Today we have a very special guest… Ian Troesoyer of Sortition USA came by the Let’s Make Them Pay Studios to talk about sortition, democracy by lottery. Ian is a content creator, activist, nurse practitioner, epidemiologist, and expert on sortition. We dive into the deep end discussing the pros and cons of replacing our electoral system with randomly selected representatives using citizen assemblies, an idea whose time has come. Topics covered include why elections are inherently aristocratic, how sortition neutralizes money and careers in politics, sortition success stories, and how random selection could even be applied in the judicial system and workplaces. It was an excellent discussion I really think you’ll enjoy…
Some Brief Show Notes:
Here are Ian’s social media links:
https://www.tiktok.com/@sortitionusa
https://www.instagram.com/sortitionusa/
https://substack.com/@iantroesoyer
https://www.youtube.com/@SortitionUSA
Here is a link to Gillens and Page’s groundbreaking study showing how little impact the American public have on policy, titled Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens:
Here is a link to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History episode on sortition called Powerball Revolution, Season 5 episode 3:
https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-powerball-revolution
Here is a link to Terry Bouricius’s free book on sortition Democracy Without Politicians:
https://democracywithoutpoliticians.org
Here is a link to Sortition USA’s membership page::
https://sortitionusa.org/members
Here is a link to C.L.R. James’s 1956 essay Every Cook Can Govern:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1956/06/every-cook.htm
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Scott Bennett (00:00)
Okie doke. Can you give me a mic check?
Ian Troesoyer (00:02)
Mic check one two other
Scott Bennett (00:05)
Give me
Ian Troesoyer (00:05)
one. Mic check one two check check check check check.
Scott Bennett (00:14)
Welcome to the Let’s Make Them Pay podcast. I am your host, Scott Bennett. And today we have a very special guest, Ian Troesoyer. Okay. I want to make sure I got that pronunciation correct. You will frequently see him posting on Substack, TikTok, Instagram with the Sortition USA organization. Ian is an activist, a nurse practitioner, and an epidemiologist here in Chicago for a conference. He also is something of an expert on sortition.
Which we’re going to be talking about today, an increasingly hot topic. Ian, welcome. Thank you for making your way to the Let’s Make Them Pay Studios.
Ian Troesoyer (00:50)
Hey Scott, thanks so much for having me.
Scott Bennett (00:52)
It’s my pleasure. So, first question’s an easy one. What is sortition? How do you describe it to people who aren’t familiar with this?
Ian Troesoyer (01:00)
Yeah, great question. So sortition means taking representative random samples of regular people and letting them take short turns making political decisions. And it’s got a really long history. you know, despite what many people have heard like in history class, Athenian democracy democracy actually use sortition rather than direct democracy. And I would say like the way to think about sortition is it’s a scaling mechanism that gets like a dunbar number level of people in a room so they can like deliberate.
and like learn from each other and also like listen to experts so that they can be an a representative and an informed group when they’re making political decisions.
Scott Bennett (01:38)
Yeah, I love it. And you mentioned Athens. I mean, that’s how old this idea is. It goes way back. It’s not any newfangled thing. and we’re able to do it now with more accuracy, I guess, ‘cause our refined data sets and what have you.
Ian Troesoyer (01:53)
Right. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. Like, so you mentioned I’m a an epidemiologist, and Athens kind of used like a stratified sampling method. Like so they had like different geographic tribes, and then they would select a certain number of people from each of those geographic tribes. So they, you know, there’s all sorts of problems with Athenian democracy. They they don’t include women, they have slaves, so I’m not holding Athens up as an example, but they have some impressive cultural achievements, and one of them
Is their democracy and they they achieved that through sortition. And even back then, even though they didn’t really have a theory of like representative random sampling, they were still using a crude form of stratified sampling, which is really cool.
Scott Bennett (02:32)
Really cool. I love that. okay. Now, in a recent post, you made a point that elections are inherently aristocratic. Right. this might surprise some people who are used to growing up hearing that democracy elections are the essence of democracy. Yeah. Now, why do you say that? What what makes you say that? What’s the connection? Why is there the connection between elections and democracy wrong in some
Ian Troesoyer (02:57)
Yeah, great question. I think first it’s good to just like define what do we mean by aristocracy aristocracy and what do we mean by democracy. Sure. so if we look at the etymology of those words, aristocracy, eris or aristoi would be best, and crassi is like rule, right? So aristocracy is rule by the best, and democracy or the demos would be the common people. So democracy is ruled by the common people. for an aristocracy.
You know, if you kind of think about the mechanism of elections, they are intended to select the best. You know, the when a lot of people, when they hear about sortition, they they bring up this concern like, what if you select an idiot or like someone with a disability or like you know, all sorts of concerns. And and that’s because elections are inherently aristocratic. You’re trying to select someone who’s the best representative of the community to speak on behalf of the community. Right. But that aristocratic mechanism.
introduces bias that is unavoidable, right? So me thinking as an epidemiologist, like if we just think about what the best want, that’s gonna have all sorts of like cultural determinants about who’s going to filter up into that best category. Yeah. Right. So you know prior to the 20th century, that would have included essentially no women, essentially no people of color. Right. And that doesn’t mean anything about their inherent ability. It means about all this bullshit that culture lays on top of people’s
like level of achievement. and so and all all of those things they influence like the founding fathers, they wanted a natural aristocracy. Thomas Jefferson wrote that that’s what he he was his goal was, right? They wanted like instead of the like the hereditary aristocracy of Europe, they wanted like the people that were genetically or you know had the best birth or background. But
We know that in retrospect, a lot of that is bullshit. There’s like so much of people’s potential that is determined by their circumstance in life. Yeah. so when we just select, when we have an aristocratic mechanism, we are going to entrench privilege. and and like there’s no there’s no method out there that can really say, like, we are truly meritocratic. We’ve filtered out all of the cultural factors, we’re just getting like this person’s potential, they’re
Their moral goodness, their representative of the community is bullshit, right? Yeah. Culture is too complex. Yeah. And so when you have these mechanisms that are selecting for the best, which elections, by definition, that’s what they’re doing. They’re, they, you are like election and elite, they, they share a historical root word as well. They they are meant to elevate the best.
