[Sosfbay-discuss] Citizen Assemby reforms

[Gerry Gras]

A group of citizens randomly chosen make reform proposal:
proportional representation.

Gerry


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In Canada, regular folks are put to work on reforms
By Steven Hill
San Jose Mercury News
Wed, Nov. 16, 2005
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/13180228.htm

Despite voters rejecting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempts
to end-run the Legislature, that does not mean voters don't want
change. California's political leaders must try to pick up the
pieces of what is left of state politics. The challenges are
daunting, particularly because both the governor and Legislature
have lost so much credibility.

The question is: How do we move forward? One of the solutions may
lie across the border in Canada. It's called a Citizens' Assembly,
and it was on display last year in the province of British Columbia.
The government there turned over to the people the task of basic
political reform, and by doing so took the partisanship out of the
process, something California badly needs.

Here's how it worked: The government randomly selected 160 average
citizens to participate in the Citizens' Assembly, like selecting
a jury pool. The Assembly had 80 women and 80 men from all of the
province's 79 electoral districts. It was an independent,
non-partisan body charged with a particular focus: to examine
British Columbia's electoral system, and how their winner-take-all
system was performing in determining who got elected to the
Legislature.

This effort was unique. Often such task forces are dominated by
the usual political insiders or good-government activists. Nowhere
in the world had randomly selected citizens with no history of
interest in electoral reform been so empowered to shape major
proposals. Yet the work of the Assembly was unanimously endorsed
by the political parties in the Legislature and community leaders.

The Assembly's tenure was divided into three phases: Learning
about reform, January-March 2004; public hearings, May-June; and
deliberations, September-November. They met on weekends, their
expenses and a small per diem paid for by the government. They
were visited by top experts from all political perspectives who
gave them the benefit of their knowledge and analysis.

The Assembly delivered a final report in December 2004. It voted
146-7 to toss out its longtime winner-take-all, single-seat
district electoral system and replace it with a proportional
representation system. ``This really is power to the people,''
enthused Jack Blaney, the chair of the Citizens' Assembly.

The Assembly's proposal was submitted by the legislature directly
to the voters in a referendum last May. Because the Citizens'
Assembly was composed of average citizens, their recommendation
had tremendous legitimacy with the public. A robust 58 percent of
voters supported the measure.

The Citizens' Assembly in British Columbia focused on the
electoral system, but the focus just as well could have been on
other aspects of the political system. In California, a Citizens
Assembly could focus on redistricting reform or campaign finance
reform; or reforming our broken primary system and the electoral
system.

The Citizens' Assembly solves a real dilemma: How do we enact
meaningful political reform, which California so badly needs,
when both the governor and the Legislature have conflicts of
interest that induce them to manipulate the rules in their favor?

Citizens' Assemblies could be important vehicles for modernizing
our political system because trust is placed in average citizens
who have more credibility than the political class. If you truly
believe in democracy, that's where trust belongs.

In the mid-1990s, a California Constitutional Revision Commission
deliberated on some of these fundamental issues, but it was too
timid and politically weak to enact change. The Citizens' Assembly
points the direction that Schwarzenegger and Democrats in the
Legislature should lead. The governor opened the debate with
redistricting reform, but now is the time to inject fairness and
non-partisanship into state politics. What better way than by
establishing a Citizens' Assembly that empowers average citizens
to decide what political reform is best for California?


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STEVEN HILL is an Irvine senior fellow with the New America Foundation and
author of ``Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All
Politics'' (www.fixingelections.com). To find out more about British
Columbia's Citizens' Assembly, visit www.citizensassembly.bc.ca