Republic, Lost_ How Money Corrupts Congress--And a Plan to Stop It - Lawrence Lessig [140]
A deliberative poll?
To understand a deliberative poll, you must first ignore the word poll in the title. The aim of a deliberative poll is not just to figure out what people think. The aim instead is to figure out what people would think if they were informed enough about the matter that they were being polled about. Think of it as a jury, only better: the sample is large and representative (at least three hundred for a large population), and the process begins by providing participants with the information they need to speak sensibly about the matter they are addressing.
In this case, the deliberative poll would frame the question of reform: What will reform require? What would good or meaningful reform be? What changes to the Constitution, if any, are necessary to effect this reform?
The output of these deliberative polls would reflect the views of ordinary citizens about how or whether our Constitution should change. Because the participants are randomly selected, there’s no chance of special-interest lobbying. Because they are representative, there’s no chance of packing the process from one side or the other. First, region by region and then, if it takes off, state by state within regions, this experiment in a deliberative convention would give Americans a baseline to evaluate the capacity of American citizens to govern. And as these conventions succeed in demonstrating sanity and good sense (and I am certain they would), the support for a similar convention to propose amendments to the Constitution would grow.
For this is the core assumption I have about what this Article V convention should be: It should not be a convention of experts. Or politicians. Or activists. Or anyone else specific. It should be a convention of randomly selected voters called to a process of informed deliberation, who then concur on proposals that would be carried to the states. Delegates to this convention would have their salaries and expenses covered by the convention. Employers would be mandated to hold the jobs of the delegates. The convention would convene in a remote place, far from Washington, and maybe far from the Internet. And delegates would then be charged with the duty the law had placed upon them: to propose amendments to the Constitution.
I recognize that of all the insanity strewn throughout this book, this will strike readers as the most extreme. Ordinary citizens? Are you crazy? Proposing amendments to our Constitution? When two-thirds of Americans can’t even identify what the Bill of Rights is?28
Whether you would agree with the final step in this plan or not isn’t important just now. My purpose here is not to convince you of this ultimate step. I’m only trying to describe an interim step—that as the push for an Article V convention is made in each state, shadow conventions in each state should also be convened. If those shadows produce garbage, then my idea is garbage. But if those shadow conventions produce a series of sensible proposals, then, I suggest, we’ll be in a position to ask whether we should make the experiment the model.
For, after all, the competition is not very great here. Given the insanely low quality of work coming from at least our federal legislature (states are actually more interesting and more encouraging), I’d be willing to make a very substantial bet that these amateur citizen conventions will impress America much more than the professional legislature does. Politics is that rare sport where the amateur contest is actually more interesting than the professional. We should at least give it a chance.
So, in a single line, this strategy goes like this: A platform for pushing states to call for a federal convention would begin by launching as many shadow conventions as is possible. In schools, in universities—wherever such deliberation among citizens could occur. The results of those shadow conventions