I've Got a Pretty Good Governmental System! (or, The US Citizens' Assembly)

Great Debates
1

Seriously this time. Well, mostly seriously, anyway. I posted this awhile back on xeno’s Improved US Government thread, but that wasn’t really the proper forum for it. Accordingly, and in light of egkelly’s recent inquiry about the prominence of lawyers in politics, I’ve decided to give this idea of mine a soapbox of its own.

Here y’are; for everyone who’s expressed a desire that the American political system be more truly democratic, this is how you could plausibly do it. This is a thumbnail sketch which could stand some heavy fleshing-out, but the basic principles and structure are there. Fire away. :slight_smile:

My Wild Idea of National Governance

Quasi-parliamentary system, bi-cameral legislature

The Lower House:

[ul][li]200 seats – 100 allocated by state, 100 at-large[/li][li]Representatives are citizen appointees; there are no elections. Instead, any majority-age citizen having met civic competency requirements (demonstrated knowledge of constitution, history, current events, basic political theory–prep courses available for free) may submit their name to a candidate pool, to be eligible for appointment to the House.[/li][li]Appointments are drawn by lot; representatives serve two-year non-renewable terms. After leaving office, they may become eligible again in four years.[/li][li]Representatives are paid an income approximately equivalent to their actual vocation, with a $30,000 floor. (i.e., the annual stipend is no less than $30,000, even if the appointee’s usually homeless in a ditch)[/li][li]Terms are staggered; half the appointed representatives will always have a year of service under their belt.[/li][li]Representatives are given an intensive month-long tutorial/internship to become acquainted with the practical mechanics of political office.[/li][li]Each state is guaranteed two representatives drawn from their pool; the rest are completely random.[/li][/ul]

The Upper House:

[ul][li]100 seats – 50 by state, 50 at-large.[/li][li]Career politicians[/li][li]‘Black box’ campaign finance (see my previous post in the thread linked above) or publically-financed elections[/li][li]Party-list preference voting[/li][li]Votes of ‘no confidence’ possible for each representative[/li][/ul]

The Executive:

[ul][li]Grand coalition representing each prevailing party, cf. consociational republics of Western Europe[/li][li]Members appointed by citizens’ assembly from within citizens’ assembly, pursuant to majority approval of the upper house[/li][li]Rotating chairmanship[/li][li]Indefinite terms; members serve until vote of ‘no confidence’–en masse or particular–by any two of: the lower house, the upper house, the public at large[/li][/ul]

The Judiciary

[ul][li]Supreme Court nominated by executive coalition chairman; approved by executive coalition; confirmed by majority votes of lower house and upper house[/li][li]National Court of Appeals created to screen all certiorari petitions for the Supreme Court, so that “the decisions to grant or deny certiorari [would be] made by experienced federal judges, subject to review by the Justices, instead of by a pool of neophyte lawyers…” (Bernard Schwartz, Decision, p259)[/li][li]Tangentially: As mentioned on eg’s thread, it’s not that there are too many lawyers, it’s that there are too many bad lawyers. There needs to be a revitalization of the state court system–as it is, most of the legal talent is going into the federal judiciary, while most of the caseload is being funneled through the state courts. This results in a disproportionate amount of underqualified lawyers at the state level (all present company excepted, of course), exactly where sensible jurisprudence and an efficient legal system are needed most.[/li][/ul]

Thoughts?

2

Where to begin?

Gad, I think a lot of these are interesting ideas and some represent definite improvements, but some I just don’t get at all.

  • A combined national legislature of 300 seats? In a nation of 350 million? Over one million citizens per representative? This is supposed to make our political system more democratic??

  • Two-thirds of these seats are unelected one-shot deals, available by lot to anyone who meets minimum requirements? One month of on-the-job training is supposed to make an informed legislator out of a random appointee who has zero accountability to his/her constituents? The lower house would be overrun with shortsighted single-issue- and/or self-interest-driven opportunists. (Yes, we see a good deal of that now, but at least we have the election/reelection process to put a brake on the worst kinds of folly.) More demagogic, yes; more democratic, no.

I can definitely see the value of having some citizen appointees—under 20 percent, say—leavening the lump of lower-house career politicians, and forming a kind of apprenticeship to professional politics. But withdrawing voter accountability and long-term expertise entirely from an entire house of the legislature? Madness.

3

The Athenians, those epitomes of democracy, did select almost all of their officials by lot – they indeed felt that a citizen was (had better be!) capable of dealing with almost any sort of legislation or regulation. Election was thought to be an oligarchic device (since the rich, handsome aristocrat would be better known, and better able to get elected on that basis). Only those officials where technical knowledge or unusual abilities were thought necessary to performance of the job (the strategoi or generals, and a few secretaries – who also had the job of reading documents to the illiterate in the ekklesia) were permitted to be elected.

