Sortition

> The biggest risk of sortition is moving the balance of power from representatives to the appointed/hired bureaucracy.

That's a risk, but I don't think its the biggest even within the "balance of power between officeholders and X" category of risks; I think the biggest in that category is the shift in the balance of power between office holders and professional interest group influencers (lobbyists et al.) who aren't going to be randomly selected short-timers that get swapped out every few years, they are going to be long-term career professionals representing entities with lots of resources, durable interests, and a commitment to achieving them.

OTOH, sortition doesn't have to be a wholesale replacement for elections, either; it can complement them (as it does now, you just expand the scale.)

Say, have an additional house of the (state or federal, though some of these powers would be more familiar and perhaps appropriate at the state level) legislature (the "House of Citizens", say) selected by sortition, and given it some or all of the following powers: (1) To take any bill passed by the other house(s) and delay it by putting a hold of up to 90-days on it, after which the other houses must pass it again before it can move forward for executive signature or veto (if there are any changes to the version passed later, its treated as a new bill, and goes back to the House of Citizens again),

(2) To, instead of #1, invoke the power of referendum against any bill passed by the other house(s), such that if it is approved by the executive (or passed over executive veto), it is referred to a vote of the electorate at large who must approve it before it goes into effect,

(3) To directly initiate an initiative measure, that would go directly to a vote of the electorate at large, and become law with their support, without the need for approval of the other house(s) or the legislature,

(4) To (for a federal "House of Citizens"), on a supermajority vote, propose to the State legislatures amendments to the Constitution, without the other houses (the normal thresholds for ratification would still be required.)

Note that #2 and #3 are powers of the people in many states, but usually require an expensive process of gathering signatures on petitions to invoke, making them more accessible to well-funded groups; a sortition-selected body as an additional avenue could provide an alternate filter that might be less cost-driven.

That's a grand idea, but because most of the random lot would be unknowns, I think it would quickly devolve into electing the outlier -- either the one person we do know, or the one who had the superficial traits that the electorate favors most. We'd choose on the basis of celebrity and beauty, since those skills needed for leadership (e.g. good ideas, fairness, capable at delegation, and courage) are too subtle to be detected by a popularity contest, 95% of which takes place only on TV.

The justification for sortition is equity. We all have an equal right to have our views taken into account on all issues. Sortition permits the formation of a truly representative chamber of parliament. Elections do not, for a raft of reasons.

Representation is necessary because direct democracy is unworkable in large modern states, and because no-one has the time to study and understand every issue, particularly as many are highly technical and complex.

It would be absurd to choose one person, or even a small group, by sortition (or elections!), and give them legislative authority. The group chosen must be reasonably large, since a small group cannot be representative.

Regarding sortition and tests: Any test is designed to exclude some people. Who has the right to say that these people should be excluded?

A common idea is that by excluding the stupid, crazy, corrupt, ambitious, malicious… one will get "better" decisions, "better" legislation. But for any decision to be "good" it must first be equitable. Any exclusion renders the chosen group unrepresentative, and hence is inequitable. Better far to include these "undesirables": they will be relatively few in number, just as they are in society, and they will not vote as a unified block when decisions are made. Further, the more diverse the group, the better the quality of decisions (when this can be measured). It is not necessary for all the members of a group to be intelligent or well-intentioned for the group to make intelligent choices.

As for corruption and the undue influence of multinationals, lobbies, religious groups, and bureaucrats, I believe it is possible to greatly reduce or eliminate this with good design of the institutions.

For a fuller discussion of these issues and a proposal for a government based on sortition, you might be interested to read "Down with Elections!", available as an e-book on Smashwords, Amazon and Apple's iTunes bookstore, for about $1. (A blatant plug for my own work).

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/570431 http://www.amazon.com/DOWN-ELECTIONS-C-Wallace-ebook/dp/B014... https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/down-with-elections!/id1032...

Or you can have it for free as a PDF (less convenient): https://www.dropbox.com/s/7oqo5paiwmwatsp/DWE_PDF.pdf?dl=0