- Running a campaign requires lots of money, hence is susceptible to influence by people & organizations with lots of money.
- Campaigning and serving in office requires lots of time. Except for part-time local positions, this means that most people who have to work for a living will not even consider running for office. Those who do will tend to view politics as a career, and their primary goal will be to remain in office, and thus (because of the previous point) to raise lots of money.
- Elected representatives tend to be middle-aged (or older) white male Christian lawyers. True, the number of female and non-white representatives has been increasing, but it's still highly disproportionate compared to the overall population.
- Making an intelligent choice requires that you know something about the candidates, their characters and positions. Obtaining and evaluating this information takes time and effort, and many voters do not bother, basing their choice on superficial attributes such as height, or on brief "sound bites" or "talking points" obtained from mass media, or not voting at all.
- Perhaps partly in an effort to deal with the previous point, candidates usually identify with a political party. The parties themselves become self-perpetuating, and candidates whose views do not fit neatly with their party platform tend to fare poorly.
- The previous point might be less of an issue if there were more parties, but our winner-takes-all system makes it very difficult for a third party (to say nothing of a fourth, fifth, or sixth) to gain any power.
- For that reason, many voters will "hold their noses" and vote tactically for a candidate they think more likely to win, even if they would prefer a different candidate.
- Not all votes are equal. If you live in a district which favors one party by a significant margin, whichever way you vote, it will make little difference. Districts are often gerrymandered specifically for this reason.
- Since many people do not bother to vote, a small number of voters, especially in a primary, can determine the outcome of an election.
- Ideologically extreme candidates are thus more likely to win, since they motivate voters to turn out.
There are probably quite a few more, but you get the idea. Is there a better alternative, or is it, as Churchill said of democracy, "the worst form ... except all those other forms that have been tried"?
Suppose there was a way of choosing representatives which was perfectly proportional according to any criterion you can think of (ethnicity, sex, age, religion, geography, occupation, socioeconomic status, ideology, appearance), and not susceptible to influence by money, media, or political parties? Wouldn't that be a vast improvement over our current system?
Well, there is such a system, and it's very simple. Do away with elections altogether and choose representatives by random lot from the entire adult population. No campaigns are necessary, hence no money, media, or political parties. Problems of redistricting, voter turnout, tactical voting, and poorly-informed voters simply disappear. And you are guaranteed that every ethnic group, sex, religion, etc. is represented in proportion to their number in the overall population, provided that the number of representatives is sufficiently large -- 535 should be plenty to cover all major demographic groups.
To mitigate the effects of random sampling (it is possible, though unlikely, that a random selection could come up with exactly the set of representatives who now hold office), to avoid career politicians, and to give more people the opportunity to participate in government, terms of office should be short, perhaps only a single session of Congress, or even shorter. Perhaps each bill should be considered, debated, and voted on by a different set of representatives.
It may occur to you that a very similar system is already in place in this very country, and has been successfully used for more than two centuries -- the system of selecting jurors for civil and criminal trials. I think the analogy is very apt, and suggests a number of additional features:
- Representatives should be compensated for travel and other costs directly associated with their government service, and paid an amount equal to their income from their regular job, or a minimum wage if unemployed -- government service should be neither a windfall nor a penalty. Employers would be required to allow a representative to take time off to serve and to resume their job or an equivalent one after their service.
- A person selected as a representative may decline for any reason. I think this is a flaw in the system of jury selection -- someone compelled to serve unwillingly is not likely to help arrive at a reasoned verdict and might even sabotage the process out of spite.
- Permanent civil servants should assist the representatives by keeping records and performing research (in advance of a bill's coming to debate). A permanent moderator should oversee the proceedings, keep order, ensure proper procedures are followed, and generally facilitate the representatives' work.
- Some groups of representatives might, instead of approving or rejecting a particular bill, evaluate a number of proposed bills and determine which ones are worthy of individual consideration by another panel -- like a grand jury.
- Any citizen should be able to propose a bill (like bringing a suit). Proposed bills would be published and interested parties given the opportunity to submit comments or appear in person to argue for or against.
But, you might argue, shouldn't our representatives be wiser and more experienced than average people? There are several responses:
- Maybe so, but our current system hardly guarantees that this will be the case.
- Yes, and the wisdom and experience will be provided by the judicial branch of government, under the principle of judicial review. Judges could be nominated by the executive branch and confirmed or rejected by panels of representatives.
- Not necessarily. Who can define wisdom? As for experience, might not the idealism of youth be a useful counterbalance to the pragmatism or cynicism of age? Moreover, the system of random selection of juries works well enough to have been preserved for centuries. If we as a society trust a jury of randomly selected citizens to render judgments involving property, liberty, and even life for individuals, why not for society as a whole?
There is certainly still the possibility of corruption, either in the selection process itself, or by interested parties attempting to influence the representatives inappropriately. Transparency and review of the selection process should limit the former. Short terms and narrow scope of individual representatives should limit the latter somewhat, but especially judicial review and/or review by subsequent panels of representatives. Anyhow, it is difficult to argue that our present system is not corrupt.
Of course, this has all been a thought experiment. Without a revolution, coup, or complete political collapse, there seems nearly no possibility that our present Constitution could ever be amended so drastically. Still, if enough people start talking about it, who knows? Perhaps this system could be implemented in some new context: a country in transition, a seastead, a new frontier in space. One can dream...
