Should legislators be chosen by lottery?

[poopgiggle]

I don't think so, but The Boston Globe reports on a small group of political scientists who do:

Government by random selection may seem incompatible with democracy, but the two have been conjoined from the start. Our democratic forebears in ancient Athens used randomness to prevent political power from accumulating among the wealthy and the well-born: Through the drawing of lots, they ensured that, in Aristotle’s words, every citizen had experience “ruling and being ruled in turn.”

[Alex Guerrero, a philosophy professor at the University of Pennsylvania]’s idea is more sweeping. As he envisions it, the responsibilities currently given to state legislatures or even the United States Congress would be broken up and apportioned among “Single-Issue Lottery-Selected Legislatures,” or SILLs. Each SILL would be tasked with legislating on one issue—say, energy or agriculture or tax policy—and would be made up of 200 to 500 citizens chosen at random from the population to serve each for a single three-year term. The terms would be staggered so that only one-third of the members would turn over each year. The SILLs would solicit expert testimony, hold town hall-style meetings to gather citizen input, and then deliberate and vote on legislation that, depending on how the system was constructed, would still have to be signed by the president. It’s all very similar to the way Congress works now, only without the backdrop of elections

Shifting responsibility to SILLs would eliminate the gridlock of the filibuster-plagued Senate and the polarized House of Representatives, Guerrero argues; SILLs would make pay-to-play scandals much less likely, and they’d allow representatives to spend more time legislating and less time campaigning and fund-raising. It’s true that their members wouldn’t necessarily be experienced in the areas they’re asked to govern, but neither are many of the lawmakers we elect.

SILLs would have other advantages as well. Guerrero explains that the single-issue focus of the SILLs would allow the country to work on a range of important policies simultaneously, in contrast with the current system where Congress typically only has the bandwidth to take up one or two big issues each term. “I worry,” Guerrero says, “that [campaigns] lead to a narrow focus on a few concerns and leave a lot of things that matter to people on the sidelines.”

Guerrero’s proposal would almost certainly produce a Congress that looks a lot more like America. John Adams wrote that the legislature “should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large,” and by that standard there’s no denying that our current Congress—which is whiter, wealthier, more male, and more Protestant than the population as a whole—falls short. “Rather than having the Senate which is more than half lawyers and more than half millionaires,” Guerrero says, “with this system, you would get a more diverse group of people involved in the process and you wouldn’t have these vested interests watching in the background.”

I can't say that I agree but it's an interesting idea. It would certainly solve some problems with our legislature, namely that it would more accurately represent the population rather than having rich ideologues with safe gerrymandered seats.

 

[Dale00]

This would work if men were angels. Then nobody would need to worry about the person running the random number selector being corrupted.

 

[poopgiggle]

We have a system in place for (mostly) trustworthy elections. I don't see why a trustworthy lottery would be much different.

 

[tntrex]

I remember yrs ago having a stupid study group think tank in a required PolySci class that was for my bs. We got down to the regular joes kids liking it and the lawyers kids/well to do kids flaming it. Them greeks used to draw stones out of old wine vases, certain number were special color to pick the winners right there on the spot and of course all were term limits! lol

 

[Big House]

Lotteries can be fixed just as election are. Either way, we are screwed.

 

[farmerbyron]

It would be so awesome to have the guy living with his grandma playing video games legislate foreign policy for me. Or the cashier that can't count back change balancing the budget. We would be set.

 

[Talacker]

Have you been at the social security office lately? Lord have mercy if some of those people were making decisions affecting us.

If you truly wanted to fix the system, mandate a one term limit for all legislators and don't pay them. Serve your session and be done.

 

[farmerbyron]

Really the best way to improve the electorate is to institute a civics poll test to every ballot. If you get it wrong, your vote doesn't count. Not even something difficult. Just something like "The President is the head of the __________ branch of govt.". Or "There are __________ justices on the Supreme Court."

Ya know, to weed out the morons that have no idea what they are voting for.

 

[Lurker66]

How many times have we Okies sent the same guys to Washington and yet we expect a different result?

Its our own fault and we deserve what we get.

 

[poopgiggle]

Really the best way to improve the electorate is to institute a civics poll test to every ballot. If you get it wrong, your vote doesn't count. Not even something difficult. Just something like "The President is the head of the __________ branch of govt.". Or "There are __________ justices on the Supreme Court."

Yeah, like some kind of "literacy" test, right?