Scott Bennett (05:40)
Yeah. I I I just thought of that today I was listening to somebody speak and they said they made reference to the elect, which is you know, suppose just like that, the best, the elect, the you know, and so there’s the same word. And and I think that this was something that was understood perhaps two two thousand years ago by the Athenians in a way that has been completely lost to the modern day.
Ian Troesoyer (06:05)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean that’s a good point too. So prior to really like the eighteen the mid eighteen hundreds, elections were not considered democratic. Right. during, you know, if you read the founder’s writing, they they were against democracy. And so why if if if they were against democracy, why did they include elections so heavily in the governing system that they designed? Right. It’s because they didn’t think elections were democratic. Right. They Right. Yeah. Like
All all of these philosophers like before and around the time of the founders. So like Aristotle, Montesquieu, Rousseau, they all have these quotes where they basically say, if you want to get an aristocracy or an oligarchy, use elections. And and if you want to get a democracy, use sortition. Right. All all of these thinkers are saying, like, yeah, if you want to get a democracy, you use random sampling. Yeah.
Scott Bennett (06:56)
It’s so crazy to me that this has just been lost to time and now people have this and I can’t help but feel it’s like it’s intentional, this blurring of the lines to where, you know, people can’t imagine democracy without elections.
Ian Troesoyer (07:10)
Yeah, yeah. I mean I think that is I mean, for the sortition movement, that’s something that we need to overcome. and I mean I I think don’t get me wrong, like elections are totally superior to dictatorships. Like, I mean, being able to swap out teams of elites has benefits. and and we certainly I’m not saying necessarily that there’s like always misalignment, but we know class interest makes a difference for a lot of different issues. Yeah.
There’s that famous study by a Gillins and Page published in 2014 where they looked at like what average Americans want and then like policy outcomes, right? And they found that there is a near zero, non-statistically significant correlation between what regular people want and what actually ends up happening. The the things that get passed that we like are basically passed because large institutional donors and rich people also like them. Right. Where we diverge with the interests of those people, we essentially never get what we want. Yeah.
Scott Bennett (08:09)
Yeah, I love I I love that Gillens and Page study. I’ve I’ve done posts about it in the past also. And yeah, that you can have eighty percent, ninety percent agreement amongst the public and yet still get no traction whatsoever in the legislature.
Ian Troesoyer (08:25)
And that would basically empirically prove that we do not live in a democracy. Right.
Scott Bennett (08:29)
Well exactly. I mean, who supports so many of the things that are going on in our government right now?
Ian Troesoyer (08:34)
Right, right.
Scott Bennett (08:36)
this this kind of leads into another question I have. Are you a fan at all of Malcolm Gladwell and his show Revisionist History? Have you seen the ep or listened to the episode? Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (08:47)
I I have
so that like let me I’m gonna do a little sidetrack and talk about how I got into sortition. sure. Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast Yes
Scott Bennett (08:55)
that was gonna be one of my questions. So please That was like that was what sparked your interest. Okay.
Ian Troesoyer (09:03)
like like you mentioned I work in public health. sometimes I have testified in front of the legislature on behalf of the health department where I work. I you know I understand like when you’re testifying in front of a legislative committee.
They have interests that like are not there in the room, like their primary voters that they are ultimately answerable to. Right. And so coming in as like an expert witness on a certain piece of legislation, their minds may have already been made up. Right. And that’s like I and so I was running into this issue where I felt like, yeah, there’s some really good, there’s really good evidence behind this policy. And I and if I can just like convince them that this is a good idea, we’ll we’ll it’ll pass. And then we’ll save money, it’ll be a good thing, right? Right.
but that’s not the case. And so I like I was very interested in democracy reform. And and so initially was thinking like, okay, rank choice voting. Yeah. And then I got intro introduced by to approval voting by Utah Approves. Shout out to Utah Approves. I think there’s a lot of hardworking, dedicated people in Utah. And then like Condorcet methods, star methods, and like ultimately, my brother in law, Chris, hey Chris, said, like, hey, have you heard about sortition? And he heard about it from this Malcolm Gladwell podcast. Yeah.
And then it was like a light bulb went off. It was like, my God. Like, you know, especially having like a background in population science and like statistics, epidemiology. Excellent. It was like the most accurate way we have to understand a population is representative random sampling. And and so why would we not apply that to democracy?
