A citizens’ assembly.
“Citizens’ assemblies (sometimes called civic assemblies or policy juries) are like jury duty, but for deciding public policy rather than individual court cases,” the article says. “Typically, 40 to 100 people participate in a given assembly, and they are compensated for their time. The assembly meets several times over a few weeks or months, learning from experts, deliberating, and developing policy proposals. These proposals are then often put to a legislative body or public vote.”
On our call, Ehsassi went into depth on what a citizens’ assembly looks like and the many successful case studies around the world. If governments need to make an informed decision on a particularly thorny issue—France wants to decide whether to legalize assisted suicide, Ireland wants to make a decision about gay marriage—community organizations and governments can hold a citizens’ assembly.
Letters are sent to a randomized group of thousands of individuals who can choose to participate in the decision-making process. Once the group is decided, the assembly meets every weekend for several weeks. A third of that time is spent in education, with various stakeholders presenting their case—here’s why assisted suicide should be legal, here’s why it shouldn’t, etc. Assembly members ask questions throughout the presentations and have facilitated discussions afterward that really get into the thorns of the issue—in what cases should suicide be legal, in what cases might it be dangerous? There might be 100 different ideas about how the laws should be changed at first, but the assembly discusses each one and votes on various proposals, gradually narrowing their ideas into a set of policies they can mostly agree with.
At the end of the assembly, citizens put forth their winning proposal, which goes on to inform policy. In France, 75‑76 % of the assembly called for opening up assisted suicide and euthanasia under strict safeguards (incurable illness, unbearable suffering, mental capacity, reflection period, medical panel review, etc.). They issued 67 detailed recommendations, including a big expansion of palliative‑care funding and a conscience clause for doctors. President Macron followed through, asking for legislation, drafting it, and getting it cleared the National Assembly. Final enactment now depends on the Senate’s vote.
Citizens’ assemblies have been used to debate important issues around the world, and to inform policy decisions with great effect, but Ehsassi and Lerner think it could even form a fourth branch of US government. “Imagine a House of the People composed of Americans across the political spectrum, issuing proposals on key issues from immigration to government efficiency to climate change. Each year, a representative sample of Americans would learn about the issue at hand, deliberate, and propose policies that reflected their rough consensus. Congress would then have to respond to their proposals — including by submitting them for a congressional or public vote.”
Their idea is a provocation, and we used it to discuss the many ways citizens’ assemblies could be used to insert a better form of democracy into representative democracies, or even businesses and schools. As we discussed on the call: Why couldn’t a company’s board be composed of a citizens’ assembly? Surveillance technologies like Palantir, for example, affect us all. Why should it be up to Peter Thiel and the government how it’s used? Perhaps it would be better to get citizens involved to decide the circumstances under which surveillance technology can be used for the public good?
And what if schools hosted citizens’ assemblies rather than devolving into protests? Wouldn’t it have been more productive if, after the Hamas attack on Israel, for example, students could have gathered in an assembly to decide how the school should respond? If both sides of the issue could have come to the table to explain their arguments, and students could have a facilitated and informed discussion about what they should do about it? And the school then acted upon it?
We can and do make good decisions together, and citizens’ assemblies are the vehicle that can help us do it.
I’ll be exploring how citizens’ assemblies can be used in government and business in my book We Should Own The Economy. I’m hosting research calls, like this one, live for my subscribers, and am publishing my book chapters live in my newsletter as I write them.
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