Equality by lot

I’ve been thinking recently about strategies to implement sortition – especially incremental strategies that start with relatively small, feasible steps, and then gradually build up to more ambitious goals. I have a special interest in strategies that could be feasible on a municipal level in or near the city where I live (San Francisco), because I’d like to be part of such a project, but I’m also very interested in any strategies people have suggested that might work in any part of the world.

Harald, you recently proposed two strategies:

1. Add a small number of allotted members to an existing elected legislature, then increase the number of allotted members
2. Conduct one-off sortition exercises (with the allotted bodies having some decision making power) on first a few issues, then more

Kevin O’Leary proposed starting by creating an allotted legislative body (the “People’s Assembly”) that would be advisory only, then later giving it legislative authority.

I’ve been thinking about three other strategies:

1. Conducting a foundation-funded, local government supported experiment with a municipal level second chamber chosen by lot (in US cities, the legislative branch is usually unicameral).
2. Creating an actual allotted second chamber in a municipality, with legislative authority; then doing the same in a few more municipalities, then replacing one branch of a state legislature with an allotted chamber in a small state or province.
3. Creating a single purpose allotted legislative body (say, on health care or environmental legislation), then adding more.

What other strategies do you folks know of?

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 24 Comments »

Rod Rylander writes in the OpEdNews website, offering a proposal similar to that of Callenbach and Phillips:

Only a True Democracy Can Meet The People’s Needs; We Need a New Way to Select Representatives to Congress

Given the legislative paralysis we now see in Washington, it is all too obvious that American democracy has been undermined by the influence of party politics, money, lobbyists, and the shallow bread-and-circuses quality of our mass communications.

To remedy things, we need to think outside the box — and I mean way outside the box.

My solution for reforming our dysfunctional, corrupt Congress — specifically, the House of Representatives — is to replace members now tied to the unproductive, toxic system of party politics with ordinary citizens who are qualified but randomly selected. The procedure I envision is this: In each precinct of a congressional district, one person would be selected at random from a body of citizen volunteers who meet qualifying criteria set forth in a Constitutional amendment. The district-wide representative to Congress would then be randomly selected from the body of those picked at the precinct level. No politicking would be allowed at either stage of the selection process — and would in any case be irrelevant to the totally random system of selection. The Congressional term limit would be six years, with staggered selections scheduled annually. The result would be that in each successive year one-sixth of the Congress would consist of new representatives.

[…]

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 1 Comment »

In a recent post, I proposed a generic set of activities for a legislative process, as an aide to conversations about design. After getting some useful feedback from Jorge, Yoram and Keith, the structure now looks like this:

I would like to ask anyone in this forum – especially those of you who have made specific proposals — which actors you would propose to carry out each of these activities (for example, an allotted chamber, an elected legislature, a single-purpose allotted “panel,” the whole electorate, etc.). I’m hoping to arrange your answers side by side in a matrix, like this:

I think that if we could see everyone’s ideas about “who would do what” side by side, it would be much easier to see where we agree and where we disagree.

Are you willing to do this? And if so, what would be the most convenient way? I’ve created a Google doc that you could fill in, with columns written in for Terry, John, Jorge, Yoram, and Keith so far. Anyone else can simply log in, add your name in a new column, and fill in the actors that you’re proposing. Or, if you don’t use Google docs, I could send you a spreadsheet to fill out (please leave a comment below).

One other thing – if you disagree with my list of legislative activities, please feel free so say so, and to suggest improvements!

Filed under: Proposals, Sortition | 39 Comments »