I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.
-- William F. Buckley
It is an insult directed at the elite founded on the ridiculousness of the idea of the average person governing the country. Buckley’s quote continues “Not, heaven knows, because I hold lightly the brainpower or knowledge or generosity or even the affability of the Harvard faculty: but because I greatly fear intellectual arrogance, and that is a distinguishing characteristic of the university which refuses to accept any common premise.” Given the arrogance of the elite there is little doubt that they took it as intending, smug in their belief that they alone are capable of steering the ship of state. The last few years have reduced my faith in “the elite” to the point where I no longer find the idea of governance by the average person ridiculous. In fact, I believe a “draft” of average people, not unlike what is done for juries, is necessary to fix the numerous problems that we are currently seeing in democracy (lack of true representation, the disconnect between the government and the people, too much money, populism, etc.). However, before we get to how it would help, let’s take a look at a little history.
Election by Lot – A High-Level Historical Overview
At first glance this idea seems ridiculous but there is historical precedent for considering it. The term for this type of “election” is called “sortition” and has been used by several states in the past:
In Ancient Athens sortition was used to elect magistrates who could overrule the assembly. Sortition was seen as more democratic and fairer than elections as it prevented oligarchs from buying their way into office.
During the Middle Ages, the Republic of Venice used a two-round process to elect magistrates. An initial group of forty men was chosen at random from the Great Council which was then reduced by lot to a committee of nine who elected each magistrate. Similar procedures were used by Lombardy and Florence.
Between 1640 and 1837 some parts of Switzerland selected the position of mayor by sortition in order to minimize the influence of financial gain.
What’s more, the use of sortition has been praised by such Enlightenment thinkers as Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Harrington, and Edmund Burke
While there is no evidence – I’m aware of – that the American Founding Fathers gave it any consideration to sortition, if it was considered it was likely dismissed as it: 1) would take power away from the educated elite, and 2) would have been difficult, if not impossible, to implement in a nation consisting of millions of citizens. However, the relatively recent invention of computers has enabled lotteries involving millions of people, as demonstrated by the existence of military drafts, and thus has eliminated any concerns about practicality (the use of the draft for military conscription pre-dates the invention of the computer so perhaps practicality was never really an issue, although Bernard Manin, a French political theorist, thought as I do).
To sum up, history provides precedent for the use of sortition, many scholars support it, and any issues with practicality have been eliminated by the invention of the computer. Why is it not more widely considered then? I think we all know the answer to that, thought of the “average” person deciding important matters seems ludicrous. I’d like to dissuade you of this notion.
Sortition - The Argument Against
The average person lacks the knowledge necessary to make important decisions. I will not disagree with this; however I want to ask a clarifying question, what makes you think politicians are any different? Let me get the short, somewhat cynical argument out of the way. If you take the average person, gave them an expensive haircut, put them in a business suit, told them to make vague promises, blame their adversaries, and never be embarrassed when they do something stupid, how, aside from education, would they be any different than the typical politician?
“The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.”
—Lord Acton
While you ponder that let’s take a look at the educational background that some would argue makes members of the 117th Congress (in 2022) more qualified than the average person:
96% were college educated.
The dominant professions being public service/politics, business, and law.
There is an argument to be made that education matters and if true, these statistics are not unimpressive. However, certainly life experience matters as well. While this group appears competent to handle, political (at least as it pertains to how laws are written and passed), legal, business, and education matters, the modern world is much more complicated than it was in the past. How are these individuals better suited to writing laws governing medicine, science, high tech, housing, inflation, foreign policy…I could go on. Delving into the details of the 117th Congress shows the following number of members who might have experience in some of these areas:
Medicine (28 in the House, 5 in the Senate):
4 physicians in the Senate, 14 physicians in the House, plus 5 dentists and 1 veterinarian.
2 psychologists (in the House), an optometrist (in the Senate), 2 pharmacists (in the House), and 3 nurses and 1 physician assistant (in the House).
Science and Engineering (11 in the House, 2 in the Senate):
1 physicist and 1 chemist, both in the House, and 1 geologist in the Senate; 9 engineers (8 in the House and 1 in the Senate).
Technology (6 in the House, 2 in the Senate)
6 software company executives in the House and 2 in the Senate.
Foreign Policy (3 in the House, 2 in the Senate)
4 Ambassadors (two in each chamber).
1 Peace Corps volunteer in the House (yes, this one is a stretch).
Government it appears is overrepresented by lawyers and politicians and underrepresented in every other area and so the argument that politicians have knowledge that the general public lacks may be true in some areas but is likely overstated. It’s also important to note that Congress relies on the bureaucracy, for better or worse, for much of the knowledge it lacks (ex. State Department for foreign relations) which would remain in place even if sortition were adopted.
Sortition – The Argument For
Demographics
There are a number of arguments to be made for sortition, most obvious being demographics. An examination of the 117th Congress is once again valuable in that it shows that it is anything but representative:
One hundred fifty women serve in the 117th Congress: 126 in the House and 24 in the Senate.
There are 56 African American Members of the House and 3 in the Senate.
