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Mark Thomas' book "The People's Manifesto"* suggests making political promises prior to entering elected office legally binding. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

by nodata 15y ago

Mark Thomas' book "The People's Manifesto"* suggests making political promises prior to entering elected office legally binding. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Manifesto http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People%27s_Manifesto

anamax 15y ago
Specifically (according to wikipedia) "Party political manifestos should be legally binding." Obama promised that his stimulus package would reduce unemployment to 8% - who goes to jail? Obama promised to increase gasoline prices 4x - who goes to jail?
- gaius 15y ago
  Obama.
ChuckMcM 15y ago
However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different. As an exemplar Obama promised to 'shut down Guantanamo' but once in office he was no doubt made aware of what that would entail and perhaps agreements that were already in place with other countries with respect to people being held there which made 'keeping' his promise impossible. (or at least keeping it would do more harm than not keeping it) There is really only one solution, and most people give up on it before trying, that is an informed electorate. A good hacktivist system for informing the electorate would be to distill the gigabytes of data that is available in the public record for easy consumption. For example create a database of every single non-classified vote in congress and the senate, for each representative maintain how they voted and links to the bills as presented. Cross connect to every admendment they have offered or voted on, every committee vote they have participated in. Every person who has ever given them or their campaign money, every organization that has ever created an advertisement for them and where they got their money. Make location based connections between visitors and their representatives. There are lots and lots of databases which are now loosely connected and hard to search and manipulate. There is a UX problem as well since most of the data bases are weird or hard to talk to. Imagine if you could go to this website, enter your zip code, and get a summary of everything your representative or senator or county supervisor or mayor or school district board member has been involved in since they were elected. You could pull out a document, and pick out the top three, five, ten or twenty questions you would need to know answers to in order to decide if you felt they were 'good' at their job. If you wanted to run against them you would have a good start at understanding their positions and you could go out and talk to the voters and ask if they agreed or disagreed with that. You don't need 'term limits' you don't need 'manifestos' you just need people to vote and to care about what their vote means. Then you will get the government you deserve (and some of us will still want to relocate to the lunar base when it opens but that is a different rant)
- yeahsure 15y ago
  ->However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different I haven't read the wikipedia entry yet, but thinking about that, if they don't have sufficient information while seeking the office, then they should only promise what they know can achieve. It would make things easier and more transparent, in my opinion.
  - paragraft 15y ago
    But that requires you to know what it is you don't know. Cue Rumsfeld's piece about known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
    - yeahsure 15y ago
      You're right. But I would rather know what it is a candidate knows what he can accomplish plus the things he wants to. I could vote knowing that some things will get fixed (from my POV, of course) and some might get fixed.
- andyking 15y ago
  A system like this of sorts is already in place in the UK at theyworkforyou.com. Each MP has a page like this http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/edward_balls/morley_and_outwood http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/edward_balls/morley_and_out... - which shows their voting record, most recent appearances in public, donors, committees and so on.
- baltcode 15y ago
  Or he never really meant it. It's an alternative hypothesis at the very least.
Symmetry 15y ago
Oh god no! Politicians get elected by pandering, but once they get elected they can be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. There are a lots of policies that make good sound bites but which would be horrible as actual policies. Better to try to raise the quality of the people we vote for.
quanticle 15y ago
What happens in the current situation (i.e. divided government)? The "people" have elected an executive branch that promises to do one thing and a legislative that promises to do exactly the opposite. That's not to say I totally disagree with the concept. I just think it would be more applicable to other forms of government, such as parliamentary democracies. In those, the party in power gets a much more control over the government, and there are fewer rights reserved for the minority party. In such a situation, I can envision a scenario where campaign promises could be made legally binding.

by nodata 15y ago

anamax 15y ago

Specifically (according to wikipedia) "Party political manifestos should be legally binding." Obama promised that his stimulus package would reduce unemployment to 8% - who goes to jail? Obama promised to increase gasoline prices 4x - who goes to jail?

gaius 15y ago
Obama.

ChuckMcM 15y ago

However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different. As an exemplar Obama promised to 'shut down Guantanamo' but once in office he was no doubt made aware of what that would entail and perhaps agreements that were already in place with other countries with respect to people being held there which made 'keeping' his promise impossible. (or at least keeping it would do more harm than not keeping it) There is really only one solution, and most people give up on it before trying, that is an informed electorate. A good hacktivist system for informing the electorate would be to distill the gigabytes of data that is available in the public record for easy consumption. For example create a database of every single non-classified vote in congress and the senate, for each representative maintain how they voted and links to the bills as presented. Cross connect to every admendment they have offered or voted on, every committee vote they have participated in. Every person who has ever given them or their campaign money, every organization that has ever created an advertisement for them and where they got their money. Make location based connections between visitors and their representatives. There are lots and lots of databases which are now loosely connected and hard to search and manipulate. There is a UX problem as well since most of the data bases are weird or hard to talk to. Imagine if you could go to this website, enter your zip code, and get a summary of everything your representative or senator or county supervisor or mayor or school district board member has been involved in since they were elected. You could pull out a document, and pick out the top three, five, ten or twenty questions you would need to know answers to in order to decide if you felt they were 'good' at their job. If you wanted to run against them you would have a good start at understanding their positions and you could go out and talk to the voters and ask if they agreed or disagreed with that. You don't need 'term limits' you don't need 'manifestos' you just need people to vote and to care about what their vote means. Then you will get the government you deserve (and some of us will still want to relocate to the lunar base when it opens but that is a different rant)

yeahsure 15y ago
->However one of the challenges here is that the information that is available to someone 'in' the office and someone 'seeking' the office is often very different I haven't read the wikipedia entry yet, but thinking about that, if they don't have sufficient information while seeking the office, then they should only promise what they know can achieve. It would make things easier and more transparent, in my opinion.
- paragraft 15y ago
  But that requires you to know what it is you don't know. Cue Rumsfeld's piece about known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
  - yeahsure 15y ago
    You're right. But I would rather know what it is a candidate knows what he can accomplish plus the things he wants to. I could vote knowing that some things will get fixed (from my POV, of course) and some might get fixed.
andyking 15y ago
A system like this of sorts is already in place in the UK at theyworkforyou.com. Each MP has a page like this http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/edward_balls/morley_and_outwood http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/edward_balls/morley_and_out... - which shows their voting record, most recent appearances in public, donors, committees and so on.
baltcode 15y ago
Or he never really meant it. It's an alternative hypothesis at the very least.

Symmetry 15y ago

Oh god no! Politicians get elected by pandering, but once they get elected they can be held responsible for the consequences of their actions. There are a lots of policies that make good sound bites but which would be horrible as actual policies. Better to try to raise the quality of the people we vote for.

quanticle 15y ago

What happens in the current situation (i.e. divided government)? The "people" have elected an executive branch that promises to do one thing and a legislative that promises to do exactly the opposite. That's not to say I totally disagree with the concept. I just think it would be more applicable to other forms of government, such as parliamentary democracies. In those, the party in power gets a much more control over the government, and there are fewer rights reserved for the minority party. In such a situation, I can envision a scenario where campaign promises could be made legally binding.