4 ms·

One suggestion that I've heard, based on a lot of research, is to give Congress more relative power by having more closed door committees and committee votes.

One suggestion that I've heard, based on a lot of research, is to give Congress more relative power by having more closed door committees and committee votes. The problem being if Congressional activities are too transparent, then the power shifts to whomever can lobby the best, which often means who can best track the behaviors and intimidate people into behaving certain ways. While citizens can view more with transparency, we often don't, and the richest companies and orgs do. I've tried to loop in James to shed more on the research behind it but it's at congressionalresearch.org

specialist 5y ago
I've also heard this was an unanticipated consequence of increased transparency. I'm not ready to give up my faith in the wisdom "the solution to democracy's problems is more democracy". But do try to be mindful that there's always tradeoffs.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  > "the solution to democracy's problems is more democracy" By democracy, do you mean direct democracy, representative democracy, both, or neither?
  - specialist 5y ago
    David Graeber style participatory democracy. Put decision making closest to the people impacted. Doesn't scale. Which is a feature, not a bug.
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      If it doesn't scale, what would be the largest size it would work at, and then how to resolve conflict amongst those groups?
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  The other problem with this is that the existing votes are already choreographed for public consumption, so the existing transparency is an illusion. There was a bill earlier this year to expand police funding. After a year of "defund the police" from AOC et al, it turned out that if she would have voted against it, it would have actually defeated the bill. So instead she voted "present" and the bill passed. Most people aren't going to notice that, but that was equivalent to voting yes. And if her vote wasn't actually necessary to pass the bill, she'd then have been able to vote no specifically because it wouldn't change the outcome, even though as we know she would flip when it mattered. That happens on a regular basis too but in those cases it's undetectable.
ngcc_hk 5y ago
One devil can the others. Who watch the agent behind close doors.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Hmm? I'm not sure what you meant, could you rephrase?
insulanus 5y ago
That seems like a very real effect, but the votes need to be disclosed after they occur. Otherwise, the lobbyists have even more power, because the committee has an incentive to collude with the lobbyists, if their individual votes are not known, and they accept bribes. (I agree that having their votes be unknown helps if they do not accept bribes). The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists. How do you do this though? Suppose Facebook wants to gut privacy rules. They control which news stories get prioritized for their users. They express their policy preference in public, then penalize politicians who cross them. Even if politicians pay no attention to this, the ones who cross them are more likely to lose their seats. Assuming politicians aren't too oblivious to notice it, they comply to avoid that, without Facebook ever explicitly threatening them. The fact that Facebook can send someone into Washington to tell the politicians what they want in person instead of publishing it on their website doesn't really change the math, does it?
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Yes it's hard to stop people from speaking and intimidating. That's why I almost see an elegance in this solution: if FB and other corps don't know who is contributing which part to a bill and they only get to look at the final answer, it's harder to know who to intimidate and who to blame. In other words, it's believing that politicians are being intimidated to decide in one direction or another and trying to give them cover to make more sound decisions.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      Right. Someone comes in to bribe you, you take their money, you go vote against them anyway. Then when they come to you to object, you can shrug and say it must have been someone else. There is no way to for them to verify that their bribe is having the intended effect, so they'd have to pay you on faith. And who is going to trust a politician who is accepting bribes? They could be taking them from both sides!
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
A possible improvement for this is to only publish the vote totals for measures that pass, not for measures that fail. Then if a measure the lobbyists wanted fails, they have no idea who to blame, but the public always knows who was responsible for a change to the law. This could be further improved by displaying the live vote total during the vote and allowing anyone to change their vote until no votes have changed for at least 60 seconds. That way anyone can see if a measure would pass even without their vote and then change from no to yes if they don't want lobbyists to see that they would have been against it.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  I'm quite intrigued by this.

specialist 5y ago

I've also heard this was an unanticipated consequence of increased transparency. I'm not ready to give up my faith in the wisdom "the solution to democracy's problems is more democracy". But do try to be mindful that there's always tradeoffs.

jimkleiber 5y ago
> "the solution to democracy's problems is more democracy" By democracy, do you mean direct democracy, representative democracy, both, or neither?
- specialist 5y ago
  David Graeber style participatory democracy. Put decision making closest to the people impacted. Doesn't scale. Which is a feature, not a bug.
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    If it doesn't scale, what would be the largest size it would work at, and then how to resolve conflict amongst those groups?
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
The other problem with this is that the existing votes are already choreographed for public consumption, so the existing transparency is an illusion. There was a bill earlier this year to expand police funding. After a year of "defund the police" from AOC et al, it turned out that if she would have voted against it, it would have actually defeated the bill. So instead she voted "present" and the bill passed. Most people aren't going to notice that, but that was equivalent to voting yes. And if her vote wasn't actually necessary to pass the bill, she'd then have been able to vote no specifically because it wouldn't change the outcome, even though as we know she would flip when it mattered. That happens on a regular basis too but in those cases it's undetectable.

ngcc_hk 5y ago

One devil can the others. Who watch the agent behind close doors.

jimkleiber 5y ago
Hmm? I'm not sure what you meant, could you rephrase?

insulanus 5y ago

That seems like a very real effect, but the votes need to be disclosed after they occur. Otherwise, the lobbyists have even more power, because the committee has an incentive to collude with the lobbyists, if their individual votes are not known, and they accept bribes. (I agree that having their votes be unknown helps if they do not accept bribes). The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> The only foolproof solution is to remove power from the lobbyists. How do you do this though? Suppose Facebook wants to gut privacy rules. They control which news stories get prioritized for their users. They express their policy preference in public, then penalize politicians who cross them. Even if politicians pay no attention to this, the ones who cross them are more likely to lose their seats. Assuming politicians aren't too oblivious to notice it, they comply to avoid that, without Facebook ever explicitly threatening them. The fact that Facebook can send someone into Washington to tell the politicians what they want in person instead of publishing it on their website doesn't really change the math, does it?
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  Yes it's hard to stop people from speaking and intimidating. That's why I almost see an elegance in this solution: if FB and other corps don't know who is contributing which part to a bill and they only get to look at the final answer, it's harder to know who to intimidate and who to blame. In other words, it's believing that politicians are being intimidated to decide in one direction or another and trying to give them cover to make more sound decisions.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Right. Someone comes in to bribe you, you take their money, you go vote against them anyway. Then when they come to you to object, you can shrug and say it must have been someone else. There is no way to for them to verify that their bribe is having the intended effect, so they'd have to pay you on faith. And who is going to trust a politician who is accepting bribes? They could be taking them from both sides!

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

A possible improvement for this is to only publish the vote totals for measures that pass, not for measures that fail. Then if a measure the lobbyists wanted fails, they have no idea who to blame, but the public always knows who was responsible for a change to the law. This could be further improved by displaying the live vote total during the vote and allowing anyone to change their vote until no votes have changed for at least 60 seconds. That way anyone can see if a measure would pass even without their vote and then change from no to yes if they don't want lobbyists to see that they would have been against it.

jimkleiber 5y ago
I'm quite intrigued by this.