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Random selection is necessary to create stable meritocratic institutions

(assemblingamerica.substack.com)
360 points namlem | 1 comments | 14 Jul 25 15:28 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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retrac ◴[14 Jul 25 16:28 UTC] No.44562032[source]▶
The technical term is sortition. And it is my pet unorthodox political position. The legislature should be replaced with an assembly of citizens picked by lottery.
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gameman144 ◴[14 Jul 25 16:33 UTC] No.44562101[source]▶
This may show that I'm biased, but the idea of a randomized group of citizens making the law of the land scares the heck out of me. There is a non-trivial amount of nuance and compromise that goes in lawmaking.

Now, the idea of electing a few thousand representatives and having sortition determine who is actually selected is something I could feasibly get behind.

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connicpu ◴[14 Jul 25 16:42 UTC] No.44562207[source]▶
Regardless of how the average person may feel about it on a surface level, I think it's absolutely critical that congress has so many lawyers elected. These people write laws, we need people who actually understand the way law works doing that job.
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namlem ◴[14 Jul 25 17:06 UTC] No.44562546[source]▶
Elected representatives do not write laws. Their legislative aides write the laws. While some state governments have highly professionalized legislative aides, in the federal government, such positions are typically poorly paid stepping stone jobs filled by people in their late 20s/early 30s who have little domain expertise.
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1. burningChrome ◴[14 Jul 25 17:52 UTC] No.44563133[source]▶
Not true.

The majority of the bills are written by lobbyists. Most of the bills introduced are so called "copycat" bills.

USA TODAY and the Republic found at least 10,000 bills almost entirely copied from model legislation were introduced nationwide in the past eight years, and more than 2,100 of those bills were signed into law.

Special interests sometimes work to create the illusion of expert endorsements, public consensus or grassroots support. One man testified as an expert in 13 states to support a bill that makes it more difficult to sue for asbestos exposure. In several states, lawmakers weren’t told that he was a member of the organization that wrote the model legislation on behalf of the asbestos industry, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-pas...