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LorenPechtel 13 hours ago  [ - ]

Yikes, no! Just look at the initiatives that get on the ballot. Most have serious failings of understanding how the system works.

meatmanek 12 hours ago  [ - ]

Ballot propositions have a number of shortcomings that sortition-based legislatures won't necessarily fall into:

   - Most people filling out their ballots aren't spending very much time on each prop -- they'll typically either vote based on their gut reaction to the title of the prop,  follow a voter guide from an advocacy group they want to align with, or just vote based on whose advertising campaign was most influential.
   - Ballot props, at least in CA, are pretty much directly pay-to-play. There's a price tag for getting a prop onto the ballot, because signature gathering companies charge per signature. (Though at least in SF, conservative ballot props cost more per signature because there aren't as many conservatives to sign. This implies there's _some_ correlation between the cost and the popularity of a particular proposition.)
   - Ballot props are both high-latency and low-bandwidth. Coupled with the fact that they often cannot be overridden except by another ballot prop, and we're basically stuck with any flaw in the bill that passes (unless it's egregious enough that someone's willing to foot the bill for another round of signature gathering and advertising, which will cost about as much as it did for the original bill.)
   - Ballot props don't go through several rounds of amendment before being passed, nor do they really have any debate; there's just a single round of "should this be on the ballot" followed by a single round of "should this be law". This means flawed bills are more likely to end up on the ballot. Because of the high latency mentioned above, voters are often stuck with a choice between a bad solution and no solution to whatever problem the ballot prop is trying to solve.
If we assume it works sorta like jury duty, a sortition-based legislator would have their schedule forcibly cleared, so they'd have all day to think about laws. (Presumably for some sufficiently-long term, like 6mo to 2yr.) Campaign finance-based lobbying (i.e. legalized bribery) would cease to exist, though you'd definitely still have paid lobbyists -- people who are good at influencing the members of the legislature. Bribery would almost certainly happen, but at least it would be illegal so hopefully less common than it is now. The legislature could still have committees and debates and proposed amendments, allowing for refinement of bills before they make it to a vote.
xboxnolifes 10 hours ago  [ - ]

Maybe more people would have understanding of how the system works in such a system.

specialist 9 hours ago  [ - ]

Though "participatory democracy" sounds like "direct democracy", they are distinct.

]Further, by eliding deliberation, the initiative process is the worst kind of direct democracy. Except for mob rule, of course.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy

The OP narrowly focuses on the calculus (?) of how randomly choosing reps actually promotes meritocracy.

This wiki article is a good overview of the whole burrito.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens'_assembly