There are 52 Hispanic Members serving: 45 in the House and 7 in the Senate.
There are 21 Asian/Pacific Islander Members: 16 Representatives and 2 Senators.
There are 6 Native Americans (American Indians, Alaska Natives, or Native Hawaiians) serve in the House.
Compare this to the United States as a whole:
Women – Congress 29.0%, US 50.5%
African Americans – Congress 11.0%, US 12.1%
Hispanic Americans – Congress 9.7%, US 19%%
Asian/Pacific Islanders – Congress 3.9%, US 6.2%%
Native Americans – Congress 1.1%, US 2.9%
This excludes representation by income, wealth, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
Representation by sortation would greatly reduce these discrepancies.
Money
In 2020, almost $14 billion was spent on federal election campaigns in the US. There are rules of course but the following chart provides an overview of just how complicated campaign financing is the in the US:
By Jennifer Cheng / Sunlight Foundation - http://sunlightfoundation.com/feature/why-does-the-irs-regulate-political-groups-a-look-at-the-complex-world-of-campaign-finance/, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26436568
Good luck regulating or tracking this. On a related note, how much more is spent just trying?
Sortition would eliminate this as well as the need to track it. That’s it. That’s the whole fiscal argument for sortition.
There is one caveat, sortition would not eliminate the corrupting influence of lobbying. The lobbyists of corporation, non-profits, NGOs, foreign governments, etc. would still try to influence Congressional voting but there are ways to minimize that through restricting post service employment and fiscal transparency (i.e. audits of the bank accounts of Congressmen and Senators) to provide just two examples.
Political Parties
In President Washington’s Farewell Address, published in 1796 he warned of the dangers of political faction (political parties) as they were “likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” Regardless of where you stand concerning the value and dangers of political parties the fact remains that the two major parties do not represent everyone in the US as over a third of Americans identify as independent. Sortition would reduce the power of the parties and free representatives to vote their conscience…at least for a short while.
How would sortition work?
That’s the million-dollar question as they say. There are many suggestions for working sortition into the current US election system. I confess to being an advocate of mixed government by which I mean that both the average person and the elite (the rich, the wealthy, or whatever you want to call them) must be represented. If “the people” are given full control they’ll likely, in due course, vote themselves no end of free services from the country’s coffers bankrupting the nation. If, on the other hand, the wealthy are given too much power they will, in time, transform democracy into an oligarchy. Only by balancing the two groups can democracy have any hope of surviving. Consequently, I would not move entirely to a system of sortition but instead use sortition for the House and keep the Senate as it is. This system would ensure proper representation in Congress (the strongest of the three branches of government), allow money to have some influence in electing the Senate, and enable everyone to have a vote, after all, if sortition were the sole method of selecting representatives, how would we voice our dissatisfaction?
I am of two minds when it comes to the presidency. On one hand a purpose of the president is to act as a check on Congress by vetoing bills “he finds unconstitutional, unjust, or unwise” which Congress can then override with two thirds approval by both the House and Senate. The average citizen would be well suited to this role. However, the president also plays an executive and diplomatic role which, while it may run against what I’ve been saying, I see as requiring someone with more “elite status” for lack of a better term. It came to my attention recently that during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Virginia Delegate Edmund Randolph, advocated for an executive consisting of three people. While this isn’t exactly in line with the topic of sortition, I think it’s brilliant and consequently my recommendation for updating the presidency would be to use sortition to select three presidents from an elected Senate.
Conclusion
“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could do only a little.”
—Edmund Burke
The purpose of this post is not to provide a blueprint for the use of sortition but rather to demonstrate that there are ways of improving democracy and to encourage you to think about the possibilities. Nothing is every perfect, thus arguing “it’s not what the Founding Father’s wanted” ignores the need for occasional “improvements” or “course corrections.” Making changes would not be simple but nothing worth doing ever is. Democracy demands more than just voting every 2 or 4 years, it demands thoughtful and ongoing involvement of the citizenry. It requires us to evaluate what is working, what isn’t, and considering how governance might be improved. I believe the time has come to give sortition serious consideration.
Interesting stuff, Philip.
Your point at the end about how "The purpose of this post is not to provide a blueprint for the use of sortition but rather to demonstrate that there are ways of improving democracy and to encourage you to think about the possibilities" is an approach I've covered before. The point isn't that "I have the ultimate best solution", but that "We need to start the wheels turning toward studying some new possibilities, because these aren't working".
Some other ideas that might sound crazy, but I don't care - at least some of us are THINKING outside the box:
https://zephareth.substack.com/p/why-do-we-allow-ourselves-to-be-slaves
https://zephareth.substack.com/p/forcing-the-hand-of-political-cooperation
Good read as always, sir. ZL
Great post and thoughts that are shared in my house. Two thoughts: 1) at a professional development seminar I attended, it was suggested that management teams work best if the group is made up of a range of personality types, so that they complement each other. Government is management, so the same should apply, rather than the royal flush of psychopaths we get served with; and 2) in Australia, local government mayors have an annual term, chosen from the council. Same could apply to the President, who is simply a representative of the council for the sake of public appearances.