http://www.peoplessenate.ca/

Are you concerned about the future of democracy? Do you feel democracy is under attack by extreme greed in countries around the world? Are you sick and tired of: living in fear, corporate greed, growing police state, government for the rich, working more but having less?

Can we use both elections and random selection (in the way we select government officials) to rid democracy of undue influence by extreme wealth and wealth-dominated mass media campaigns?

The world’s first democracy (Athenian democracy, 600 B.C.) used both elections and random selection. Even Aristotle (the cofounder of Western thought) promoted the use random selection as the best way to protect democracy. The idea of randomly selecting (after screening) juries remains from Athenian democracy, but not randomly selecting (after screening) government officials. Why is it used only for individual justice and not also for social justice? Who wins from that? …the extremely wealthy?

What is the best way to combine elections and random selection to protect democracy in today’s world? Can we use elections as the way to screen candidates, and random selection as the way to do the final selection? Who wins from that? …the people?

Look at the way the New England States in the US are run. Executive Councils, separate to the legislature, can veto Gubernatorial decisions. Town meetings make local laws and decisions and selectmen act as executives and local judicial officers are elected elsewhere in the union. New Hampshire and Vermont are particularly interesting.

I’m open to a Presidential Republic by direct preferential election, a unicameral Hare Clark PR legislature and judicial panels elected by approval voting, at all levels, in the context of a looser Federation with State, Federal, Local and regions for those who want to eliminate a tier of Government (City-States would be ideal candidates), within a loose Federation with other Pacific nations – the President appoints national chancellors to administer the law like junior VPs (they would rank under the VP in succession). The discussion we had here before on charter cities is worth looking at again. So here you’d have four levels of Government with a tier removed and allow people to remove another if they liked, along with citizen’s referenda and a strong bill of rights.

I had another idea once of solving the republic debate by eliminating the head of state altogether, and giving reserve powers to the judiciary, senate, exec and parliament collectively. This also called for a bill of rights, citizen’s referenda, judicial appointments committees, tenure but fixed terms for judicial officers and four fixed year terms for both houses, within the current federal structure. My preference would be for more States, no Ministers in the Senate and to Federally recognise shires. I would also want about 5 Senators from 20 States, 200 MHRs. The Senate ticket would be a national ticket but the votes would be weighted to give equal representation, and a simple PR list system could be used. I don’t know if Hare Clark PR or single member preferential voting would be the best for the House in this case.

Here is some discussion:

http://www.catallaxyfiles.com/blog/?p=6493

Here is what I think of a bill of rights:

I think we need an amendment, in the context of the original intent ensuring i) States/Shires respect rights as well as Commonwealth ii) explictly list explicit constitutional rights iii) explictly expand property rights in light of the Kelo case iv) explicitly list implicit rights v) explicitly list now typically lost common law rights and finally vi) a TABOR (relates to finance and trade powers already present).

I actually don’t mind the sortition idea but in the context of what I’ve proposed, it makes me think more. In a Presidential system, you’d virtually need to keep bicameralism.