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Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

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Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#51

Post by 2845197541 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #29

It's an interesting idea but has the same flaw as term limits: the power would shift from the Congressperson to the staffers who are unknown, unaccountable, and sometimes even worse people. When I worked for various agencies in DC, one of the first things I learned was who the power players and key people were in each of our Senators' & Congresspersons' offices. It is quite often not the Senator but the scheduler. Ye…

Why would a representative leave so much influence in the hands of a girl in her middle twenties who's dumb enough to doll out influence to bringers of chocolate?

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#53

Post by nojvek »

2845197541 wrote: post #51
caseysoftware wrote: post #29

It's an interesting idea but has the same flaw as term limits: the power would shift from the Congressperson to the staffers who are unknown, unaccountable, and sometimes even worse people. When I worked for various agencies in DC, one of the first things I learned was who the power players and key people were in each of our Senators' & Congresspersons' offices. It is quite often not the Senator but the scheduler. Ye…

Why would a representative leave so much influence in the hands of a girl in her middle twenties who's dumb enough to doll out influence to bringers of chocolate?

All girls in their mid 20's are dumb. Thanks for the relevation. Also all the power they have is of scheduling. Not making laws.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#54

Post by observation »

corpMaverick wrote: post #23
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #6

Maybe. Maaaayyyyybe this could work. Or it could spell the end of the world's largest economy as we know it. I have in the past toyed with ideas like randomly selecting the Senate from a pool of outstanding civil service exam scores, or by instituting a third legislative house to be randomly selected, but in any case to do so is to jump headfirst into an uncertain pool of chaos. The system set up by our founding fath…

Funny you say that when your name is rm -rf /

It's getting bad when he's the conservative.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#55

Post by xorfish »

I don't see the advantage of such a system over some form of direct democracy.

A right to call for a referendum puts the final say always to the people.

So policymakers will need to ask themselves "Can this law pass a popular vote?" instead of "Will this law increase or decrease the probability of my reelection?"

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#56

Post by 2845197541 »

nojvek wrote: post #53
2845197541 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would a representative leave so much influence in the hands of a girl in her middle twenties who's dumb enough to doll out influence to bringers of chocolate?

All girls in their mid 20's are dumb. Thanks for the relevation. Also all the power they have is of scheduling. Not making laws.

I didn't say all girls in their mid 20's are dumb. It's been suggested in the post above that scheduling is where the power lies.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#57

Post by cirgue »

visarga wrote: post #40
clavalle wrote: post #3

Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years? If so, we need to raise the average significantly. Also, this would put enormous power in the hands of lobbyists and bureaucrats; a demographic that is not exactly brimming with the diversity that this 'solution' attempts to put in place.

> Do we want the statistical average of us to create laws that stick around for years? Yes. The alternative is to open the door for systemic abuse. Randomness ensures perfect balance between all social classes and it makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators. Such a system can dispense with elections and reduce the power of big media trusts. I think common people selected to serve for a short…

> makes it difficult for special interests to lobby the legislators.

It makes it considerably easier for lobbyists to lobby legislators because it sets up an even greater information and power asymmetry than it does now. Lobbyists can stick around as long as they want, will know the pressure points in the legislative system, and will have the resources available to draft legislation that works in their favor. How many people who aren't lawyers could successfully review a law and be able to understand its impacts ten years down the road? Probably not too many, and I can guarantee that the loudest and most persuasive voices legislators hear during this process will be industry experts, not their constituents.

This is the same as it is now, except that career politicians at least know how the game is played.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#58

Post by Zigurd »

Entangled wrote: post #33

If your job is to create laws, then you must be an expert in that field. So the pool of candidates should be meritocratic in its nature, like a Law School degree and at least 10 years of experience plus 2 in public domains. Then you can randomize. Most countries in the world allow any bus driver to be a congressman and we know how great their understanding of laws and human rights are, none.

Law-drafting isn't the entire job of representation. Also, current performance, such as using legislation written by consortia of corporations with lobbying interests, doesn't speak highly for such specialization.

You might as well require representatives be CPAs, or MBAs, since budget allocation and oversight of spending is at least as important as making laws.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#59

Post by Zigurd »

Entangled wrote: post #38
dleslie wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bias towards those whose profession benefits from a growing abundance of laws? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

If you are going to build a bridge are you going to hire an engineer or a cook? Now if you're going to create laws would you hire someone who has studied roman, germanic, sharia law since the times of Hammurabi, philosophy, sociology, politics and everything necessary to understand human interaction and association, or a bus driver? We get the government we deserve, proportional to our level of ignorance. There is a…

If you ask the engineer whether to build the bridge, you might get a biased answer.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#60

Post by rmah »

webwanderings wrote: post #5

Or teach people to become leaders who can govern. What does it take to have a specialized field of studies to prepare people? The more the qualified experts compete each other in getting elected, the better.

That is precisely what an aristocratic elite (or any semi-permanent elite subgroup) is supposed to do. What seems to have changed in America is that the elites no longer grow up learning that "we are better, and therefore, it is our job to run things correctly for our heirs (and the plebes too I guess, as long as they keep their place)".

While this is distasteful attitude on the surface, one thing it does do is make sure that at least a few of the elites grow up with a sense of nobles oblige and fosters a longer-term outlook. There are, of course, a host of disadvantages. So while I welcome the dismantlement of such attitudes among the elite, the problem is that nothing has risen to take its place. We sadly seem to be becoming more and more a "what's in it for me" society.

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