Scott Bennett (10:33)
Makes sense to me. Yeah. So some things that came out in that episode, I would highly recommend it. The Powerball Revolution. look it up wherever you find podcasts. They kind of try to create some exam takes do some examples of sortition. And I I love this part, which they found that the people that they expected to do really well in these sortition kind of exercises and in the in when they would get people together, the ones that were charismatic and seemed like natural leaders.
weren’t necessarily the most valuable players when it came to coming to decisions. Right. and it kind of made it kind of underscored this assumption that we have that, you know, because we’re so into elections that, well, we we gotta pick the most charismatic guy or the guy who, you know, has the most experience and this or that. Right. but I think what we’re really doing is sorting for something entirely different that that people don’t even realize. Is a as you mentioned, primaries, we have
basically a silent primary that happens, a money primary that happens before anybody even is announced as a contender.
Ian Troesoyer (11:39)
Totally.
Scott Bennett (11:40)
And so what we’re really sorting for is the ability to fundraise. That that’s your number one job as a legislator is to always be fundraising. And
Ian Troesoyer (11:49)
Yeah, totally.
Scott Bennett (11:50)
so I mean, can you kind of draw out for us a little bit like the ways that sortition neutralizes the money factor?
Ian Troesoyer (11:59)
Yeah, I mean, the devil is always in the details, right? When people first hear about this policy, they know they raise a lot of good concerns and questions. And so I I don’t want to minimize those things. what the sortition movement is arguing for is like well-designed sortition processes where we’re really trying to think about democratic accuracy. There are stupid ways to do this, just like there are stupid ways to do elections, right? Yeah. as far as like neutralizing money, so
So so much of like the money pathway in politics is facilitated by elections. right. If you if you’re somebody with great policy ideas, you need the more money you have, the more free time you have, the more effective your campaigning is going to be. Yeah. And so you know, there’s a good reason that working people, people with demanding caregiving responsibilities, are drastically underrepresented in in in politics, right? Right.
There was some analysis, I can’t remember the university that published it, that found like only 2% of state legislators come from the working class. And they defined working class in a slightly problematic way, but still, like that’s that I mean, the working class is the majority. And it’s insane to think about okay, there’s a really significant cultural bias and class bias that goes into selecting politicians. And even if people, even if even if the politicians are not
like specifically aware of it or they’re just, you know, they’re trying to do their best, that’s still going to influence the types of policy that they have.
Scott Bennett (13:25)
Absolutely.
Ian Troesoyer (13:25)
Because we’re all human, we all have limited perspective. And so if if everybody in the room is a landlord or mostly knows landlords rather than being a renter or mostly knowing renters. And you’re talking about like, okay, let’s let’s talk about renter landlord disputes, you’re going to hear a lot more like anecdotal information from people that like, yeah, there’s this renter that was terrible and trashed the place.
We need protect those landlords, right? rather than if you have a representative group like, my God, I could tell you some bad landlord stories like
Scott Bennett (13:56)
Or just having one or two people who are actually renters in the room makes such a difference.
Ian Troesoyer (14:01)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Bennett (14:03)
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So sortition also dismantles the idea of having a career in politics. is it possible in your view that it could also disable lobbying and foreign influence or like gerrymanding gerrymandering, for example, would be unnecessary? Are there any other big advantages that I’m missing here?
Ian Troesoyer (14:45)
Yeah, I I think so gerrymandering is a good one. I I so with gerrymandering, we’re kind of thinking about okay, what’s a geographic district that we’re gonna have a single representative go to like a a governing body? Yeah. I and I and I you know I know that there’s lots of like communists and socialists who believe in like a delegate scheme. I would caution against that strongly because even in like worker council delegate schemes, like the people who are going to be selected for those delegate roles are still going to be the articulate.
confident, socially dominant. Right. If if there is some privilege that exists within the society where this, you know, few future worker council delegate scheme exists, the privileged are going to be over, overrepresented in the governing body. And and and the pro like and and the the the answer to that is like always, well, you know, these people are going to be recallable. And and I understand that is that would totally be a benefit. But the the
problem is rational ignorance. And I think if you’re gonna understand sortition, like that is like the fundamental problem that sortition solves. What rational ignorance means is that it is not rational for someone to spend a lot of time becoming informed. Right. If their input on the outcome is so small. Right. Right. Right. So if if I’m a someone it like let’s say I’m so just for our current environment, if I’m like one vote among a million people or 330 million people or whatever, right?
I the the issues don’t get less complex, but my influence goes way down. Yeah. And so if I have to think about, okay, to become informed on this topic, I need to spend like six hours thinking about climate policy, right? And reading the legislation. What does this you know cap and trade mean or whatever I’m I’m doing, right? Right. It’s gonna take hours of my time. And the probability that my input changes the outcome is basically butt kiss, right? And so is is that six hours better spent like
Playing with my kids or getting a second job if I need money or whatever. So that rational ignorance thing is the thing that makes like informed democratic decision making really hard in like a delegate scheme. because you know, even if your delegates are out doing stuff, you still need to be researching what they’re doing to hold to effectively hold them accountable. You need to know what they’re doing and you need to know like whether those policies that they’re pursuing are a good idea or not. So the like the burden of of being informed, the epistemic burden.
doesn’t change with a delegate scheme. It gets it gets really hard, in fact. Yeah. And so and that’s the same struggle with direct democracy. Like I would say, for direct democracy, like a lot of people say when I post these videos, they say, well, everyone has a phone now and we’ve got like crypto. Like why why I mean we’ve we’ve got blockchain, right? Right. Why can’t everyone just vote on their phone? Right. And the and the true answer is that the limitation is was never technological technological. Right. The limitation is based on human attention.
and that’s not going away. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Bennett (17:40)
Yeah, talking about representation, you know, think thinking about how many members of our national legislature are millionaires, right? And and this is one thing that I love most about sortition is that millionaires make up a small fraction of our actual society, right? But make up a huge proportion of our legislature. And this is a way to suddenly shut them, you know, like, well, okay, less than one percent of the American population is a millionaire or more or
a at least has two million dollars to be in the top one percent of wealth. But sortition would be like, Okay, well they’re one percent of the population, so they can be about one percent of the legislature in this case.
