Lawrence Lessig: Democracy vouchers

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Jorge Cancio drew my attention to Lawrence Lessig’s proposal for fixing government.

We should have seen this coming: if McChesney and Nichols offered us a fix for elitist media by using media vouchers, Prof. Lessig will have us fix elitist government using democracy vouchers (book, article, interview):

So long as elections cost money, we won’t end Congress’s dependence on its funders. But we can change it. We can make “the funders” “the people.” Following Arizona, Maine and Connecticut, we could adopt a system of small-dollar public funding for Congress.

Here’s just one way: almost every voter pays at least $50 in some form of federal taxes. So imagine a system that gave a rebate of that first $50 in the form of a “democracy voucher.” That voucher could then be given to any candidate for Congress who agreed to one simple condition: the only money that candidate would accept to finance his or her campaign would be either “democracy vouchers” or contributions from citizens capped at $100. No PAC money. No $2,500 checks. Small contributions only. And if the voter didn’t use the voucher? The money would pass to his or her party, or, if an independent, back to this public funding system.

Lessig apparently doesn’t perceive that his proposed fix is reproducing in dollars what the system already implements in votes. After all, if a candidate cannot win without money, the candidate surely cannot win without votes. If the rich are influential in the current system because it takes money to gather votes, why won’t they remain influential because it would take money to gather voucher money?

Filed under: Elections, Press, Proposals | 15 Comments »

Nick Greiner spruiking about a citizens’ jury

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Yoram Gat

The Sydney Morning Herald, which seems to have a certain interest in citizen juries, reports:

O’Farrell dismisses citizens’ jury after Greiner jumps gun

THE chairman of Infrastructure NSW, Nick Greiner, has been spruiking about a citizens’ jury to recommend which projects the government should build – without having the approval of his board.

Sandy Olsen, the spokeswoman for the board of Infrastructure NSW, said yesterday it ”has not discussed adopting the model of using citizens’ juries”.
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Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

The Sydney Morning Herald: Democracy: now for Plan B

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Yoram Gat

The Sydney Morning Herald writes about newDemocracy, “a mix of business people, academics and former politicians” and its agenda, filling in some interesting information about the founder of the group:

“You can march in the streets and make a noise but that’s not enough,” newDemocracy founder Luca Belgiorno-Nettis said. “You have to show more direction.”

Mr Belgiorno-Nettis, a multimillionaire director of Transfield Holdings whose family is one of Australia’s great migrant success stories, conceived of the research body seven years ago with the idea of improving the democratic process.

Perhaps the most promising idea to come out of the think tank is a proposal to include everyday citizens in forming groups which would consider some of the issues governments wrestle with each day. Known variously as citizens’ juries or citizens’ parliaments, they could make recommendations on topics big and small.

Imagine, for example, if you wanted to extend your home. Instead of lodging a development application with the council, your plans could be assessed by a panel of your peers along with some experts to advise them.

Mr Belgiorno-Nettis believes the application of the citizens’ jury can work equally well on questions of health care, education, tax reform and infrastructure as well as newer concerns such as climate change.

“Perhaps I am being a little ambitious but I would like to get to a point where we could run citizens’ assemblies, parallel to the Senate, in NSW,” he said. “It might sound a far-fetched now but, if there are well-minded people behind it and there is public support for it, well, why not?”

Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Americans’ approval of Congress is at all time low: 9%

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Yoram Gat

A New York Times/CBS opinion poll finds that only 9% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, and only 10% feel that they can “trust the government in Washington to do what is right”. Both of those numbers are the lowest on record.

Filed under: Elections, Opinion polling, Press | 1 Comment »

Jose Baez: Our jurors are the lifeblood of justice

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Jose Baez, who was Casey Anthony’s defense attorney, writes in the Orlando Sentinel:

Almost four months ago, the jury in the trial of Casey Anthony found her not guilty of murder, aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child — and the jurors have paid for it ever since.

They have paid for it at the hands of pundits and so-called veteran court watchers, who have relentlessly denounced the verdict and the jurors.

[…]

Some argue that the judicial system is broken and that this jury is to be scorned. They could not be more wrong. Our system of criminal justice has a presumption of innocence and a constitutional guarantee that we will face a jury of our peers.

