[EM] Re: non-binding direct democracy system

[Forest Simmons]

It looks like Long Beach is a model for where the whole country is headed.



On Fri, 26 Mar 2004, Joe Weinstein wrote:

>
> I don't have much time for most ins and outs on this list (or others), but
> was delighted to read James' stimulatingly-argued detailed proposal for a
> 'non-binding direct democracy system'.
>
> Rather than run to endorse or reject this single proposal (as it stands or
> as it gets amended), I think it would be wise to ask just what objectives it
> would achieve, and - even more important - what objectives it's aimed at,
> and then what our other options may include for realizing them.
>
> In particular, as James indicates, we badly do need more and better citizen
> participation, and James is quite right: it is not fair - and it is also not
> necessary - that citizen opinion should have to be filtered through an
> entrenched oligarchy of a few 'representatives'.
>
> In interests of accuracy and relevance I do take issue with some statements
> made pro or con the proposal.
>
> First, in order to learn where the public stands, there is nothing wrong
> with properly conducted opinion polling.  Potentially tremendous expense and
> bother may be saved, and reasonable and useful accuracy may be achieved.
> It's been done in effect even by the Census Bureau as well as many
> nongovernment organizations.  And, altho contrary to most people's
> intuitions, it's very basic statistical theory that when you are truly
> randomly polling a large population, your accuracy in determining a
> proportion P (namely, of the citizens who prefer YES rather than NO on a
> given question) has almost nothing to do with the size of FRACTION of the
> population being sampled, but just of the ABSOLUTE number being sampled.
> The accuracy you can expect by sampling 1,000 out of 100,000,000 is
> negligibly worse than what you get by sampling 1,000 out of 10,000.   The
> number 1,000 fairly well guarantees getting within 3% of the right answer in
> 95% of the cases, and almost inevitably within 5% - no matter how small
> 1,000 is as a fraction of total population.
>
> But suppose that on a given issue your aim is that the sampled individuals
> represent especially deliberative and informed opinion - untypical of most
> hitherto uninvolved citizens, but clearly called for in responsible
> decision-making. Then there is every reason to use randomly selected citizen
> study and advisory juries (in the manner already demonstrated and used by
> the Jefferson Foundation) for advice and opinion on various public
> questions.
>
> Second, I don't see the point of some banter on the proper election method
> to use in the proposed referenda.  If a referendum is NON-binding, for the
> purpose of INFORMING public and politicos, then what counts is the press'
> careful summaries of the data by whatever means (I hope several) that they
> might be induced (by conscientious political scientists??) to use - and not
> your (or the government's) pick of the single 'true winner' by an annointed
> 'ideal' election method.
>
> Offhand, for the sake of sufficient but manageable depth and complexity, it
> seems that a workable referendum question might best ask the public to rate
> or rank somewhere between three and five alternatives.  A 5 x 5 pairwise
> matrix (not more), plus other summary info, just might be comprehensible to
> participants, press, and summary-reading public and pols.
>
> As both Ernie and James note, a key issue is the method by which issues and
> alternatives are agendized and organized for referenda or polls.  As Ernie
> points out, some university departments would have credibility.  Mandated
> issues or positions should include those submitted by initiative - of
> sufficiently many citizens or of sufficiently many legislators.
>
> My main carp with the proposal - but not specifically with just this
> proposal - is that in itself it does not go very far to realize what I deem
> REAL 'direct' democracy.  (In itself, it would improve on where we ae now,
> but we should not exaggerate what it would achieve.)  For me real democracy
> does not mean mass elections or referenda wherein individual votes are
> powerless.  What's really called for is not lots of voting but good
> decision-making.  The prime legitimate purpose of government is not
> elections or voting (and still less offices) but deliberative policy
> decision-making.
>
> For me, genuine 'democracy' and just plain good sense in public
> decision-making BOTH argue for sharing as widely as we can, as equally as
> possible among all citizens (certainly among all the many citizens who are
> willing and able), the key task (in both its powers and burdens) of
> DELIBERATIVE public policy DECISION-making.   This calls for
> 'representative' democracy, if you like, but where the representatives
> aren't the same bunch of overworked or over-pampered oligarchs (elected, but
> oligarchs) for decision after decision after decision.
>
> It's really not a very arcane issue:  Why should we continue the practice of
> concentrating decision power so as to stimulate case after case of Lord
> Acton's dictum that 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
> absolutely'?  Each well-deliberated decision requires special attention from
> relatively few people but why should myriad decisions over extended time be
> hogged by or dumped on the same few people?
>
> Yes, I know, randomly picked juries (alias teams, panels, assemblies) don't
> seem interesting here, because you don't have to use interesting (or any)
