“The first 2000 names in the phonebook”

Posted by Marc Hodak on February 27, 2008 under Revealed preference | 3 Comments to Read

That comes from a famous quote by the recently departed William F. Buckley, Jr. The full quote was, “I’d rather be governed by the first 2000 names in the Boston phone book than by the dons of Harvard.”

Buckley was speaking to the leftist bias of Harvard’s faculty, but I have always preferred to repeat that quote, at least the first part, as a paean to randomness. In particular, I believe that a degree of randomness in who governs us would be a good thing–I would like to see legislators selected by lot, much as we select jurors.

Selecting legislators by lot would have various benefits:

– It would eliminate the rampant corruption of the legislature. I’m not taking about a congress-critter taking bribes on the sly to urge on some bill. I’m talking about the wholesale, routine purchase, or at least rental of legislators by their big money supporters. Legislators need campaign contributions. They can’t get elected without them. Therefore, they need to do what it takes to get those contributions, and what it takes is responsiveness to the concerns of the contributors.

– It would undercut the rationale for so much government spending. Most of those contributors want the government to do something for them. What kind of an ingrate would take a contributor’s money–cash they use to get elected–and then deny that contributor something they want from the government? A one-term ingrate. The economics of the market for political power is the same as other markets in that money talks, bullshit walks.

– It would end the extortion of citizens by the legislature. Most of those contributors who aren’t trying to get the government to do something for them are trying to keep the government from doing something to them. Legislators, especially powerful committee heads, are keenly aware of the power they wield, and they know how to use that power. In fact, they have little choice. Nature abhors a vacuum, worst of all a power vacuum. Whoever has the power to shake down moneyed interests stands to gain from using it. If they won’t, someone else will.

– It will eliminate the excuse to undermine our free speech and other civil rights. The reason we haven’t been able to stop money from corrupting our legislature is partly because so much is at stake, but also because campaign contributions are a protected form of speech. Limiting that speech endangers some of our bedrock liberties. Eliminate campaigns and you eliminate the need for campaign funding, and the need for any restrictions on campaign funding. Voila, more liberty.

– No more gerrymandering. Most people have a vague idea of how thoroughly corrupted the election process has become. While civic idealists trumpet the virtue of voting, most people instinctively know that they don’t choose their congressmen–their congressmen have chosen them, through the re-districting process. In my urb, there is no point having anything but a Democratic candidate. I didn’t choose her; the party bosses did that for me. Unless pictures come out in the week before election of her blowing a mule, this one has been decided. Even then, the election might still be close.

I know this modest proposal is far from perfect. The 25th guy in the Boston phone book might be a complete moron–I mean worse than the kind of people that typically get elected. Some of these people may not be rational, or even sociable. At least people who are elected are liked by some number of citizens.

There are those that might be concerned that Ma Kettle, Joe Sixpack, Don Ho, et. al might be too untrained and diverse to get much done. I think that’s a feature, not a bug. I just don’t think we are suffering from a dearth of laws, or that we just can’t live without more of them every single term.

Nevertheless, I think the random representatives would get stuff done. Having sat on a jury, I know that the average person is generally reasonable, especially in situations demanding group deliberation. If anything, too many people are willing to go along to get along. But, on the whole, I have found random juries (albeit with some judicial screening) to be conscientious, conservative, and reasonable.

I think it’s worth an experiment. Some town, or county perhaps, can try this before it gets promoted to the state or federal level. I think it would energize the citizenship of the place that adopted it. Let’s do it for Bill B., God bless him.