[EM] sortition/random legislature Was: Re: language/framing quibble

[Raph Frank]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 8:53 PM, Aaron Armitage
<eutychus_slept at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't think I expressed my point clearly enough: I consider that making
> the public the active agents in their own governance is a very major
> benefit of popular government. THE benefit, in fact.

However, most of the power rests with the legislators.  We already
delegate the power to people who will then make decisions for us.

What about if only voters got to be selected.  You have to go to the
polling station and 'vote' in order to be eligible for selection.

> Increasing the
> percentage of majority policy preferences enacted, in such a way as to
> make the people passive consumers of policy rather than at least
> potentially the producers forfeits the reason for having popular
> government. Managing your own affairs is for adults; having your desires
> catered to without effort on your part is for spoiled children.

Is the issue here is that if the legislature is selected at random,
there is no requirement for the voters to become informed about the
issues?

In the unlikely event that some gets picked, they then can actually
bother to get informed.

A two House solution seems to help with that though, you still need to
know what is happening in order to pick the elected house.

>
> I'm not especially afraid that legislators chosen by sortition would be
> corrupt, although if they can be reelected as you suggest they would
> become corrupt at close to the same rate that politicians do now, and for
> the same reasons. I do think that in practice the agenda would be set by
> the permanent staffers and facilitators, and depending on who they are and
> how effective they are at framing the issues the result may end up not
> being very democratic at all.

I am not sure I agree.  The vote of confidence would cover just one
person.  Since a challenger can't control who will replace the
legislator, there is less incentive to spend lots of money.