Would You Ask Turkeys To Mandate Thanksgiving?

Abstract

PAPER #1: The Dismal Politics of Legislative Transparency The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prevents legislators from infringing on the freedom of the press. But, of necessity, legislators have been granted monopoly control of legislative information systems, including parliamentary procedure and roll call votes. New information technology is revolutionizing the economics of legislative information systems. But elected officials have a conflict of interest in using those new technologies to enhance democratic accountability when that might conflict with their own re-election interests. This paper looks at the online accessibility of roll call votes by legislator in 126 legislative branches: the 2 branches of Congress, the 99 branches in the 50 U.S. states, and the 25 branches (city councils) in the 25 largest U.S. cities. It concludes that legislators have a conflict of interest and act on it in making roll call votes accessible. Moreover, this particular conflict of interest is merely the tip of the iceberg of a greater incentive problem elected officials have in designing legislative information systems to make themselves more democratically accountable. Legislative information systems are a critical foundation of democratic media systems. Strengthening them should therefore be of concern to anyone interested in strengthening the mass media and democracy. PAPER #2: Using Citizens Assemblies to Reform the Process of Democratic Reform The Framers of the U.S. Constitution believed that to preserve and enhance democracy vertical accountability (elections) needed to be supplemented by horizontal accountability (checks and balances). They built strong interbranch horizontal accountability mechanisms into the Constitution (e.g., separating the legislative, executive, and judicial functions of government into separate government branches) but were weak on intrabranch horizontal accountability mechanisms. In particular, incumbent legislators were given control over key democratic institutions of government, including district boundaries, campaign finance, and legislative information systems. This created a conflict of interest because incumbents had an incentive to design democratic institutions to enhance their own re-election rather than democracy. This paper looks at three intrabranch horizontal accountability mechanisms: direct democracy, independent commissions, and citizens assemblies. Using case studies from British Columbia and Ontario, it focuses on citizens assemblies as a promising but institutionally immature horizontal accountability mechanism. It concludes that citizens assemblies have the potential to become the gold standard of intrabranch horizontal accountability mechanisms but that their price tag to be done well is similarly rich, thus restricting their practical usage.