The Terrible Thing Is I Genuinely Can’t Decide
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 43% believe a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress.
Gerry Canavan 
Seems low.
Paul
February 8, 2012 at 8:38 pm
Well, at least initially they’d be better because they’d have gotten there through lottery rather than through accepting bribes campaign contributions. And they wouldn’t have yet steeled themselves to sell their souls. Oh, some would do the latter and accept the former to run again (if allowed, rather than re-replaced randomly). But for a while they’d be better.
This is in some sense a sort of serious proposal — essentially, government as jury duty (think about the Mars legislature in KSR’s books, and I think there are non SF examples too). I think some state should try replacing *one* branch of their legislature (since two are redundant anyway) with a government-by-jury body. (With no running for reelection — if they want to run, let ’em run in the other house.) Laboratory of democracy and all that. See how it works.
Stephen Frug
February 8, 2012 at 10:35 pm