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

[Aaron Armitage]

--- On Wed, 9/10/08, Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Raph Frank <raphfrk at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [EM] sortition/random legislature Was: Re: language/framing quibble
> To: eutychus_slept at yahoo.com
> Cc: election-methods at lists.electorama.com
> Date: Wednesday, September 10, 2008, 6:30 PM
> 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.
> 

It doesn't follow from the fact that we choose representatives for
ourselves that we would lose nothing by being stripped of the means of
political action. We would lose our citizenship, because citizenship means
a share of rulership. A lottery ticket doesn't count.

> 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.

Whenever anyone succeeds in becoming a career legislator, private
interests will want to buy him. If he doesn't need much for campaigning,
he'll think of better things to do with their money.