[EM] language/framing quibble

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Wed, 9/10/08, Terry Bouricius <terryb at burlingtontelecom.net> wrote:

> From: Terry Bouricius <terryb at burlingtontelecom.net>
> Subject: Re: [EM] language/framing quibble
> To: eutychus_slept at yahoo.com, election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 10:20 AM
> Aaron makes a fundamental point about sortition...it may be
> "democratic" 
> (the ancient Greeks thought it was more democratic than
> elections), but it 
> is not what we call a "republican" form of
> representation, which involves 
> people evaluating and choosing individuals (or parties)
> through election 
> and granting authority to this select group to govern on
> their behalf, 
> with those legislators subject to sanction and removal at
> periodic 
> elections. Sortition to create a scientifically accurate
> representative 
> subset of the entire community is closer to the concept of
> a democratic 
> assembly than a classic republic. The members of a
> sortition legislature 
> would not be "accountable" to any voters.  Each
> would simply be 
> accountable to her/himself, knowing there are a
> proportionate number of 
> other people in the society that think much the same way
> that they do on 
> issues.
> 

You understand my point. This may turn out to be a difference in
perspective too deep to be subject to debate, but at least we're not just
just talking past each other.

> I can imagine a system in which one sortition body was
> charged with 
> deciding what issues needed public action (agenda setting),
> and then 
> various other legislative bodies were created for limited
> duration by 
> sortition, each addressing a narrow range of issues (so
> they could gain 
> some expert knowledge). Perhaps a national sortition
> legislative body 
> would be selected randomly from local level sortition
> bodies, so the 
> members already have some experience in how to deliberate,
> etc.
> 
> This may be fanciful, but since this model has actually
> been utilized in a 
> limited way in at least a couple of Canadian provinces
> (which is more than 
> can be said of many voting methods discussed on this list),
> it may not be 
> so far-fetched.
> 
> Terry Bouricius
> 

I'm not sure that would be workable. The Canadian examples, not to mention
the ur-example, common law jury trials, give the panel chosen by sortition
a simple choice on terms set by others, with some control to make sure the
issues are presented fairly. In Athens, the panels chosen by sortition
were given direction by the popular assembly, which in principle consisted
of all adult male citizens (which was already an elite group by our
standards), and in practice was the self-selected group of adult male
citizens who showed up: the kind of people who in our society run for
office, volunteer for campaigns, attend city council meetings, write angry
letters, blog, etc. I don't know of any examples of bodies chosen by
sortition setting their own agendas. In a bicameral legislature a chamber
chosen by sortition that only votes up or down on bills originated by the
other chamber will effective do what you're asking of it, but I would
still object on the philosophical grounds I've already explained.