As Sir William Blackstone said in his “Commentaries on the Laws of England in 1765”: “… a competent number of sensible and upright jurymen, chosen by lot from among those of middle rank, will be found the best investigators of truth, and the surest guardians of public justice.”

Filed under: Juries, Press | Leave a comment »

Fishkin: How to Fix California’s Democracy Crisis

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Prof. James Fishkin has an op-ed piece in the New York Times:

One hundred years ago today, California voters added the ballot initiative to the State Constitution, allowing citizens to use petitions to bring proposed statutes and constitutional amendments for a public vote.

In the article Fishkin entwines two themes. On the one hand, according to Fishkin, multiple cycles of legislation via the initiative system have encumbered California with various laws that cannot be overturned by the legislature, and make California “virtually ungovernable”. He cites the two-thirds rule for raising taxes, mandatory funds allocation (40% to education), the “three strikes law” and term limits for legislators. (He also originally cited a two-thirds rule for passing the budget – this reference was removed from the article since last year Proposition 25 eliminated this rule in favor of passage by regular majority.)

The other theme is the troubles with the Proposition system itself – supposedly the cause for the passage of the problematic laws.
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Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 25 Comments »

Sortition in France

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Gil Delannoi will be presenting a seminar under the title “Sortition and conceptions of equality” on October 11th in Paris (I presume).

The announcement mentions Delannoi and Dowlen’s Sortition: Theory and Practice (Imprint Academics, 2010), Delannoi’s report Le retour du tirage au sort en politique, briefly reviewed in Libération, and a recorded interview with Delannoi:

Filed under: Press, Sortition | 4 Comments »

Lawson and Simms call for a People’s Jury to represent public interest

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Harald Korneliussen found the following item:

A People’s Jury of a thousand angry citizens

From banking to hacking public horror has failed to tame Britain’s feral elites. We need a People’s Jury

A new routine is emerging. First, a crisis occurs in a vital part of our lives: banks crash, MPs fiddle expenses, a media empire hacks phones. Public anger and outrage rises. Everyone says that something must be done. But frustration and apathy set in as it becomes obvious that nothing is done. A moment for change slips through our fingers. Meanwhile the next – possibly bigger – crisis lurks round the corner, perhaps banking again, or the energy companies. Why is this happening and what can we do about it?
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Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

One of Bill McClellan’s readers writes in

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Google Alert netted another fine catch:

Democracy seeming like Greek to U.S.

Bill McClellan
stltoday.com, July 29, 2011

Not long ago, I wrote a column in which I suggested we select our leaders through a lottery [Stupid vs. immoral? Let’s leave governing up to chance, June 8, 2011]. We would avoid tiresome campaigns and the lies and misrepresentations therein, and we would rid ourselves of campaign contributions and the time-honored practice of buying influence and favors.

It was a whimsical idea. Or so I thought. But one of the joys of writing a newspaper column is hearing from people who know more than I do about the subjects I write about.

David C. sent me this note: “Today’s column made me think of ancient Athens, one of the most thoroughgoing democracies in western history (at least for those who weren’t slaves). They had a system of government very similar to your idea of government by lottery. As the Marxist historian C.L.R. James wrote in his essay, ‘Every Cook Can Govern’: ‘Perhaps the most striking thing about Greek democracy was that the administration (and there were immense administrative problems) was organized upon the basis of what is known as sortition, or, more easily, selection by lot. The vast majority of Greek officials were chosen by a method which amounted to putting names into a hat and appointing the ones whose names came out.'”

Filed under: Athens, Elections, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Mickey Edwards: Fill congressional committee vacancies by lot

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Yoram Gat

One of the six steps that Mickey Edwards offers for “fixing Congress” is to fill congressional committee vacancies by lot.

Edwards’s critique of elected government starts promisingly enough:

Angry and frustrated, American voters went to the polls in November 2010 to “take back” their country. Just as they had done in 2008. And 2006. And repeatedly for decades, whether it was Republicans or Democrats from whom they were taking the country back. No matter who was put in charge, things didn’t get better. They won’t this time, either; spending levels may go down, taxes may go up, budgets will change, but American government will go on the way it has[.]

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Filed under: Press, Proposals, Sortition | 4 Comments »

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