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Seattle has an open-meetings law, where the City Council cannot conduct any substantive meetings that are closed to the public. Sounds like a good idea, right?

Seattle has an open-meetings law, where the City Council cannot conduct any substantive meetings that are closed to the public. Sounds like a good idea, right? The reality is, the meetings have devolved into events where the councilors engage mostly in political grandstanding for the press, and each faction shows up with with their activist signs, chanting, and yelling.

nabla9 8y ago
Anyone who starts to study how deliberative democracy works, discovers this quickly. Transparency and publicity in deliberative democracy does not mean that everything is just public and open discussion, because it just don't work. Most areas should be maximally public, like results of meetings, meeting agendas, who is attending, decisions and laws of course with very rare exceptions (personal privacy, ongoing criminal investigations, ...). But sometimes the meetings themselves should not be public to enable honest discussion and ideas. Just make sure that every party involved has a representation. Chatham House rule is often good choice when full privacy is not needed (you can talk about what was said, but not about who said what).
- pytyper2 8y ago
  Remove the cameras and only allow electors to attend. It's the tools and outsiders that cause this to occur, there are many thousands of cities around the country that have peaceful productive council meetings.
windows_tips 8y ago
Elect new councilors. Have their shenanigans been televised?
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Doesn’t matter if you elect new councillors. If the Council can’t hold a substantive meeting without the public present all meetings are electioneering. You can’t negotiate in public unless you are completely secure in your power. Any negotiation will involve setting out options, give and take that will anger some part of any coalition. If the meetings are public those angered people get to yell at the councillors and otherwise disrupt the negotiations, not just physically but by raising coalitions against proposed measures in almost real time. Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings between representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement. This degrading of internal communications is pretty much the entire point of Wikileaks.
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    > Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings beteeen representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement. Those private meetings are illegal under state law, yet the councilors do it anyway (this was brought to light during the recent Head Tax debacle).
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Of course they do. What's the alternative, turn into a rubber stamp for whatever the civil service has already decided? put everything to a popular vote?
      - windows_tips 8y ago
        It's hard not to sympathize with the yelling angry people. The problem seems to maybe be more that the Councilors appear to enrage people, either for their actions directly, or for actions perceived to be originating from the Councilors. Have their been any investigations into why people find them revolting?
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        People will agitate for their interests, beliefs and values. Any outcome to negotiations will have winners and losers. Even if people benefit from some deal there is probably another plausible deal where they benefit more or a deal where they get just as big a benefit but their hated enemy gets nothing or is actively harmed. Without the ability to have private negotiations and present the final deal on a take it or leave it basis your negotiations will at best be slower in teaching an agreement. Negotiations are hard, the more parties there are the harder they get. Public negotiations have very large numbers of parties, even if most of them can’t vote.
jacques_chester 8y ago
This experience is the basis in several Commonwealth nations of the doctrines of cabinet confidentiality and cabinet solidarity. Cabinet's ability to reach decisions effectively requires frank discussions, which are only possible without having to posture for the cameras. Cabinet papers (submissions and minutes) are classified and only released several decades later -- 30 years, in Australia. Similarly, cabinet solidarity (sometimes called collective responsibility) holds that when Cabinet reaches a decision, all members of the Cabinet must support it in public. This is partly to maintain confidentiality, but also a practical matter of having the numbers on the floor of Parliament. The flip side is Question Time: when the Cabinet is asked questions in open Parliament (usually alternating between government and opposition members). Question Time is performance art, ritual combat. Rap battles before rap battles. But it is not the main vehicle for decision-making. Nor should it be.

nabla9 8y ago

Anyone who starts to study how deliberative democracy works, discovers this quickly. Transparency and publicity in deliberative democracy does not mean that everything is just public and open discussion, because it just don't work. Most areas should be maximally public, like results of meetings, meeting agendas, who is attending, decisions and laws of course with very rare exceptions (personal privacy, ongoing criminal investigations, ...). But sometimes the meetings themselves should not be public to enable honest discussion and ideas. Just make sure that every party involved has a representation. Chatham House rule is often good choice when full privacy is not needed (you can talk about what was said, but not about who said what).

pytyper2 8y ago
Remove the cameras and only allow electors to attend. It's the tools and outsiders that cause this to occur, there are many thousands of cities around the country that have peaceful productive council meetings.

windows_tips 8y ago

Elect new councilors. Have their shenanigans been televised?

barry-cotter 8y ago
Doesn’t matter if you elect new councillors. If the Council can’t hold a substantive meeting without the public present all meetings are electioneering. You can’t negotiate in public unless you are completely secure in your power. Any negotiation will involve setting out options, give and take that will anger some part of any coalition. If the meetings are public those angered people get to yell at the councillors and otherwise disrupt the negotiations, not just physically but by raising coalitions against proposed measures in almost real time. Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings between representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement. This degrading of internal communications is pretty much the entire point of Wikileaks.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  > Obviously the various factions will have private meetings among themselves and have private meetings beteeen representatives when they actually need to get things done or come to an agreement. Those private meetings are illegal under state law, yet the councilors do it anyway (this was brought to light during the recent Head Tax debacle).
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Of course they do. What's the alternative, turn into a rubber stamp for whatever the civil service has already decided? put everything to a popular vote?
    - windows_tips 8y ago
      It's hard not to sympathize with the yelling angry people. The problem seems to maybe be more that the Councilors appear to enrage people, either for their actions directly, or for actions perceived to be originating from the Councilors. Have their been any investigations into why people find them revolting?
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        People will agitate for their interests, beliefs and values. Any outcome to negotiations will have winners and losers. Even if people benefit from some deal there is probably another plausible deal where they benefit more or a deal where they get just as big a benefit but their hated enemy gets nothing or is actively harmed. Without the ability to have private negotiations and present the final deal on a take it or leave it basis your negotiations will at best be slower in teaching an agreement. Negotiations are hard, the more parties there are the harder they get. Public negotiations have very large numbers of parties, even if most of them can’t vote.

jacques_chester 8y ago

This experience is the basis in several Commonwealth nations of the doctrines of cabinet confidentiality and cabinet solidarity. Cabinet's ability to reach decisions effectively requires frank discussions, which are only possible without having to posture for the cameras. Cabinet papers (submissions and minutes) are classified and only released several decades later -- 30 years, in Australia. Similarly, cabinet solidarity (sometimes called collective responsibility) holds that when Cabinet reaches a decision, all members of the Cabinet must support it in public. This is partly to maintain confidentiality, but also a practical matter of having the numbers on the floor of Parliament. The flip side is Question Time: when the Cabinet is asked questions in open Parliament (usually alternating between government and opposition members). Question Time is performance art, ritual combat. Rap battles before rap battles. But it is not the main vehicle for decision-making. Nor should it be.