Ian Troesoyer (18:21)
Exactly. Yeah. Right. And I and I I know I am like sympathetic to people who say like, well, we should just like exclude all millionaires. But honestly, I say like no exclusions. Like the 1% is 1%. Right. Like there those people should still get a say. I I mean, fundamentally I think that every human being should be politically equal. Yeah. And and so I I you know and and I think there’s lots of you know, there’s other people that, you know, say like, well, what sort of exclusions do you need for a sortition body?
you know, shouldn’t I mean you really don’t want idiots or extremists in there. And I I would say, no, actually you want a representative, you know, a rep a good representation of the population. Yeah. There are idiots and extremists among us. Right. And the it’s okay for them to be in the room where they disagree with the consensus, they’re gonna be overruled. But even having them present is is useful because then the group understands we have to deal with perspectives like this. We have to account for this person. Right.
In society. And I think that improves decision making. Yeah. Because it’s not really the competence of the individual that matters. It’s like the competence of the group. Right. And if they have some if they’re face to face with like someone who’s a political extremist, then that helps the group anticipate like how is this policy going to be received by this particular group in society? Sure. Sure.
Scott Bennett (19:38)
Yeah, that’s that’s interesting. okay, so one other concern that I hear in the comment section, which you you kind of mentioned accountability. Like what what kind of accountability structures are there for a sortition system?
Ian Troesoyer (19:51)
Yeah, good question. So I think one way to think about accountability is like, can we punish someone for doing something we don’t like? and and your ability to punish your elected representatives is really minuscule. Yeah. you know, the even though like Congress has, you know, they they’ve been in the red for unfavorability ratings for decades, right?
Scott Bennett (20:13)
I
think yeah, something around fourteen percent approval rating for the House of Representatives.
Ian Troesoyer (20:18)
Right, right. But but we know incumbents have a huge advantage. Like
Scott Bennett (20:21)
ninety percent reelection rate. Right. Like there’s your disconnect in democracy right there.
Ian Troesoyer (20:25)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Totally. So, like, first of all, you’re not holding politicians accountable. Right. I mean, the the the few cases where that’s happening, like you’re you don’t necessarily know that you’re trading it out for someone better. The the main sk the thing that you’re electing is like mostly a performative person. I mean, I’m not saying they don’t have other skills, but like performance is the primary skill that’s necessary to become a politician. Yeah. Not true expertise, not more c moral character, but be the be the ability to put on a good show. Sure.
the and hopefully they have moral character and true expertise, but those aren’t guaranteed. You know, the the performance is enough to get someone elected. Yeah. To to go back to like how does sortition keep people accountable? I would say it’s the difference between a principal agent problem and like actually having like direct like principal control over an issue. So a principal agent problem means like you have to keep someone accountable because they’re not like you, right? you have someone like, for example,
Like a lawyer is your agent and you and you you don’t maybe know enough to like say, are they really doing my best? You know, like when they’re charging me for money, are they really doing my my will? whereas like a if you if you the principal are like representing yourself, yes, it might introduce like competence problems, but the accountability like mechanism is totally changed because it’s not a principal agent problem. It’s like the real communities that are being affected by that policy are in the room. Right. there’s always a risk for corruption.
And and there we can talk about that some more later too. But
Scott Bennett (21:55)
Yeah, that was gonna be my next question. Okay. That’s something that people are always worried about. And I think it’s because our current system is so obviously corrupted. So, you know, and and so many of our politicians are obviously corrupt and d paid for, you know, take money for influence and and you know, you look at the APAC situation. I mean, there’s so much money influence happening in our system. So, like how do how would a sortition system
take measures to prevent corruption of that nature.
Ian Troesoyer (22:26)
Yeah, great question. So devil’s always in the details, right? There are stupid ways to do sortition. but I think it’s actually much easier to prevent corruption with sortition. and some of that is due to the short terms and the random selection. So for nerds who are into game theory, right? like it’s the difference between like the repeated prisoner’s dilemma or the single prisoner’s dilemma. So prisoner’s dilemma is this famous like game theory game.
Where you basically are having like two different prisoners rat themselves out, right? And in big simulations, like the repeated prisoner’s dilemma, the dominant strategy ends up being cooperating, like working together. And in this case, working together means corruption, like you working together with someone who’s trying to corrupt you and like doing a little tit for tat, like in the back, right? Yeah. in a single prisoner’s dilemma.
It’s really hard to establish trust. And so the dominant strategy in a single prisoner’s dilemma where you can’t establish, like, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. The dominant strategy is to defect and like to wrap the personnel. And if we think about this more concretely, right? So let’s say we’ve got a jury, right? And and someone comes to like a juror with a bribe. that bribe has to be laid out transparently and from the beginning, basically. They can’t be like, you know.