We note, too, that appointment to an office by lot was generally for a single term of one year, with disqualification from that office afterward. (Appointment to the boule, or council, was permitted twice, probably because, with five hundred seats, there wouldn’t be enough citizens to go around if memership were limited to a single term. The athlothetae, state officials who oversaw the preparation of athletes and choristers for the great international Greek festivals, were restricted to a single term, but in that case a “term” was four years – the interval between many festivals.) Re-election, however, was permitted without restriction, as the technical qualifications were wanted indefinitely (Pericles was a strategos for some thirty years. being elected one year at a time).

4

Right. But Athens was a small town (by our standards). As Gadarene pointed out, each one of these people will represent around a million citizens (though the actual U.S. pop. is 270 million). And also, a small social group like that would tend to be more homogeneous and have fewer, um, outliers. What if that nut job who rants on the street corner is chosen to represent you? Or some white supremecist? What if, by chance, a bunch of them are chosen in the same year? Our politicians today may be dubious, but they do tend to represent the general views of their districts. Some random person would only represent himself.

5

I hate doing a post-and-run, especially on my own topic, but I’m going to have to if I’m going to get to that LSAT practice test tonight. To my mind, the demographic makeup of our legislature should ideally mirror that of the general population to the greatest extent possible. Given that a requirement for being placed in the lottery is a demonstrated knowledge of and proficiency with history, basic political theory, current events, and the constitution–something that you’re not gonna find with a lot of today’s representatives–I think you drastically minimize the chances of having some utter incompetent helping make policy…something that you’re not gonna find with a lot of today’s representatives. I don’t necessarily believe that a citizens’ assembly would be less reflective of the views of their community than the US Congress–I do know that they’d be less beholden to other interests (fundraisingfundraisingfundraising). And if some “nutjob on the street corner” is chosen to serve in the lower house for two years, having proven themselves to be politically articulate and capable–well, not to be glib, but street corner nutjobs need representation, too.

I’ll continue this later. (Kim, I’m getting to your points, and this next sentence is for you, too.) I think that either I’ve got too much faith in the abilities of individual Americans, or you’ve got too little. And damn if that didn’t sound like a line from tonight’s debate. :slight_smile:

Akatsukami, thanks for the Athenian shout-out.

6

Sorry, it was Kimstu who made the point about population, not Gadarene. Credit where it’s due.

I don’t lack faith in the abilities of individual Americans, and I’m sure many would make fine representatives. It’s just the randomness that bothers me. I mean, my boss would certainly pass the civic exam, but the thought of him representing me in Congress gives me the willies. There are plenty of people who are well-educated who nonetheless have scary views. How could any of us stop them?

I don’t really buy that our representatives are so unrepresentative because they’re beholden to “special interests.” As many studies have found, people tend to like their own congressperson while disliking Congress as a whole. What people don’t like are congresspeople from other districts. This comes from the fact that people from different places have different opinions, not that they have the wrong people representing them.

It also seems to me that the randomness factor would make government pretty unstable. You could have one assembly pass one set of legislation and the next one repeal it. All without worrying about the popular will, because they’ll never worry about being reelected.

If you’ve taken statistics, you may remember the rule that the smaller the size of a random sample, the less representative it is of whatever you’re sampling. Two hundred out of 270 million is just too small. Most of us would be shut out our whole lives.

7

They also felt that only native-Athenian men could be citizens.

Also, I believe it was Plato who, when writing on the nature of the Polis, said that the ideal society consisted of 5000 citizens (all of whom could hold office/participate in governmental affairs), and 25,000 non-citizens.

8

domina writes:

Who was it said that the Heaven’s Gate suicide proved that every point on the bell curve of human attitude is now occupied?

But, yes, the question of social homogeneity needs to be addressed. Unless one is a throughgoing totalitarian, however, this thread is probably too small to contain that discussion.

Well, it been a few years since I cranked out some statistical conclusions, and I don’t have the data at hand. Given that data, though, we could probably decide just how likely it was that we’d end up with a legislature controlled by nut cases who outlaw cars and meat packing plants…oops, different set of nut cases. :slight_smile: I note, though, that this is a potential problem with any political system.
SPOOFE Bo Diddly writes:

Well, given Plato’s family relationship with Critias, and his association with Socrates, I think that it’s legitimate to call into question his credentials as a zealous partisan on behalf of demokrateia.

9

Bingo!!!

I’ve thought for a rather long time that the problem is that ‘public opinion’ has not --perhaps can not in a sense-- grasp that America is not necessarily just like their social circle. A goodly number of people --Hey that includes me from time to time-- forget other views are equally possible.