One hopeful sign for the future of the American experiment is the fact that a lot of people are actually coming up with better government ideas. Last year, Alaska adopted a suite of electoral reforms, including open primaries, and ranked choice, final four voting. Similar plans, at local and state level, are in the works elsewhere around the country.
No doubt change is wanted. On a good day the congressional approval rating rises to 20 percent. Congressional accomplishments? We can always count on Congress to vote more money for the Pentagon this year than last, but other initiatives may lag. How’s that immigration overhaul the Gang of Eight started work on back in 2012 coming along?
Unfortunately, reform can get complicated. For example, suppose we decide on strict term limits (a perennial favorite among reformers). Without a rule to discourage U.S. representatives from retiring into new careers lobbying the House, the members would suddenly have one more reason to think next job before the people’s business.
Luckily, there is an easier way, and it’s traditional too: selection by lottery. While fifth century BCE Athens is often thought of as a direct democracy in which thousands of citizens gathered to speak their minds on the issues of the day, an elected council set the agenda for those assemblies: the council proposed laws for the general assembly’s vote up or down. The council’s rotating membership was chosen by lot.
Those were simpler times, you object; we can’t leave it up to the average Jill to decide on the complex issues our Congress confronts. Putting aside snide remarks on the above-average quality of Congress people , consider who actually deals with the complex issues. Congressional staff do the research, and when staff aren’t writing the bills, often enough a lobbyist has some good ideas for the text.
Now think of some of the abundant advantages. For starters, an end of all emails and Facebook notices warning of dire consequences if the other party wins the next election. More than one recent study has pointed out that a ferocious partisanship is itself a major threat to American democracy. Election by chance is going to cool that fire.
Think of how much more productive Congress could be if all the members had to think about was laws and budgets. At present, a representative may spend more time working the phones to raise funds for re-election than working on legislation. Former Sen. Tom Daschle estimated fund raising as a two-thirds time job for the last two years of a senator’s term. The new Congress member by lot will have no worries about the next election.
Imagine if members of the House and Senate also had no reason to pay more attention to what billionaires and their emissaries want than to what you want. While a 2014 Princeton study that found the United States is more oligarchy than democracy study has been challenged, it is easy to understand that a senator or representative whose career depends on raising funds is likely, not only to ask, but to listen closely to those who have the most funds to give. Once re-election is a non issue for the new Congress by lot, it should be easier for the members to give all of us the same hearing.
A little reflection will suggest still more reasons to switch from vote to lottery. A less pale and gray, more demographically representative Congress might be fun.
Some of those more complex reforms — especially nonpartisan primaries and ranked choice voting —are coming soon. The Congressional Lottery plan? That one will probably have to wait. The notion of entrusting government to a random group — people who merely represent us, as opposed to a select body — is simply too foreign. Still, we have entrusted some serious business to a chance bunch of neighbors in the past, as in jury duty.
Or think of the last iteration of the military draft when young fellows waited to see whose birthday won the lottery. Wouldn’t it be great if the customary greeting to a member of Congress could be, “Thank you for your service?”
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Will Rawn of Havre is a retired Montana State University-Northern professor