I heard you’re running for reelection, right? Would you I I you I heard you might get a primary challenger. Do you want some help with that? Or you know, I yeah, it seemed like a tough election this year. Yeah. Right. You it can’t be subtle. It’s gotta be like, I will pay you fifty thousand dollars for you to vote this way. Right. And that makes that bribe easier to catch and easier to report. Mm-hmm. another thing like we can do with jurors is we can just like tell people, Hey, this is juror orientation. we are going to have federal agents undercover attempting to bribe you. If you report them, you’ll get a a little bonus.
And if you if you don’t report them, you’re going to prison. Wow. Or whatever. Like, yeah.
Scott Bennett (24:23)
Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (24:26)
So I mean like there are ways to to make it clearly in someone’s best interest to report when s people approach them for bribes. Sure. And like I would say, you know, the the American jury system, the American like justice system has serious problems. But I think the proof is in the pudding that like indicted corporations and indicted politicians tend to avoid jury trials like the plague.
Right. If you think about like where the Trump administration has lost, it’s been in the juries. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Bennett (24:55)
Now, I I do liked the the jury example, but there are some differences between how sortition works and how a jury in a trial works. and so people always bring up that they have voir dear in a in a jury. And yeah. Would there be anything like that to eliminate people in sortition, do you think?
Ian Troesoyer (25:14)
I my strong preference would be no. And yeah, like I think so voir dear is like where the attorneys can like pick someone out and say, nah, you know, this this person, this person’s gonna be biased against the defense or whatever, right? Yeah. And I I think that has classically and empirically been a a tool for racism within the justice system as well as classism and and other problems, right? Even though they’re not technically allowed to discriminate based on like race. I think there’s good empirical evidence that that still happens. Yeah.
so I would say no, no vor dir and of course like a twelve person for a like a criminal jury or like twenty five or whatever for a grand jury, like those are not representative samples. Right. juries are like a really weak form of sortition. Yeah. The the fact that they work as well as they do is a testament to like the underlying structure. Right. But they could be seriously improved. I think
Scott Bennett (26:04)
There’s a little bit of self selection, it’s the people who actually show up when they get the jury summons and f instead of just ignoring it, right?
Ian Troesoyer (26:11)
Totally.
Scott Bennett (26:12)
i is there is there usually like an opt in factor with sortition also?
Ian Troesoyer (26:16)
Yeah, I think that’s another good question, because that’s totally gonna be a weakness, especially early on in this movement. and this this movement is something that like exists out in the real world. Like there have been over a thousand real world citizens assemblies or civic assemblies that use sortition, usually to make advisory recommendations to like to a a political body that has real power, but sometimes like really having real power.
For those citizens’ assemblies, like the usual model is voluntary participation. And like as an epidemiologist, I know that introduces bias. We can account for that with stratified random sampling. So that we’re trying to like, okay, we know the population parameter is that there’s like this many people of color, there’s this many people in this economic class, there’s this many people who are, you know, identify as female or or whatever, right? And then and then we can like try to select a population, a sample population that’s gonna match.
This the the whole population. Yeah. But that’s definitely inferior to like true representative random sampling that would be mandatory. I’m gonna go into the weeds like it on me. Yeah. Okay, okay. Sorry. No. So I the design that I really like is Terry Boritius’s multi-body stortition. Okay. And for your viewers out there, he’s got a book that you can download for free.
this benefactor paid like twelve thousand dollars to the publisher so that we could like release this academic book and have anyone download it. So that’s awesome. but the book is called Democracy Without Politicians, and you can just find it on democracywithoutpoliticians.org. But basically the design is this: there’s like a dichotomy between like sortition bodies that develop proposals and sortition bodies that decide whether those proposals are actually like ratified and become law. And I think
That cognitive distinction is really important because like if you and I like sat in a room were randomly selected to design a policy on you know a tax policy or something, we are going to be biased in favor of our own creation, right? The personalities that’s that are in that room, we’ve hammered this out and sweated it out and we’re like, no, this is this is the thing, right? So we are probably not fit to judge our own handiwork. And so that’s why there’s this dichotomy to say, like, okay, we’re gonna have a voluntary sample of about a hundred people.
Like a small enough group that you can have all to all communication. And these people are gonna sit down, come up with a single policy proposal, and then and then they’ll, you know, just go, you know, go back to their regular lives. That policy then should go in front of like a shorter term mandatory body of like five hundred people that are just gonna like get a presentation of the pros and cons, be able to ask questions. The answers to those questions should like go into like the legislative record so that
Like people know, like, yeah, when we’re looking back at legislative intent, we can see they answered questions in this way, right? And that 500, you know, that group of 500 servers should be quasi-mandatory, kind of like a jury, but you’re thinking like a weekend or two to like hear the pros and cons and then vote it up or down. Yeah. and I I think that would be a good mix because like this group that designs policies, they’re gonna, you know, depending on the complexity of the policy, they might spend weeks, they might spend months.
This is this could disrupt someone’s life pretty significantly. but at the same time, you don’t want just voluntary participation because even though like people say, it’s it’s unjust to coerce someone or force someone to be a part of this, it’s also unjust to to pass stupid laws and force everyone to follow them.
Scott Bennett (29:47)
Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (29:47)
And so we want a representative sample that really represents the population. And the way that you get do that is basically with simple random sampling, ideally that’s like mandatory or quasi-mandatory.
