Equality by lot

Threlkeld: Juries, not referenda

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Simon Threlkeld has shared the full text of his 1998 article in Social Policy journal. A PDF version is here.

A Blueprint for Democratic Law Making: Give Citizen Juries the Final Say

Simon Threlkeld

Simon Threlkeld is a Canadian lawyer with his own law practice in Toronto; he has been on the steering committees of various social∙ change organizations such as the social justice oriented Law Union of Ontario.

In jurisdictions from California to Switzerland, citizens have the right to initiate binding referendum votes by getting enough petition signatures. Unfortunately, referenda are a drastically flawed way to give citizens a final say in lawmaking. Referenda are ill-suited for the informed decision-making necessary for meaningful democracy and are heavily skewed in favor of wealth and power. A different approach is needed.

“Juries” or “jury assemblies” are the most effective and optimal way to give citizens a final say about laws. By a “jury” or “jury assembly,” I mean a group of citizens randomly chosen from the citizenry and convened to make an informed decision. Juries are chosen by random selection because that is the best way to get a representative cross-section of the citizenry. Each citizen has the same chance and right to be chosen as any other.

A jury is well suited for making an informed decision because the jurors can meet face to face and work full time for the days, weeks, or months needed to become fully informed about the matter at hand. Jurors are paid so they can afford to serve full time.

By combining a capacity to make an informed decision with being a representative cross-section of the citizens, a jury gives expression to the informed will of the citizenry – the highest democratic mandate that a law can have.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Juries, Press, Proposals, Sortition | 99 Comments »

Threlkeld: Referendums not ideal for public input

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Referendums not ideal for public input on laws, taxes

Simon Threlkeld
The Spectator [Hamilton, Ont] 16 Dec 1998: A11.

Monday, Mike Harris tabled his Balanced Budget and Taxpayers Protection Act. The act requires the Ontario government to get public consent in a referendum vote before increasing corporate, personal, retail, gasoline and employer health taxes.

One of the basic ideas of democracy is that the government ought to carry out the wishes of the people. In a fully democratic society, government would not be able to impose laws the public does not want. Instead, the government’s laws would require public consent.

Mike Harris and his cabinet think public consent is a great idea for certain tax increases they happen to oppose. But when it comes to requiring public consent for any legislation they might support, it’s no thanks.

However, the democratic approach is for all laws to get public consent, not just those hand-picked by a particular government.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Ballot measures, Press, Proposals, Sortition | Leave a comment »

Lasserre: Sortition in politics – the false good idea, part 2

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Yoram Gat

This is the second and final part of a translation of an article by Tommy Lasserre. The first part is here. Again, proofreading and corrections of the translation are welcome.

Sortition eliminates popular participation

While fewer and fewer Frenchpeople bother vote, the membership of parties evaporates, the feeling of powerlessness intensifies, the advocates of stochocracy seem to think that the new selection mechanism could revitalize popular participation. After all, since each person could be called upon to assume political responsibilities, or see their spouse, their neighbor, or their colleague be called to assume them, it is natural that they would grow interested in political questions. Likewise, the disappearance of the political caste would restore the enthusiasm which multiple betrayals have drained over the years. However, this argument in favor of sortition seems unconvincing.

First, everyone must know that the chance of finding yourself sitting in the assembly, or even seeing one of your acquaintances sitting in the assembly, remains extremely small. Using the proposal discussed in the introduction and considering the existing electorate, there are 45 million registered voters (that is without considering those who meet the criteria but are not registered, or expected population growth), the sample selected for exercising the sovereignty for the people in the assembly would represent 0.004% of the electorate. This means that each year only one person in 25,000 would be drawn. Of course, this is better than the chance at the lottery, but it must be admitted that the chances of knowing someone who was allotted remain tiny.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Participation, Press, Proposals, Sortition, Theory | 23 Comments »

Eyes on Canada: site of the next Citizens’ Assembly using sortition?

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Brett Hennig

[Repost from http://www.sortitionfoundation.org/canada_citizens_assembly ]

Justin Trudeau, who will become the new Canadian Prime Minister next week after winning the general election on October 19, has promised that the election will be the “last election” based on the first-past-the-post system.

But without it, he would not have won a parliamentary majority, so there will be considerable pressure from within his own party to renege on, or avoid fulfilling, his promise.

What is more interesting, however, is that Canada has a compelling history of using sortition in Citizens’ Assemblies to address provincial electoral reform – it happened in British Columbia in 2004 and in Ontario in 2006.

Continue reading →

Filed under: Elections, Press, Sortition | 6 Comments »

Participatory & Deliberative Democracy in Ireland

Posted on October 25, 2015 by peterstone

Last week, I went to the Annual Meeting of the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI), in Cork. While I was there, I attended the business meeting for the PSAI’s Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group. The group has created a new website, which offers forums for discussions, a news page, and list of relevant publications. Everyone interested in participatory and deliberative democracy (which I would think most sortition advocates would be), especially in an Irish context, should consider checking it out. (Getting active on the page does require joining the PSAI, I believe.)

The specialist group page is at http://psai-pdd.org/.

