Equality by lot

Posted as a comment by Ronald Mercer (coach1640280)

Narrative description:

Time: Not too distant future.
Setting: America after the second democratic revolution.
America has undergone a second democratic revolution where the constitution was significantly altered to adjust to new global economic, climate, and security (terrorism) conditions.
A constitutional convention was held. A new congress was formed, among other things, keeping the basic congressional house structure and reforming the senate by making it a chamber of 300 sortitioned senators serving 5 year terms.
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In his 1970 book, After the Revolution?, Robert A. Dahl suggests appointing by lot advisory committees for the president of the U.S., for congresspeople, for state governors and for large city mayors^[1]:

Let us imagine that the membership of each advisory council were to consist of several hundred constituents picked by the same procedures used to ensure randomness in modern sample surveys; that the citizen selected would be required to serve […]; that suitable provisions would insure against hardships arising from the obligation to serve – for example, the citizen selected would not only have all relevant expenses taken care of but if he (or she) were poor or unemployed he (or she) might receive a stipend, while an employed person would continue to receive his (or her) regular pay; that one would serve for a year and be ineligible for a second term; that a council might meet at intervals for a total of several weeks in the course of a year; that it would have its own presiding officer (and a professional parliamentarian); that it would invite the elected official to meet with it, to answer questions, hear the debate and discussion…

A timid thinker would have focused on making the argument supporting such an idea against “conventional critics” who would argue that “the proposal goes too far”. Dahl, however, dismisses those critics with one paragraph, and spends the rest of the discussion (pp. 150-153) arguing against “a less conventional critic” who argues that the proposal “does not go far enough” because it does not suggest using the lot to replace elections for selecting government officials.

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Where’s the Democracy?

The annual British Academy lecture was delivered this week by M.H. Hansen, a leading authority on Athenian democracy and the ancient Greek polis. Professor Hansen’s thesis was that Montesquieu’s doctrine of the separation of powers – the model used by the founders of the American constitution – is well past its sell-by date. This is because a) the leaders of modern ‘democracies’ have assumed powers that are normally associated with seventeenth-century absolute monarchs and b) because the prerogative of modern legislatures is regularly usurped by the judiciary.

Positive action or a portrait in miniature?

Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, claimed on Sunday that it is time for “positive action” to end the predominance of “white, middle-class lawyers” in parliament. Speaking ahead of an online conference, Human Rights in the Post-Election UK, he called on the three main party leaders to ensure that the next generation of MPs more accurately reflects the social makeup of the population.

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Excerpts from an email exchange between Keith Sutherland and me:

YG:

As Peter wrote recently (and I agree), “there’s more theorizing to be done here,” but it is quite clear to me that it is going to be much easier to make a coherent theory of representation of interests by sortition than a coherent theory of representation of interests by elections.

KS:

I think the two concepts are so distinct that they require different mechanisms. Most successful constitutional settlements involve a variety of institutions, so I’m puzzled why you want one element (a randomly-selected chamber) to fulfill all of them, if only to benefit from the checks and balances afforded by a plurality of institutions. But perhaps that’s all too Madisonian for your tastes!

YG:

“Checks and balances” is too often a pseudonym to preserving existing power. When a policy is backed by the majority’s informed and considered opinion, then giving a minority veto power over that policy is oligarchical. Calling that minority “experts” does not change that.

KS:

Agreed, that’s why in my model, voting powers are restricted exclusively to the allotted house. However, although allotted MPs have all the power, the role of knowledge and expertise is given its due place in guiding the debate. If you think that is reactionary and Madisonian, then so is our entire education system.

An arrangement in which “experts”  are “guiding the debate” is incompatible with the claim that in that system “MPs have all the power”.  Whoever is “guiding the debate” has an enormous amount of power. This, for example, is the power of the mass media elites in our present society. In fact, voting on legislation proposals that someone else writes, based on information that someone else provides leaves the voter with very little power. Again, this is essentially the situation that the voters are in in the present system.

The allotted delegates voting on a proposal written by the “experts” would face a situation similar to the one that the members of U.S. Congress are currently facing when voting on the healthcare legislative proposals that are being put before them. Consider a hypothetical member of Congress who, like a majority of the American public, is unhappy with the current healthcare situation and at the same time is unhappy with the proposed legislation. That Congressperson would like to vote against the proposed legislation, but those who “guide the debate” provide an all-or-nothing situation in which if the present proposal fails, the status quo will be maintained indefinitely into the future. The Congressperson eventually votes for the legislation, preferring the resulting system to the status quo, and thus does his part in a political theater in which those “guiding the debate” can claim that their unpopular proposals are legitimate since they get approved by a majority of votes.

Any “mixed constitution”, meaning a sortition system in which the allotted chamber votes on proposals designed by a non-representative body rather than coming up with its own, would perpetuate, in a new form, the existing theater of democracy.

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The film “The Common Lot” has a website–

http://new.thecommonlot.com/

I viewed the trailer, and I must say–I don’t think the director is going to be the next Emile de Antonio. Still, it sounds like a very interesting project, and I’m ordering a copy of the DVD. I’ve also joined the film’s FB page. I hope other Kleroterians will try and make contact with the filmmakers.

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