Scott Bennett (29:58)
Yeah. But of course, you know, going back a little bit to the the corruption question is, you know, one thing that I I don’t think a lot of people appreciate is that you need well paid legislators. Right. Like one of the one of the things that they learned a long time ago is if you don’t pay legislators, then the only people who can afford to do it are the rich. Right. They’re the only ones who have the time and the money to go just look at the constitutional convention of seventeen eighty seven. Who could afford to take four months off?
and go live in Philadelphia and hammer this thing out. Only the slaveholders and George Washington, the richest man in the country, and you know, and Nepo babies like James Madison. Yep. so so you know paying legislators a decent amount of money, people are always like, it it seems intuitive, like, pay a minimum wage and then they’ll then they’ll care about our economic things. And it’s so misguided because you actually have to pay people a decent amount for their time. And and I think you could
With something like this you could easily, you know, if you have the the the purse, the government purse, then you could pay these people well.
Ian Troesoyer (31:02)
Yeah, exactly. And I I think you should peep pay people well. It should feel like an honor. And and I think there should be like accommodations for language barriers and disabilities and like probably provided child care. I like like I mentioned, I’m a nurse, nurse practitioner, and and so for me, like my patients aren’t just gonna disappear. So like having like locums coverage for me or locums coverage for people who have small businesses is basically like
Hire a temp worker to take my spot if I would to. I mean, I think those kinds of interventions would be really important if we actually want a pretty representative group for those voluntary samples.
Scott Bennett (31:40)
Right. Well and and how I mean, the proof is right there. Like two people, that would be the proof right there that that you know, that you actually have real people participating and you know, the government actually takes steps to facilitate that and make it happen. That it that’s all possible. Yeah. And people don’t seem to understand can’t imagine those things. Yeah. Because we don’t we have anything close to that these days.
Ian Troesoyer (32:01)
Yeah. And it’s funny, ancient Athens like dealt with that problem too, because initially the design was like, yeah, they didn’t necessarily pay people. Yeah. And so they had a bunch of like wealthy, idle old people that were randomly selected or, you know, volunteering for service. And then once they started paying people, they got much better participation.
Scott Bennett (32:18)
Right. Right. Right. I think I heard at one point that basically every male who was of age who could participate, you know, did at some point in their life. It’s the idea of to be ruled by, but also to take part in the ruling.
Ian Troesoyer (32:32)
Yeah. And to be clear, Athens definitely flawed, right?
Scott Bennett (32:36)
Slaveholding society, not great. Yeah. But but the a true, you know, it was as as Astra Taylor said in her book, you know, it was it wasn’t a it was an advance, you know, it was an advance for the people. And one of my favorite historians, political economists, Michael Parenti liked to say that democracy is an invention by the people of history to restrain the power of wealth. And so when you have actual democracy, you’re able to do that. Right. Yeah. I love that.
So can you give us some examples of of where this is working in the world and and how, you know, this that it’s actually cause I know I know this is a lot more popular outside of the United States. Yeah. That people are actually giving it a try in different countries around the world, in different places. it is happening here in the United States also. Can you talk first about gl any kind of global real world examples and then then some of the citizen assemblies that are happening here in the US?
Ian Troesoyer (33:31)
Yeah. so it seems like France is is kind of like the bleeding edge of this movement. Nice. The work of Helene Landemore is really impressive. France has had some really big citizens’ assemblies, like they had in response to the Yellow Vest movement, they had the Citizens Assembly on the Climate. so basically to back up for the Yellow Vest movement, President Macron passed, or you know, their their government passed a like a carbon tax, right?
And I’m in favor of carbon taxes, but the thing is, like without a land value tax, which is the other thing I’m really passionate about, basically you’re gonna punish people who have to like live in the suburbs and drive into urban areas for work. Right. So like the rich person that lives downtown, like they can just like hop on the metro and go wherever they need to. Carbon tax isn’t gonna affect them very much. Yeah. The people who are living like way the hell out in the boonies, like they’re gonna be feeling that that carbon tax. So
You know, this is my little plug that, like, if you’re gonna do a carbon tax, you should pair it with a land value tax, so you’re gonna compensate those people who live way the hell out in the boonies. But anyways, the Yellow Vest movement was like people rebelling against this carbon tax, which they saw as, you know, basically elitist, right? And the the way that that government dealt with that problem is they said, hey, we’ll convene a citizens’ assembly on the climate, and then you guys are gonna make the recommendations about how France should move forward with with the climate recommendations, right?
It’s really cool project. Unfortunately, the government filtered out like a lot of the recommendations. But as as for as far as people who are skeptical of like, do do regular people come up with good policies? Yeah, they do. Like you should check out that citizens assembly on the climate. so I mean that’s a really classic example to move more local. So my the I would say like
The only membership-based organization for sortition in the United States that I’m aware of is the one that I volunteer for, which is Sortition USA. Okay. and it’s free to join. if you want to contribute in any way, whether it’s time or money or just like saying, like, yeah, I think sortition is a cool idea. We would love to have you. So sortitionusa.org slash members.
Scott Bennett (35:36)
Sign up.
Ian Troesoyer (35:37)
Yeah. but anyways, like our we we have a shoestring budget. The vast majority of the work that we do is volunteer.
