Citizens’ Assembly Enhanced Direct Demcracy

New directions for democratic reform

Traditional Direct Democracy Systems have Many Problems:

• High signature threshold.

– Most initiatives come from the rich.

• Too many initiatives on each ballot!

• Much Spin, little good debate prior to voting.

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Due to a high signature threshold, the process is accessible only to rich groups and individuals, who can pay for signature collection.

Collect ManySignatures ($$$)

Huge SpinCampaigns

for and againstnumerousInitiatives.

Initiatives can be used to create new laws, and to prevent the legislature from passing laws. Many initiatives are poorly crafted by those with limited expertise in writing legislation.

A Typical Large-Scale Direct Democracy System

Referendum

Confused by spin and overwhelmed by too many initiatives at once, Voters often make poor voting choices.

Citizens’ Assemblies Can Fix All This!

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Citizens’Assembly

Citizens’Assembly

Led Debate

Rejected

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A low, easily attainable threshold

Initiatives are selected and rejected based on merit! Only a small manageable number are put to referendum each time.

Referendum

Citizens' Assembly-Enhanced Direct Democracy

Collect 10 000Signatures

The Citizens' Assemblyfine-tunes initiatives (With help/input from experts and politicians).

Initiatives can be usedto pass new laws and to prevent the legislature from passing laws

Unlike politicians, Citizens’ Assemblies are highly trusted by voters, making them ideal for leading a low-spin debate.

Additional Notes on

Citizens’ Assembly-Enhanced Direct Democracy.

Retroactive effectsMPs would behave much better.

Other benefitsThe electorate will become more informed

due to frequent informed debates prior to referenda.

There are a couple of initiatives in the US to implement such a system or elements of it.

Recommended Reading Deliberation Day by Bruce Ackerman and James

Fishkin (Skim the first half of the book) The Citizens Initiative Review proposal for

Washington State: http://www.cirwa.org/ http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dkjkdjc_120dk8cxnmn -

My vision for a direct democracy system that uses a citizens' assembly.

www.cusdi.org – A US organization's vision for the same thing.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dkjkdjc_135csw258hc lots of other related links.

FAQs

Might one charismatic individual sway the entire assembly to a certain point of view?

The research has shown that if you put a group of individuals together with one strong proponent of a certain viewpoint, that individual will often sway the entire group towards his/her own (extreme) viewpoint. However, if you recruit strong proponents for all different viewpoints, discussion will actually engage the group in a balanced learning process. In contrast, through reading and listening, individuals learn primarily those facts and arguments that support their pre-existing viewpoints.

How do you ensure that a statistical microcosm is exposed to a diversity of views?

This is of critical importance to ensure a balanced learning process, and can be achieved in many ways, including:– Identify and invite representatives from the 'for' and

'against' sides for a particular issue.

– In countries with proportional representation, by involving all major political parties you can ensure a diversity of views.

– A microcosm can elect its own 'advisors' using a proportional voting system.

Is it OK to pay Assembly members?

The Assembly is providing a valuable service, so it is certainly reasonable to pay its members. However, a better criterion is what will best serve democracy.

The research shows that payment is crucial to ensure high turnout, which is necessary to ensure the assembly is statistically representative. Payment helps insure high turnout because of the monetary incentive, but perhaps more importantly because it serves as a signal to participants that their views will truly be taken seriously.

Assuming that the Assembly's members are paid, it would be crucial to guarantee its funding and set up an independent body to run it (so that threatening to withhold funds can't be used as a way to influence the Assembly's results).

Is it OK for Assembly members to provide voters with analyses and endorsements of parties?

When a subcommittee examines an issue in depth, it usually returns with its recommendations and some analyses to back them up. These may then be debated in the wider committee.

This is essentially the model proposed, where the Assembly would serve the role of a subcommittee for the entire electorate. To accurately reflect the diversity of views within the Assembly and to facilitate debate, voters would be able to see how many Assembly members supported each party, and their reasons why, including evaluations of the parties on various important issues, such as the economy, healthcare, and the environment.

Voters do need to get information from somewhere. What is debatable is whether this would be a valuable/acceptable source. The research shows that voters tend to have a relatively low level of trust in politicians and the media, but a high level of trust in groups of lay citizens such as a citizens assembly. This suggests that voters would definitely find the views of the Assembly members valuable.

Why not just use opinion polls?

Opinion polls can be very valuable for issues that people understand well (such as the UPass at UBC), however, when people are less familiar with an issue, their views often fail to correlate strongly with their values until they go through a learning process as in a Citizens' Assembly.

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