Filed under: Academia, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Lasserre: Sortition in politics – the false good idea, part 1

Posted on October 24, 2015 by Yoram Gat

André Sauzeau referred me to a polemic against sortition by Tommy Lasserre. This text is the most elaborate argument against sortition ever written (as far as I am aware) and it is therefore of significant interest to sortition advocates. In view of that, and despite my essentially non-existent French I have undertaken to translate it from the original French to English. The first part of the outcome is below. If your French is better than mine I’d be happy with any corrections.

Sortition in politics – the false good idea

By Tommy Lasserre, September 2014

Immersed in scandals, disconnected from the realities of the majority in society, demonstrating every day their total submission to finance and the dogmas of liberalism, and therefore their complete incapacity to pull us out of the crisis, the political caste today is largely discredited, in France as in the rest of Europe. This is expressed well in record low turnouts and in the rise of false alternatives, but equally, fortunately,, reflection, shared by increasingly significant number of citizens, about the ways to change politics. Suggestions for changing the Republic through a constitutional process, proposals for giving citizens greater control over our elected officials, in particular opening the way for recallability, garner, therefore, significant response on the Web.

Among all the ideas that emerged in the blogosphere or on the social networks, one idea, that could appear absurd keeps appearing frequently: putting the reins of power in the hands of an allotted assembly. It is often mentioned in conversations on Facebook, or in argument between bloggers, the controversial intellectual Étienne Chouard has made it his battle cry and the political party Nouvelle Donne (“New Deal”) even made an argument for this idea during the European elections.
Continue reading →

Filed under: Athens, History, Participation, Press, Sortition, Theory | 48 Comments »

Istanbul Event

Posted on October 23, 2015 by peterstone

Hello All,

I’m giving a talk in Istanbul next week entitled “Is Sortition Part of Our Democratic Future?” The talk will be part of an event entitled “A Pilot Meeting for the Democracies of the Future Conference,” which will be taking place as part of the 14th Istanbul Biennial. There’s not a lot of information posted yet about the event, unfortunately, but the following page is available:

http://14b.iksv.org/event.asp?id=63

Filed under: Academia, Sortition | Leave a comment »

21st Century Democracy Conference in Alexandria Egypt

Posted on October 22, 2015 by tbouricius

I have been working with a number of sortition academics to organize the sortition element of an international conference being hosted by the Library of Alexandria in Egypt starting December 9, 2015. Presenters will include many names familiar to sortition activists including John Gastil (U.S.A.), David van Reybrouck (Belgium) and Janette Hartz-Karp (Australia). The first two days of the conference will be addressing the “deficit of democracy” in the modern world and introduce participants to such alternative democratic reforms as sortition, participatory budgeting and varieties of direct democracy. The third day will be largely devoted to sortition and mini-publics. The Library anticipates having around 200 attendees (about half from the Arab world), and can accommodate a small number of additional people who have special interest in sortition. If you would like to attend the conference (paying your own way) please get in contact with me, so I can forward your information to the Library staff. Email me at terrybour(at)gmail.com.

Filed under: Academia, Sortition | 3 Comments »

Two recent sortition advocacy pieces by Simon Threlkeld

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Yoram Gat

Simon Threlkeld is a former Toronto lawyer (law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School), holds an MA in philosophy (University of Toronto), and writes about democracy. In 1998 he published an article in the academic journal Social Policy titled “A blueprint for democratic law-making: Give citizen juries the final say” whose abstract is below.

17 years later, Threlkeld is still a committed advocate for sortition, and has two recent pieces in the Canadian press advocating the use of sortition in order to democratize the Canadian government and media. In both cases Threlkeld is not proposing to use sortition to select office holders, but rather to use sortition to select committees that would appoint the office holders.

In September Threlkeld proposed in the National Post to have the Canadian Senate members appointed by randomly selected juries:

Simon Threlkeld: Select senators by jury

Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Juries, Press, Proposals | 61 Comments »

Rethinking Athenian Democracy

Posted on October 13, 2015 by keithsutherland

I’ve just finished reading Daniela Cammack’s PhD thesis (one chapter was presented recently here by Peter Stone) and would warmly recommend it — it’s mercifully short and extremely readable (available to download on the Harvard website). Chapter 3: The Most Democratic Branch? The Assembly vs. the Courts is of particular interest as it seeks to overturn the view that a) the assembly was the primary institution of Athenian democracy and b) the fourth-century reforms were conservative in nature. Cammack’s interpretation supports Yoram and Terry’s view that the switch in emphasis to randomly-selected institutions was in order to enhance the rule of the demos, rather than being a juridical a check on popular sovereignty (the view of Hansen, Ostwald, Sealey [and myself]). The courts (both legislative and juridical) were much less open to manipulation by elites as a) speech rights were restricted to litigants and persons elected by the assembly, b) isegoria was balanced by the use of a water clock and c) secret voting meant that it was harder to intimidate citizens into voting in any way other than by their considered judgment (aided by the higher minimum age and need to swear the dikastic oath). She provides several examples of assembly decisions that were heavily influenced by factional and elite domination
Continue reading →

Filed under: Academia, Athens, Distribution by lot, History, Juries, Sortition | 83 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »