It's an interesting idea but has the same flaw as term limits: the power would shift from the Congressperson to the staffers who are unknown, unaccountable, and sometimes even worse people.
When I worked for various agencies in DC, one of the first things I learned was who the power players and key people were in each of our Senators' & Congresspersons' offices. It is quite often not the Senator but the scheduler. Yes, the person who runs the Senator's calendar and determines who gets on it and who doesn't.
We found pretty quickly that this scheduler was - almost without exception - a single woman in her mid 20's. Therefore, whenever we knew that we would need access, we would do little things like bring flowers or chocolates "for the office" but make sure to leave them with her. When we found out about new restaurants or a show she'd like, we'd pass her the info. By the time we needed that meeting and gave her a call, we would get it every single time.. often the same day.
And yes, we worked with both parties and names you'd recognize.
* Am I proud about any of that? Nope but that is how the Hill works. And giving those people more powerful is an awful idea.
Agencies? How long ago was this? Technically under the new lobbying rules she's not supposed to accept those flowers, or that chocolate. Certainly an opponent of your agency, or whatever, would be inclined to report this fact. The scheduler is nice, but get to know the Chief of Staff. It's one thing to get a meeting, anyone can get a meeting, but if you want to actually get something done it's better to get to know the Legislative Director or the Chief.
But would those "gatekeepers" still be a thing? Congresspeople are very busy today BECAUSE they are a career politicians, and with that, multi-year/decade lobbying of a politicians staffers pays off. After all, they need you to scratch their back every 4 years.
But if every 2-4 years the ENTIRE system is flipped like a compost heap, you would have a completely different staff, and a different NON-career politician who doesn't need your support for the next run for office. No amount of money will select me next turn-over (assuming it is a truly random selection).
Why would a representative leave so much influence in the hands of a girl in her middle twenties who's dumb enough to doll out influence to bringers of chocolate?
As far as I can see, they advocate for a Randomly Selected Congress that still operates on a term basis (i.e. new members are randomly chosen at fixed time intervals, e.g. every two years).
An alternative approach that I've found quite interesting is to assemble a new Randomly Selected Congress for every single bill. The idea is that certain parties (e.g. government offices or public petitions with a sufficient amount of backers) gain the right to identify problems. For each problem thusly identified, a Randomly Selected Congress is formed, who can either vote that no action is required, or who can enact a bill with the intention of solving that problem.
The appeal is that every legislator will only be involved in exactly one law over their lifetime (maybe two or three, but the chance of one person being selected multiple times is excessively slim). So horse trades cannot work anymore, and every legislator knows that whatever they sign into law will be the single one impact they can ever have on the political system. Like: "This may only be a zoning law for small villages, and I don't care because I live in the city. But everyone will judge me by this law forever, so I better make sure it's the best fucking zoning law ever."
Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years? If so, we need to raise the average significantly.
Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists and bureaucrats; a demographic that is not exactly brimming with the diversity that this 'solution' attempts to put in place.
I think the solution is just to ban lobbying as it currently exists. I ran across an interesting argument about a month ago basically saying that, legally, there are things we can own but not sell, like a spleen, because the societal consequences of allowing people to sell their organs are so disastrous. They made the point that maybe you should similarly have the right to lobby your congressman but that you wouldn't have the right to sell that capability.
> Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years?
People are judged everyday by their "statistical average" with consequences that can stick around for many years (long jail terms) or be permanent (death sentences). While the criminal jury system is not perfect, it appears vastly more functional than Congress at present.
The article also mentions Aristotle, and he identified three dimensions of discourse: logos, ethos and pathos. While elected congressmen may be a little better at logic (it's not like they're all rocket scientists), they appear to be quite deficient in ethics and not similar enough to the average constituent to truly empathize. Losing a bit of logos for big increases in ethos and pathos seems like a pretty good deal to me.
> Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists
Not really, their main weapon are campaign contributions.
> Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years?
Yes. The alternative is to open the door for systemic abuse. Randomness ensures perfect balance between all social classes and it makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators. Such a system can dispense with elections and reduce the power of big media trusts. I think common people selected to serve for a short term would have much more decency than career politicians.
Lobbyists already have enormous power. I think one thing we've learned over the past 20 years is that career politicians are just as susceptible to bribes as everyone else.
Though I do agree, this concept is pointless beyond a thought experiment.
Neighborhood DC lobbyists here.. It's an idea worthy of study, but in practice it would be difficult to implement. First, the warm-up time for someone entering congress, to get them to the point where they do know what they're doing, is about six months. These are folks who want to be there, who have at least spent some time studying the issues, the process, and time on the campaign trail. A completely random, lay congress picked off the street would need about a year to get to that point. Those who have some advanced education, knowledge, or training in government, are going to quickly run right over them. Then there's the staff. You've got a randomly selected congress, but what about the staff? That's who really runs the place, and those with the best staffers are going to get up to speed the quickest. What about parties? Who is the Speaker? Who runs the committees? If it's a free-for-all with no one in a party, and no one able to unit a group to control, it's chaos. Even Britain, with its myriad of parties and voting blocs, has a lot of function built into their structure.
The level of knowledge of civics, current events, and history, not to mention the level of civic responsibility has done nothing but go down since this nation was founded. This idea might have been more tenable 200 or even 100 years ago.
The jury system is an entirely different problem space. There the decision is made based on a relatively narrow pool of information, and is in fact constrained to that pool of information and the personal experience of the individual jurors.
Congress is a whole other matter. There decisions must be informed based upon a vastly greater background of knowledge and, dare I say, wisdom. International affairs and history, broad understanding of current events, economics, knowledge of our system of law and jurisprudence. Do the individuals in congress all meet this standard? No. But the process of putting oneself and one's knowledge and experience forward to the voting public does act as a sort of filter to weed out people who have no understanding or ability to govern.
Or teach people to become leaders who can govern. What does it take to have a specialized field of studies to prepare people? The more the qualified experts compete each other in getting elected, the better.
That is precisely what an aristocratic elite (or any semi-permanent elite subgroup) is supposed to do. What seems to have changed in America is that the elites no longer grow up learning that "we are better, and therefore, it is our job to run things correctly for our heirs (and the plebes too I guess, as long as they keep their place)".
While this is distasteful attitude on the surface, one thing it does do is make sure that at least a few of the elites grow up with a sense of nobles oblige and fosters a longer-term outlook. There are, of course, a host of disadvantages. So while I welcome the dismantlement of such attitudes among the elite, the problem is that nothing has risen to take its place. We sadly seem to be becoming more and more a "what's in it for me" society.
I've been on a sortition kick for some time now and am a big proponent, but simply choosing congressmen at random would never work. I believe that with subcommittees and some sort of filtering mechanism, it could work very well. The filtering mechanism is the trickiest part though. So far I haven't come up with anything better than a qualification exam, which has some obvious flaws.
The way I see it working is like this: You have a central committee that is like the legislature, but they don't draft bills. They only debate them and vote on them. This committee is made up of at least 40% unfiltered complete randoms. The term could be anywhere from 6 months to 4 years; the position being non-compulsory and well compensated. The central committee also selects someone to serve as the head of state, who will act kind of like the SoS and be commander in chief of the military. This person could be replaced with a vote of no confidence like a PM.
The actual legislation would be written by filtered subcommittees. For example, you could have an infrastructure committee that has two lawyers, 2-4 engineers, two economists and two social scientists. These would be selected at random from a pool of people who have passed some sort of qualification exam. The exam would be very difficult, but people would be highly encouraged to take it to maximize the size of the pools. Of course study materials and services should also be provided by the state to make sure that everyone has approximately equal access.
It's not an ideal system, and there are some flaws, but I believe it would work very well. Having committees of experts crafting legislation would limit the influence of lobbyists. You could also potentially have some sort of petition system to keep effective leaders around for a second term.
Get some information on the internal democracy of the Bahai faith. They have candidateless elections - essentially you vote for any member of the faith you personally think is very capable and the ones who have the most votes is elected. And to avoid any cult of person, you elect councils of 9 people that have to decide with absolute majority about their topics. This Bahai system is almost impossible to game - in case you do bad as an elected person, they will not vote for you the next time. This system also is multilevel: the elected persons of a city do the same candidateless approach on the national level, then those elected in all countries come together and vote for the international "House of Justice" as they call it, which is located in Haifa, Israel. This election process serves really as the perfect sieve for bad people.
You have a clear definition for "bad people" as part of your religion. Whether or not that process works, adding a rigid morality does not improve simple plurality voting for most populations.
I think the way we produce new legislation and control the government is not satisfactory as it is. My favorite approach would be to have a sortition (based on a quota method maybe) then some intensive training (law, constitution ... ) before the one term and after that training of the member of the assembly that go back to the civil life.
I think there would need to be some minimal filter on those who would govern. Age, for one, but maybe also a high school diploma or equivalent and a "citizenship test" that everyone would have to pass to graduate high school.
China has something like this: bureaucrats have to pass the civil service exam, which is like a souped up IQ/SAT style test. The former president, Hu Jintao, apparently had a photographic memory. Make of that what you will.
We could also bring back ostracism (not from society, but from government, at least). We wouldn't be able to select our representatives, but we would be able to rule out those we definitely don't want.
IMO, a randomly selected congress hands power to the executive, or God forbid the government bureaucracy (aka "civil servants"). Whichever one, they will become the only ones who know what the hell is going on.
If a law gets passed they don't like, they will simply drag their feet until they can get next random congress to change it. Assuming they listen to the congress at all.
Obviously I have no idea whether this will be better than the current system or not. However, I'm completely left cold by most of the the argumentation in the article.
For example, it complains that 40% of Congress are lawyers, effectively arguing that it's better to have substantially fewer people making laws who are trained in law. Why? because people don't like lawyers.
Also, it complains that 50% of Congress are millionaires so reducing the number of millionaires will remove the influence of lobbyists. Presumably because it's only millionaires who are influenced by marketing and free money?
The one good argument that I can see is that it definitely means that there's no money spent on campaign financing as there are no campaigns. Obviously the suggestion that that money will then be spent on soft and fluffy causes is just silly but at least the original argument makes sense.
Maybe it's just me. A big part of my day to day is understanding the consequences of the decisions I make and mitigating for them. So I get particularly irritated by arguments that only have pro columns. But if one does just make pro arguments they really ought to be better than this.
I don't see the advantage of such a system over some form of direct democracy.
A right to call for a referendum puts the final say always to the people.
So policymakers will need to ask themselves "Can this law pass a popular vote?" instead of "Will this law increase or decrease the probability of my reelection?"
The advantage is this: A randomly selected jury has the time to carefully consider a bill for days at a time, whereas any particular member of the voting public cannot be expected to devote more than an hour or so considering it.
In my opinion. Instead of randomly selected congress, we should have a randomly selected electors. You select them randomly. They are sequestered like a jury for a few days. They listen to the candidates and at the end they chose one. Their power only lasts until they make a choice.
Maybe. Maaaayyyyybe this could work. Or it could spell the end of the world's largest economy as we know it.
I have in the past toyed with ideas like randomly selecting the Senate from a pool of outstanding civil service exam scores, or by instituting a third legislative house to be randomly selected, but in any case to do so is to jump headfirst into an uncertain pool of chaos.
The system set up by our founding fathers is, for the most part, a good system. A large republic was supposed to be impossible. It has lasted nearly 250 years. It has survived a bloody civil war (1864 marked the first national election conducted during a civil war in history). It has expanded liberties to abolish slavery and grant the vote for all citizens (with some exceptions).
Right now, the system has been hijacked and rigged by the rich and powerful. Change them, change their influence, by all means, but upending the system for the sake of "trying something new" or god forbid "drain the swamp," will be akin to using a sledgehammer for a problem that requires a screwdriver.
[+] [-] caseysoftware|8 years ago|reply
When I worked for various agencies in DC, one of the first things I learned was who the power players and key people were in each of our Senators' & Congresspersons' offices. It is quite often not the Senator but the scheduler. Yes, the person who runs the Senator's calendar and determines who gets on it and who doesn't.
We found pretty quickly that this scheduler was - almost without exception - a single woman in her mid 20's. Therefore, whenever we knew that we would need access, we would do little things like bring flowers or chocolates "for the office" but make sure to leave them with her. When we found out about new restaurants or a show she'd like, we'd pass her the info. By the time we needed that meeting and gave her a call, we would get it every single time.. often the same day.
And yes, we worked with both parties and names you'd recognize.
* Am I proud about any of that? Nope but that is how the Hill works. And giving those people more powerful is an awful idea.
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jermaustin1|8 years ago|reply
But if every 2-4 years the ENTIRE system is flipped like a compost heap, you would have a completely different staff, and a different NON-career politician who doesn't need your support for the next run for office. No amount of money will select me next turn-over (assuming it is a truly random selection).
[+] [-] 2845197541|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majewsky|8 years ago|reply
An alternative approach that I've found quite interesting is to assemble a new Randomly Selected Congress for every single bill. The idea is that certain parties (e.g. government offices or public petitions with a sufficient amount of backers) gain the right to identify problems. For each problem thusly identified, a Randomly Selected Congress is formed, who can either vote that no action is required, or who can enact a bill with the intention of solving that problem.
The appeal is that every legislator will only be involved in exactly one law over their lifetime (maybe two or three, but the chance of one person being selected multiple times is excessively slim). So horse trades cannot work anymore, and every legislator knows that whatever they sign into law will be the single one impact they can ever have on the political system. Like: "This may only be a zoning law for small villages, and I don't care because I live in the city. But everyone will judge me by this law forever, so I better make sure it's the best fucking zoning law ever."
[+] [-] madcaptenor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clavalle|8 years ago|reply
Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists and bureaucrats; a demographic that is not exactly brimming with the diversity that this 'solution' attempts to put in place.
[+] [-] frgtpsswrdlame|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeteo|8 years ago|reply
People are judged everyday by their "statistical average" with consequences that can stick around for many years (long jail terms) or be permanent (death sentences). While the criminal jury system is not perfect, it appears vastly more functional than Congress at present.
The article also mentions Aristotle, and he identified three dimensions of discourse: logos, ethos and pathos. While elected congressmen may be a little better at logic (it's not like they're all rocket scientists), they appear to be quite deficient in ethics and not similar enough to the average constituent to truly empathize. Losing a bit of logos for big increases in ethos and pathos seems like a pretty good deal to me.
> Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists
Not really, their main weapon are campaign contributions.
[+] [-] visarga|8 years ago|reply
Yes. The alternative is to open the door for systemic abuse. Randomness ensures perfect balance between all social classes and it makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators. Such a system can dispense with elections and reduce the power of big media trusts. I think common people selected to serve for a short term would have much more decency than career politicians.
[+] [-] iamcurious|8 years ago|reply
Bingo.
[+] [-] _uhtu|8 years ago|reply
Though I do agree, this concept is pointless beyond a thought experiment.
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teilo|8 years ago|reply
The jury system is an entirely different problem space. There the decision is made based on a relatively narrow pool of information, and is in fact constrained to that pool of information and the personal experience of the individual jurors.
Congress is a whole other matter. There decisions must be informed based upon a vastly greater background of knowledge and, dare I say, wisdom. International affairs and history, broad understanding of current events, economics, knowledge of our system of law and jurisprudence. Do the individuals in congress all meet this standard? No. But the process of putting oneself and one's knowledge and experience forward to the voting public does act as a sort of filter to weed out people who have no understanding or ability to govern.