> mass election methods to choose them.  However, for jury choice there's
> plenty of room for various Proportional Representation considerations -
> known in the statistical trade as proportional-allocation stratification
> schemes.  Also, there is plenty of use for election methods used internally
> within larger juries (whose sizes may be in the hundreds) to help them come
> to good and well-accepted collective decisions.
>
> And, if random choices (simple, or stratified random P.R.) are not your
> thing, OK, suggest another valid and unbiased and maybe sexier method to
> recruit a large number of people to a bit of interesting and empowered
> responsible public service - which is what democracy is about.
>
> James and Ernie and everyone - thanks for the provocative proposals and
> comments!
>
> Joe Weinstein
> Long Beach CA USA
>
>
> P.S.  (for those with a lot of patience):
>
> >From my local vantage of the last twelve years - Long Beach, California -
> James' proposal (like some other ideas here on this list) has (with no shame
> or blame on James) another big inherent defect.
>
> Namely, the proposal is based on the presumption that politicians would want
> to know and maybe even heed what the public wants - or anyhow thinks it
> wants.
>
> That's definitely not true in this town.
>
> Most outsiders know Long Beach - a town of a half million people
> (California's fifth city - after LA, SD, SJ, SF) - for its touristic veneer
> which features a famous old (and in fact mismanaged and mistreated) ocean
> liner, a boondoggle convention center and aquarium, and remnants of a once
> excellent namesake beach.  But in recent decades and right now, whether from
> ignorance or connivance, our local politicians have been mainly interested
> in turning this town into a high-diesel-pollution job-destroying
> neighborhood-destroying mechanized super-port (and, on the side, airport,
> and feeder freeways).
>
> Over the years and especially lately they've succeeded in getting lots of US
> taxpayer funds - with the blessing of both pro-big-city-govt-burocracy
> 'liberals' and pro-big-biz 'conservatives' - to help them do this.  You see,
> our port is now nationally important 'vital infrastructure'; it's half of
> the LA-Long Beach port complex that handles nearly half of all US imports -
> a key part of Bush et al.'s ongoing tax-subsidized force-fed 'free' trade
> campaign to 'outsource' all manner of work from the USA, and to encourage
> import of ever more of ever cheaper foreign goods for the ever fewer people
> who still have US jobs to pay for them.
>
> The local pols' latest brilliant idea - albeit wisely rejected by all other
> proposed localities in the nation, and endorsed mainly just by Bush's Energy
> Secretary - is to actually invite an LNG (liquified natural gas) terminal
> into the port, next to densely settled downtown.  Never mind 9/11 or the
> Algerian disaster or that the city is rightly supposed to be worried about
> possible terrorism targeting the port as a chokepoint of US commerce -
> anyhow on that account the city already collects 'anti-terrorism security'
> US taxpayer subsidies.   But the LNG terminal, and the tankers to it, would
> offer additional advantages: both to spendthrift politicians (more port-rent
> dollars) and to Al Qaeda (prospects of a lovely burn-explode event which
> could not only knock out the port but now also in the bargain kill or
> imperil thousands of nearby people and billions of dollars of real estate).
>
> There are lots of immigrant and poor people here - in the USA we were #37
> but now for poverty proportion we're #10 - and #1 in California.  City
> management loves it - more and more federal assistance-to-local-government
> poverty-impact grants that actual poor people rarely see.
>
> Most people here pay no attention to public affairs.  They are new
> immigrants or otherwise are too busy making near-poverty wages, or are
> transient students, or are retirees from elsewhere who came here to sleep in
> the sun and forget anything like the political and social problems of their
> former hometowns, or simply grew up here and know no different.
>
> Local pols and their city hall beaurocrat friends usually insist not merely
> on doing their things, but moreover on doing them their way.  A citizen's
> independent agreement and proferred aid, let alone opposition, is usually
> not appreciated.  Every few years, they relent at times and appoint some
> proper new people to the near-powerless but important-sounding citizen
> advisory committees whose recommendations, if they don't match what is
> desired on the record as 'public input', are duly filed in the circular
> files.
>
> TV 'news' is 'metro' and long ago gave up pretense of meaningful coverage of
> local affairs.  Meanwhile the LA Times also does not cover our local
> misdeeds and their critics: Long Beach does not really fit in their scheme
> either as a mere jolly 'suburb' or as part of the city of LA.
>
> So most of the few people here who bother voting at all simply follow
> instructions, including cute write-in instructions, in the local see-no-evil
> (or, at any rate, assign-no-blame) news-rag.
>
> All this just in case you wondered where ever did I get the idea - rather
> new to me two years ago after over five decades of following politics - that
> elections and good election methods are not quite enough.
>
> Joe
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Get tax tips, tools and access to IRS forms – all in one place at MSN Money!
> http://moneycentral.msn.com/tax/home.asp
>
> ----
> Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>