We have an executive director that we don’t pay well enough. Hey, Leonora. and but anyways, we we had a small grant program that we were able to give a couple thousand dollars to one of to a local sortition advocacy group in LA, Public Democracy LA, so PDLA. And those guys are awesome. They took like this really small microgrant and did a couple like mini demonstration assemblies, and then right like
Just before that, LA had like this crisis where we’re there were some like city councillors caught on a high hot mic saying like some really racist shit. Right. And and they they like activists there were able to use that crisis to basically say, we need city charter reform. And PDLA, our like local sortition group in LA, like they were able to get a civic assembly, a sortition selected civic assembly, like directly involved in that process. Yeah. There were like
Homeless people from LA that were helping to make recommendations to change LA city charter. And I don’t that’s like really goddamn cool, I think. All right,
Scott Bennett (36:48)
That is some real democracy happening. Right.
Ian Troesoyer (36:50)
that’s real democracy. So shout out to PDLA. Those guys are awesome. Yeah. And
Scott Bennett (36:55)
And we we met Max, he came and talked to us this week. Right. Yeah, give us some insight on his experience. It sounded phenomenal.
Ian Troesoyer (37:02)
Yeah,
really cool. So I mean, at this point, there have been like over a thousand citizens’ assemblies around the world. most of the ones in the United States have been advisory, but there are some cool exceptions. So like Michigan’s independent redistricting commission is like they use essentially a grand jury, which is like a sortition selected body, to redraw their district boundaries. And I I and like for me personally, I think the most important place to use sortition is like
writing the rules for our rulers. Like places where politicians have an inherent conflict of interest. Yeah. Like I don’t think anybody out there thinks that politicians should be drawing their own district boundaries. That is a stupid idea. Yeah. They’re they’re gonna try to rig the game.
Scott Bennett (37:42)
Totally commonplace though, everywhere in the country.
Ian Troesoyer (37:45)
But
Michigan, that it doesn’t happen. so there’s a grand jury that does that. And and I think it’s I mean, there’s always like pros and cons to real world implementations, but I think the Michigan Independence Independent Redistricting Commission is awesome. Yeah. the other real world example is like Oregon’s citizens initiative review body. Like what they do is they when they have citizens’ initiatives, they and this is like
On a case-by-case basis. So it doesn’t happen with every ballot initiative. But basically they have another grand jury-sized body, like 25 to 35 people, like review the ballot initiative and like just have regular people say, Yeah, I think this is good for regular people, or no, this is bad for regular people. I love ballot initiatives, but the trouble with them is like you need a lot of money to get them on the ballot most of the time. So either you’re looking for some beneficial class traders to help sponsor your ballot.
Scott Bennett (38:38)
Right, right.
Ian Troesoyer (38:39)
Or, you know, it’s like the way those policies are designed are not by the working class, not by common people. And so I think it’s it’s fair to have some uneasiness about some ballot initiatives. Sure. So to have that independent like review body that’s like regular people that get to hear the pros and cons, super useful.
Scott Bennett (38:58)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s fantastic. I love it. Hi, this is CK Morris, the author of The Shadow Family. If you like horror, action, comedy, if you enjoy skin crawling, gore-soaked mayhem, grab a copy of The Shadow Family and check it out for yourself. Buy your copy on Amazon today. So yeah, so we we already brought this up throughout the course of the conversation, but people in the comment section will always bring up idiocracy, which is a great movie, by the way. Yeah. But
But no trust in the common knowledge or the common abilities of the intelligence level of our our fellow citizens, I find. so this is reflect it reflected in concerns about actual democracy being mob rule. Do you have any anxiety about handing normal people power over their lives?
Ian Troesoyer (39:48)
I think we can look at historical examples of people having those exact c same concerns about handing power to women or people of color or unlanded individuals. And you know, I I think frankly, like those are all unfounded, right? Like our society didn’t suddenly collapse or crumble when we did those things. If anything, they got slightly better, right? and you know, that’s only slightly because that’s like the limitation of elections, basically.
so I would say, like, if when people say like, yeah, we can’t trust idiots, you know, to do this stuff, I would say no. Like the just thing to do is to empower people first. and this is a story that I like talked about on our social media, but like the the reintro like so we we talked about how sortition was like the way to do democracy prior to the US revolution and it was sort of forgotten about for a couple hundred years.
Scott Bennett (40:40)
Conveniently. Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (40:42)
the person who reintroduced it was CLR James, which is like this black historian and socialist. he like met Trotsky. He like he’s he’s a really cool guy. he wrote this like famous history called the Black Jacobins, which you should check out. but yeah, CLR James is the i because he was a historian, he was reading like histories of ancient Athens and then wrote this article called Every Cook Can Government. Yeah. And in that he said, like, hey.
Athens was like kind of kicking ass on this democracy front. And if we wanted like real democracy, like a a government where the working class was really empowered, we would use sortition. And so that’s like the reintroduction of sortition into modern society, as with CLR James. Fantastic.
Scott Bennett (41:26)
Fantastic.
Ian Troesoyer (41:26)
And and like he, you know, being like a descendant of slaves, someone who, like, I think he was born in the Caribbean, you know, so like a colonized place, he was used to these arguments from like
Colonizer nations basically saying, you know, we just need to wait and wait in those you know, we’re not they’re not quite ready for democracy. Let’s let’s wait until they’re educated enough or they’re they’re not ready to roll themselves. And and
Scott Bennett (41:51)
I
think they said for Haiti about two for two hundred years after their slave result.
Ian Troesoyer (41:55)
Revolt. Yeah. So, anyways, like just calling them on their bullshit and saying, no, empowerment should come first. Yeah. Like, and and the thing is, yes, empowerment is sort of like a sort of a gun to the head to society to say, like, yeah, you you should improve your education system, you should improve the healthcare system. So people’s living standard, because those people will be governing your country. Right. But it’s not ri it’s not about their inherent capacity. People do have the capacity to rule themselves, but empowerment should come first. You
Scott Bennett (42:22)
I agree.
