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America would be better governed if House elections were replaced by drawing 1000 randomly selected citizens from the census list.
by baggy_trough 6y ago
America would be better governed if House elections were replaced by drawing 1000 randomly selected citizens from the census list.
- gberger 6y agoHow so?
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoIt would have the effect of ending 'political aristocracies', where there are whole families of politicians across several generations. It would also reduce the distance between politicians and ordinary people. It would also prevent anyone accumulating years of political experience before assuming office, though, which seems like a serious drawback.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago> It would also prevent anyone accumulating years of political experience before assuming office, though, which seems like a serious drawback. Yes, that's a drawback, but it has an upside. It would prevent any representative from having been a politician for years, so they'd be there to represent the people, not to further their political careers. If you look at Washington as a whole, it seems rather clear to me that the long-serving politicians are more focused on continuing to get elected than they are on actually representing their people.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoSure. The question then is how important political experience is.
- _0ffh 6y agoEspecially when the lion's share of said experience apparently boils down to raising campaign money from donors.
- notahacker 6y ago[One's party] desiring to be reelected provides more incentives to represent 'the people', or at least a reasonable approximation of what a plurality of voters in ones state considers acceptable than a system in which politicians have no incentives to do anything other than pursue their personal interests.
- baggy_trough 6y agoIt would be a representative sample of the public rather than an elite-weighted sample that was the outcome of a sleazy money and demagoguery driven election process.
- karatestomp 6y agoThat (I'd consider putting the number above 1,000, actually), but also have state legislatures appoint Senators again, then find some way to encourage the (presumably career, mostly) Senators to mentor and guide the house members to reduce the ability of lobbyists to set the House's agenda. Then let popularly-elected state legislators appoint the President. Federal-level elections past maybe the House are absurd, and the Presidential election especially and increasingly so. Waste of money, waste of attention.