This is a fantasy by Yves Sintomer (in French). The Introduction goes as follows (my translation):
Dateline: 2112
To celebrate the centenary of the 6th Republic in 2012, whose creation was due to the introduction of Sortition in the french political procedures, the Minister for Citizenship has asked, for the benefit of the younger generations, that a group of historians to re-visit this decisive turning point.
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Washington law establishes the Washington state citizens’ commission on salaries for elected officials which
[s]tudies the relationship of salaries to the duties of members of the legislature, all elected officials of the executive branch of state government, and all judges of the supreme court, court of appeals, superior and district courts, and shall fix the salary for each position.
Number of appointments by Governor: 16
Term in Years: 4
Compensation: Expenses only
Qualification: Members are selected by lot by the Secretary of State from registered voters in each congressional district, each of which has one representative member. The other members are selected jointly by the speaker of the house and the president of the senate, and their names are submitted to the Governor for appointment. Five members must have experience in personnel management, one each from the following sectors: business, professional personnel management, legal profession, organized labor, private institution of higher education; one recommended by the state Personnel Resource Board; and one recommended by majority vote of the presidents of the state’s four-year institutions of higher education. No member may serve more than two full terms.
Number of yearly meetings: 6
Filed under: Sortition | 12 Comments »
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 »
I’ve been rather quiet on the blog lately. I hope to change that in the weeks ahead. Rather than comment on some of the recent postings, I thought I’d raise a topic that I thought merited a post on its own.
One of the most common uses of sortition that has been proposed is to approve or reject legislation drafted by some other body–usually, an elected legislative body. The new People’s Senate Party in Canada, for example, endorses this proposal. In some respects, this makes the randomly-selected house (hereafter Representative House, or RH) into a substitute for a referendum. Instead of seeking approval for laws from the people as a whole, seek it from a randomly-selected sample.
I think there’s a lot of merit to this proposal, but I have a serious concern that I think merits addressing. Basically, I think that there are two types of legislation. On the one hand, there is “must-pass” legislation–stuff like the defense budget, or the debt ceiling. There’s an interesting literature on legislation like this. Take, for example, the work by Thomas Romer on referenda for school district budgets. Typically, the practice is that if such referenda are not approved, the district budget reverts to some insanely low level, one that no parent would want. School board officials are assumed to want to maximize the size of the budget. And so unsurprisingly, Romer argues, they propose the maximum possible budget that a majority will approve via referendum (i.e., the one that leaves the mediam voter indifferent between approval and rejection). And given how bad rejection is, this could be rather large.
Filed under: Ballot measures, Sortition | 33 Comments »
People: You, me, all of us.
Senate: An ‘upper house’ of parliament that reviews the government’s proposed laws and policies and gives them a thumbs up or thumbs down.
People’s Senate: A senate formed from the random selection (lottery) of the public.
People’s Senate Party: A party that believes BC needs this.
Politicians seem all the same, banding together in order to disparage their opponents. We might wonder why these members of parliaments cannot make consensus decisions in a civilized way, why the group in power must bully through their policies. (And why the policies are often contrary to the needs of the 99%) Unfortunately it couldn’t really be any other way than it is because the elected members are by-products of a system that demands these actions from them.
The People’s Senate Party accepts the adversarial nature of the legislative assembly but does not accept that these elected men and women should have the final say on the legislation and policy that affects us. We believe BC needs a Senate, but formed from a random selection of citizens similar to a courtroom jury. This Senate would use mutual deliberation and consensus to approve or reject the legislation and policies devised by the politicians. Our proposed senators, normal people like you and me (in fact you could be one if you win this senator lottery), could even suggest legislation of their own.
This political jury, we’re calling a People’s Senate.
Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 42 Comments »
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.
Continue reading
Filed under: Athens, Ballot measures, Opinion polling, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 25 Comments »
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 »
I recently met a former colleague and friend from Sierra Leone. He is intrigued with the political use of sortition and wants to implement it, beginning with local councils. He says that since Sierra Leone is one of the primary concerns of the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission, it is the perfect place to institute ‘the next step for democracy’.
Mr. Pokawa is a dual citizen of the US and of his birthplace. In Sierra Leone he and his family have prominence and credibility. Mr. Pokawa has been making regular visits and was considering running for political office in his home district.
As we discussed this matter, he and I agreed that we probably would benefit from involving an institution or individual with recognized expertise and credibility in political science. I wonder if any contributor to this blog might be interested or make a recommendation?
I immediately thought of Stanford’s Center for Deliberative Democracy but I’ve had no correspondence with Professor James Fishkin. Besides, they seem to be limiting themselves to short-term sortitionally-selected advisory bodies. Am I correct in that assumption?
Filed under: Initiatives, Sortition | Tagged: councils, Sierra Leone | 17 Comments »
Jorge Cancio writes:
As you perhaps know, Spain is undergoing some difficult times, both economically and politically.
Since May a new social movement, demanding “real democracy now” has taken the streets. Its main focus is to criticize the lack of democratic participation rights and the hegemonic position of the two main political parties.
Some discussions and debates tend to concentrate on possible direct democratic institutions, already present in other countries, such as referenda, recall and legislatitive initiative.
However, discussion of sortition as a democratic tool is for the first time seriously hitting the streets. During the local elections in May a small political party favouring sortition launched its initiative in Galicia (www.sorteopolitico.com).
On November 20th we will have general elections for our parliament and a new initiative to form a party is being launched: www.partidoazar.com. It is worthwhile to spend some minutes visiting the website and reading its well written and argued contents.
Filed under: Initiatives, Sortition | 77 Comments »
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Equality by lot 