Terry Bouricius wrote:
That brings me to an interesting issue, which may be off-topic for this list..."sortition"...the selection of a legislative body by means of modern sampling methods that assure a fully representative body. There is an interesting history of the tension between sortition on one hand and election on the other (Athenian democracy used both), where sortition was seen as the more democratic method, with election being the lesser (because candidates with more money or fame had such an advantage over average citizens). It is the old question of whether representative democracy should be seen as "self-governance," or "consent of the governed."
Possibly taking this thread even further off topic, I could mention a hybrid I once thought of. If there's a legislature of 360 members (to use a highly composite number), use random sampling to construct 36 groups - juries or citizens' assemblies - each of which elect ten from their own numbers to the main assembly.
Assuming the jury voters know what they're doing, the final representatives would have greater skills than a randomly selected assembly, yet they would not be as prone to corruption and "aristocratic" effects as a directly elected assembly (since nobody can tell who'll make up the first-round juries, and thus no shadowy group could run ads on the behalf of any of those candidates).
One disadvantage to this method is that minorities of less than a tenth of the population won't be represented (since each jury only elects ten members). Another is that it may be considered undemocratic since only (36 * members of each jury) have any say in the final outcome.
The size of the assemblies, and how many they elect, could be tuned as desired to reflect a particular position on the sortition-election spectrum.
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