Equality by lot

I don’t believe that this blog has previously discussed the proposed Citizens’ Constitution of Czech Republic, which would introduce both citizen assemblies and referenda into the Czech Republic on a massive scale. The proposal can be found at

http://www.pdemokracie.ecn.cz/cs/index.php?pg=eng

The proposal is not always clearly worded, but judging by Article 53A, the idea seems to be to select ten citizen commissions which will meet in parallel for five days, before getting together to submit a single joint set of recommendations (presumably chosen by majority or plurality rule). Interestingly, the proposals of the commissions are meant to be advisory only (with the final say going to either the elected legislature or a referenda) UNLESS the commission is dealing with the salaries of government officials. One might wish to expand this a bit to include, say, the ethical rules that officials must follow regarding lobbyists, transparency laws, etc.

This proposal would surely lead to a great many referenda being held. I am unsure that even a small country like the Czech Republic could make so many referenda work. But if one wants citizen participation, and one is not willing to let randomly-selected bodies make binding decisions against the will of elected legislatures, then I suppose one has little choice.

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Stephen Minas sees the proposal for convening a “people’s assembly” on climate change as nothing more than a delay tactic. He writes in the New Statesman:

Chasing the consensus chimera

06 August 2010 11:48

As Australia’s government goes to an election promising consensus-building on climate change, action on the “greatest moral challenge” is again delayed.

Australian Labor fought and won the 2007 election pledging an emissions trading scheme (ETS) by 2010. It will face the people later this month promising to defer a final decision on whether to introduce an ETS to 2012.

[…]

A recent poll found that 60 per cent of Australians want an ETS. The global financial crisis is often cited as a reason for weakening demand for action on climate, but Australia did not have a recession. What’s more, many people were persuaded in 2007 of the urgent need to put a price on carbon. They find it difficult to accept that this need has become less urgent, not more, in 2010.

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Nobody has commented yet on Repair California’s efforts to get referenda on the ballot calling for a state constitutional convention. It may be a bit late to start a discussion on the topic, given that those efforts appear to have fallen apart. But due to the connection with sortition, it might be worth a bit of our attention.

Repair California’s proposal would have selected a constitutional convention partially by lot. A large number of delegates to the convention would be elected by assembly district-level meetings of randomly-selected citizens. That’s complicated enough, but that’s only the procedure for selecting some of the delegates; others would be appointed by elected officials and by Indian tribes.

Ultimately, I think the complexity of the scheme has worked against Repair California. I gather that one of the reasons for going for something so complex–instead of, say, a randomly-selected constitutional convention, as proposed by Joel Parker–was a desire to be “realistic” and not too “radical.” But being radical can be very reasonable if it allows you to express and defend a clearly principled solution to a problem. Repair California’s scheme is so complicated that it’s really hard to say, this is why the proposal is good for democracy. And so being “realistic” can actually lead to nothing getting done.

A related note gets struck by this article–

http://foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/john-wildermuth/6453-vague-promises-not-enough-convention-plan

It notes the difficulty in putting forth a convention plan without any clear sense of just what that convention might do, or what problem it might solve. After all, just because all Californians agree that the “system” is broken, it doesn’t mean they agree as to WHY it’s broken. If you try very hard not to take a stand on this question, the end result is that it’s hard to get anyone excited about inducing change. The same is true if you try too hard to keep the plan “safe” (again, being “realistic”). California’s fiscal woes stem in large part from Proposition 13’s tax restrictions, but Repair California’s constitutional convention would be unable to list Proposition 13 entirely, although it could tinker with it around the edges. This was done because Proposition 13 is regarded as politically dangerous–too many elderly people with absurdly low property taxes ready to defend it–but as a result it’s hard to get people excited who think Proposition 13 is a major part of the problem.

One more comment–there’s still a movement to get a proposition on the ballot lifting the 2/3 majority rule for the state budgetary process. That, IMHO, would go a huge way towards making California less of a fiscal train wreck. It’s well worth supporting.

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