps the starting point is to question ourselves: are we, in fact, electoral fundamentalists?

Filed under: Athens, Books, History, Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

“A people’s grand jury” – a possible model for the application of sortition

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Glen Ford writes in Black Agenda Report:

A Black People’s Grand Jury in St. Louis, Missouri, this weekend delivered a “true bill of indictment” for first degree murder against former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the death of Black teenager Michael Brown. Black people “can and must take matters into our own hands,” said Omali Yeshitela, one of four prosecutors that presented evidence[.]

The 12 jurors, all of them from greater St. Louis, spent January 3rd and 4th reviewing some of the same evidence presented by county prosecutor Bob McCulloch to the mostly white grand jury that failed to indict Wilson, in November.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Applications, Juries, Proposals | 16 Comments »

2014 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Tomas Mancebo highlighted the proposals for using sortition that were part of the constitutional process at Podemos – a party which emerged this year as a highly popular alternative to the established parties in Spain.

Adam Cronkright wrote about his work with Democracy In Practice in Bolivia applying sortition to student governments.

Together with Tomas, I find the fact that sortition was relatively prominently proposed and discussed (although ultimately rejected) as part of the power structure within Podemos as the most significant sortition-related event of 2014.

Other 2014 sortition-related events of significance were:

  • Russell Brand’s anti-electoral message, although originally announced in 2013, continued to resonate and generate largely outraged responses throughout 2014.
  • The idea of sortition continued to be actively discussed in French. A new French movie – J’ai pas voté – featured a string of critics of electoralism and sortition advocates. Etienne Chouard and David Van Reybrouck joined forces in April for a conference called “The Tired Democracy”.
  • While Chouard’s more militant message seems to be limited to French media, Van Reybrouck’s softer message made it through the language barrier and was featured on the BBC.
  • An empirical study by Gilens and Page indicating that median (as measure by income) public opinion has very little effect on policy in the U.S. got significant media attention. Another study, by Norton and Kiatpongsan, showing that there is little association between people’s expectations (and perceptions) about inequality and reality was widely discussed as well.
  • Ever eager to find ways to legitimize itself, established power made exploratory maneuvers to exploit the idea of sortition.

Happy new year and best wishes to all!

Filed under: Academia, Elections, Opinion polling, Press, Sortition | 21 Comments »

2014 review – statistics

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Below are some statistics about the fifth year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here.

2014 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 2,038 11 179
Feb 2,370 8 110
Mar 1,975 7 76
Apr 2,890 13 269
May 2,956 5 265
June 2,403 8 119
July 2,552 14 205
Aug 1,950 3 71
Sept 2,022 8 91
Oct 2,511 10 105
Nov 2,490 8 108
Dec (to 28th) 2,318 10 183
Total 28,475 105 1,781

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

Posts were made by 11 authors during 2014. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 188 email and WordPress followers of this blog. In addition there are 83 Twitter followers (@Klerotarian) and 50 Facebook followers.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 20,600 results”), as well as the third result. Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 5th result (out of “about 73,900 results”).

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 3 Comments »

“The whole concept of democracy rests on the same premises that are used as objections to the real practice of democracy”

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Yoram Gat

Some highlights from another online discussion of sortition:

Sortition or selection by lot was used in ancient Greece and is currently used to form juries. My question is whether this should be extended to choose our local councillors and state politicians.

Absolutely! The best possible government is one that has to live with its own decisions, rather than handing decisions down for others to carry out, pay for and suffer the consequences, while the rules themselves are exempt. If all citizens may, at any time, be called upon to administer the state, it becomes a duty of all citizens, rather than the privilege of a few.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Sortition | 40 Comments »

Call for 2014 review input and award nominations

Posted on December 19, 2014 by Yoram Gat

As in the past years (2013, 2012, 2011, 2010), I would like to create a post or two summarizing the sortition- and distribution-by-lot-related developments of the year and the activity here on Equality-by-Lot.

Please use the comments to give your input on what you think are the most mention-worthy events or essays of the past year.

This year I had the idea of initiating a yearly award for the most notable sortition-related article, essay or activity (or maybe a few awards covering a few categories). The award I am thinking of is mostly honorary rather than material (with maybe a token gift). Comments regarding the award(s) idea and nominations are also hereby solicited.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 8 Comments »

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