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Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

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Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#61

Post by TrashSoup »

2845197541 wrote: post #56
nojvek wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But are they aware they have this much power? I'd imagine someone in their mid 20's who is easily swayed by chocolate and restaurant suggestions doesn't understand the full gravity of what their position entails.

They may not necessarily be dumb, but it does sound like they're minimally naive.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#62

Post by 2845197541 »

TrashSoup wrote: post #61
2845197541 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But are they aware they have this much power? I'd imagine someone in their mid 20's who is easily swayed by chocolate and restaurant suggestions doesn't understand the full gravity of what their position entails. They may not necessarily be dumb, but it does sound like they're minimally naive.

I'd say them not being aware makes them dumb. Like how can you not have a clue in that position and chase chocolates. You're mid-twenties, fully grown, and dumb.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#63

Post by rmah »

IMO, a randomly selected congress hands power to the executive, or God forbid the government bureaucracy (aka "civil servants"). Whichever one, they will become the only ones who know what the hell is going on.

If a law gets passed they don't like, they will simply drag their feet until they can get next random congress to change it. Assuming they listen to the congress at all.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#64

Post by namlem »

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?

Manipulating people with favors is easy, even if they're very intelligent. The schedulers are likely not even giving favorable treatment consciously. The chocolate or whatever simply serves to build a positive association with the name of the person who will be calling to ask for a meeting later.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#65

Post by namlem »

xorfish wrote: post #55

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?"

The advantage is this: A randomly selected jury has the time to carefully consider a bill for days at a time, whereas any particular member of the voting public cannot be expected to devote more than an hour or so considering it.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#66

Post by urethrafranklin »

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?

What's dumb about it? It's called greasing the wheel. You want to get the meeting over every other asshole who wants a meeting. Who gets the meeting, gets the laws.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#67

Post by lucozade »

Obviously I have no idea whether this will be better than the current system or not. However, I'm completely left cold by most of the the argumentation in the article.

For example, it complains that 40% of Congress are lawyers, effectively arguing that it's better to have substantially fewer people making laws who are trained in law. Why? because people don't like lawyers.

Also, it complains that 50% of Congress are millionaires so reducing the number of millionaires will remove the influence of lobbyists. Presumably because it's only millionaires who are influenced by marketing and free money?

The one good argument that I can see is that it definitely means that there's no money spent on campaign financing as there are no campaigns. Obviously the suggestion that that money will then be spent on soft and fluffy causes is just silly but at least the original argument makes sense.

Maybe it's just me. A big part of my day to day is understanding the consequences of the decisions I make and mitigating for them. So I get particularly irritated by arguments that only have pro columns. But if one does just make pro arguments they really ought to be better than this.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#69

Post by samirillian »

opportune wrote: post #47
logicchains wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has something like this: bureaucrats have to pass the civil service exam, which is like a souped up IQ/SAT style test. The former president, Hu Jintao, apparently had a photographic memory. Make of that what you will.

I would like this, but the anti-SAT / whiteboarding group would complain about a system like this to no end. And to be fair, there is a huge potential for a system like this to be abused or to codify massive inequality in representation across racial / socio-economic lines. So complaints would definitely not be without merit. Usually additional barriers to participate in government only end up hurting those who are m…

Yeah, I mean, it's really hard to come up with a solution to one problem that doesn't create a new one. I guess I am kind of imagining a system of mandarins. Perhaps the requirement is that you attend public school, where passing the course is required for graduation. And so you cut out HS dropouts but you also cut out private and charter school kids.

Re: Why Not Have a Randomly Selected Congress?

#70

Post by namlem »

I've been on a sortition kick for some time now and am a big proponent, but simply choosing congressmen at random would never work. I believe that with subcommittees and some sort of filtering mechanism, it could work very well. The filtering mechanism is the trickiest part though. So far I haven't come up with anything better than a qualification exam, which has some obvious flaws.

The way I see it working is like this: You have a central committee that is like the legislature, but they don't draft bills. They only debate them and vote on them. This committee is made up of at least 40% unfiltered complete randoms. The term could be anywhere from 6 months to 4 years; the position being non-compulsory and well compensated. The central committee also selects someone to serve as the head of state, who will act kind of like the SoS and be commander in chief of the military. This person could be replaced with a vote of no confidence like a PM.

The actual legislation would be written by filtered subcommittees. For example, you could have an infrastructure committee that has two lawyers, 2-4 engineers, two economists and two social scientists. These would be selected at random from a pool of people who have passed some sort of qualification exam. The exam would be very difficult, but people would be highly encouraged to take it to maximize the size of the pools. Of course study materials and services should also be provided by the state to make sure that everyone has approximately equal access.

It's not an ideal system, and there are some flaws, but I believe it would work very well. Having committees of experts crafting legislation would limit the influence of lobbyists. You could also potentially have some sort of petition system to keep effective leaders around for a second term.

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