[+] [-] webwanderings|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmah|8 years ago|reply
While this is distasteful attitude on the surface, one thing it does do is make sure that at least a few of the elites grow up with a sense of nobles oblige and fosters a longer-term outlook. There are, of course, a host of disadvantages. So while I welcome the dismantlement of such attitudes among the elite, the problem is that nothing has risen to take its place. We sadly seem to be becoming more and more a "what's in it for me" society.
[+] [-] tmaly|8 years ago|reply
This transparency would really help out democracy in my opinion.
[+] [-] AckSyn|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] namlem|8 years ago|reply
The way I see it working is like this: You have a central committee that is like the legislature, but they don't draft bills. They only debate them and vote on them. This committee is made up of at least 40% unfiltered complete randoms. The term could be anywhere from 6 months to 4 years; the position being non-compulsory and well compensated. The central committee also selects someone to serve as the head of state, who will act kind of like the SoS and be commander in chief of the military. This person could be replaced with a vote of no confidence like a PM.
The actual legislation would be written by filtered subcommittees. For example, you could have an infrastructure committee that has two lawyers, 2-4 engineers, two economists and two social scientists. These would be selected at random from a pool of people who have passed some sort of qualification exam. The exam would be very difficult, but people would be highly encouraged to take it to maximize the size of the pools. Of course study materials and services should also be provided by the state to make sure that everyone has approximately equal access.
It's not an ideal system, and there are some flaws, but I believe it would work very well. Having committees of experts crafting legislation would limit the influence of lobbyists. You could also potentially have some sort of petition system to keep effective leaders around for a second term.
[+] [-] jimmytidey|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geff82|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sethrin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DomreiRoam|8 years ago|reply
I think the way we produce new legislation and control the government is not satisfactory as it is. My favorite approach would be to have a sortition (based on a quota method maybe) then some intensive training (law, constitution ... ) before the one term and after that training of the member of the assembly that go back to the civil life.
[+] [-] samirillian|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicchains|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] feborges|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forinti|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gregcrv|8 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition
[+] [-] tehrealjames|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rmah|8 years ago|reply
If a law gets passed they don't like, they will simply drag their feet until they can get next random congress to change it. Assuming they listen to the congress at all.
[+] [-] lucozade|8 years ago|reply
For example, it complains that 40% of Congress are lawyers, effectively arguing that it's better to have substantially fewer people making laws who are trained in law. Why? because people don't like lawyers.
Also, it complains that 50% of Congress are millionaires so reducing the number of millionaires will remove the influence of lobbyists. Presumably because it's only millionaires who are influenced by marketing and free money?
The one good argument that I can see is that it definitely means that there's no money spent on campaign financing as there are no campaigns. Obviously the suggestion that that money will then be spent on soft and fluffy causes is just silly but at least the original argument makes sense.
Maybe it's just me. A big part of my day to day is understanding the consequences of the decisions I make and mitigating for them. So I get particularly irritated by arguments that only have pro columns. But if one does just make pro arguments they really ought to be better than this.
[+] [-] xorfish|8 years ago|reply
A right to call for a referendum puts the final say always to the people.
So policymakers will need to ask themselves "Can this law pass a popular vote?" instead of "Will this law increase or decrease the probability of my reelection?"
[+] [-] namlem|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leoc|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] corpMaverick|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rm_-rf_slash|8 years ago|reply
I have in the past toyed with ideas like randomly selecting the Senate from a pool of outstanding civil service exam scores, or by instituting a third legislative house to be randomly selected, but in any case to do so is to jump headfirst into an uncertain pool of chaos.
The system set up by our founding fathers is, for the most part, a good system. A large republic was supposed to be impossible. It has lasted nearly 250 years. It has survived a bloody civil war (1864 marked the first national election conducted during a civil war in history). It has expanded liberties to abolish slavery and grant the vote for all citizens (with some exceptions).
Right now, the system has been hijacked and rigged by the rich and powerful. Change them, change their influence, by all means, but upending the system for the sake of "trying something new" or god forbid "drain the swamp," will be akin to using a sledgehammer for a problem that requires a screwdriver.
[+] [-] corpMaverick|8 years ago|reply