Ian Troesoyer (42:23)
can’t wait until someone’s ready.
Who’s gonna determine when they’re ready? Right. Like, that’s some unjust bullshit.
Scott Bennett (42:30)
Yeah, I agree. And the are you familiar with supported decision making? They have this for disabled people. It’s kind of a process to make sure that the disabled person has a voice in what happens to them. Yeah. So I I imagine that you could have similar kind of accommodations.
Ian Troesoyer (42:46)
Yeah, I mean though like, so I don’t think there should be any restrictions. I think like even people with severe intellectual disabilities should be included in these bodies and should have a voice. Yeah. And you know, where where they disagree with the consensus, yes, they’re going to be overruled. But there are actually, I I would say there’s some really easy cake cases I could point to where including those people in the room is gonna actually make the decision making better. Yeah. So to to think about like, let’s say you have a searching body that is designing a transit system for a city.
And and there’s someone with a severe intellectual disability in the room. And having that person there, understanding the limitations that person works with is going to help improve the design of that transit system. Yeah. it’s not weakening decision making, it is improving decision making.
Scott Bennett (43:30)
Yeah. Great points. Great points. I appreciate that. especially as a father of a child with Down syndrome. You know, I I it’s so easy. you you see people, they just dismiss her or, you know, treat her like she’s not even in the room or treat her like an object. And, you know, that that always rankles me. So totally you know, I I love the idea of bringing everybody in. Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (43:52)
Yeah.
Scott Bennett (43:53)
Yeah. So much.
Ian Troesoyer (43:54)
If she has a trusted person that she wants to bring with her to like help her participate, fantastic. Yeah. She should get a say.
Scott Bennett (44:00)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. okay, so one commenter put this put it as not just redistributing power, but redefining who we think is worthy of power. what are some of the biggest hills that people need to climb to kind of buy into this idea of sortition?
Ian Troesoyer (44:18)
Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve learned that you probably can’t convince everybody. Sure. so I I I would say, you know, one of we’ve talked about some of the biggest like hills to climb as far as like, well, can’t we just use direct democracy? And like, man, what about those idiots or extremists? And and so we’ve kind of touched on those things. As far as like other hills to climb, I would say implementation is going to be a challenge. Like a lot of people say, cool idea.
How are you gonna make it happen? Right. Right, right. No matter what you do, some like elite oligarch arist aristocracy is gonna like fuck this up and then you won’t be able to do anything, right?
Scott Bennett (44:55)
Right.
Ian Troesoyer (44:56)
or it’s gonna be corrupted in some way. And I would say that’s a legitimate concern. And I I would say there’s no like playbook for how how this actually plays out, right? I I think it’s undeniable that we live in historic times, whether that’s like environmental changes or whether that’s technological changes.
society will change. Yeah. And there’s this, there’s this thing called the illusion of continuity where, like, you know, we live our day-to-day lives and we feel like, yeah, everything’s the same, everything’s always been the same. Like a hundred years ago or less than a hundred years ago was World War II, the Great Depression. A hundred years before that was the Civil War. A hundred years before that was the Revolutionary War. Like these are like lifetime scales where like enormous changes have happened. Right.
change is inevitable and it will happen again. And I I just really hope that the sortition movement is matured to the point where like when that major change happens that the people can demand that they be put in power for once.
Scott Bennett (45:57)
Yeah,
and I I think in in that case, the the example from LA is so so germane to what we’re talking about. I was doing some reading recently about general strikes and there’s a very famous date that’s been put out by the United Auto Workers, May first, twenty twenty eight, as a possible date for a big big general strike. Yeah. And and you know, a bunch of other unions are encouraged to have that date in mind. But as I was reading about it,
Another person made a great point, which is like you you never know when opportunity is gonna come for for for something like that. For people like people right now are completely disenchanted with our system. Right. And and if there was a some kind of scandal where, you know, sortition advocates could just point to it and go, like, look, here’s your exam another example of how
corrupt election systems are and how much they’re not representing us. Right. And just, you know, seize the day, seize the moment, just like they did in Los Angeles with the city council that you described, and just be like, here’s a great this, here’s an alternative that we have. It’s Milton Friedman isn’t someone I don’t admire or respect at all. But he said that, you know, when some when a crisis comes up, you need to be ready for it. Right. You need to have your plan ready to go. Yeah. And and I think that’s true. You know, you gotta be
You gotta have it all drawn and you know, ready to go. Like here it is. Here’s your option.
Ian Troesoyer (47:21)
We got a lot to learn from those neoliberals, man.
Scott Bennett (47:24)
Don’t
say that. But yeah, I think I think that’s a great point. And one thing that I love about sortition, and this is from from doing a post about it and having people respond really positively to it, is when people learn about it, they’re they get excited about it. They’re like, I had no idea that this could even be possible. Like I I love how
People in this day and age are willing to get on board with a something that sounds different and sounds a little scary, but could actually be hugely empowering.
Ian Troesoyer (47:58)
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people see the need for fundamental reform of our government in the United States. Yeah. And and even though like as a person living in the unit in the United States, we’re really US centric, but there there’s a serious problem with democracy affecting basically every mature democracy around the world. Yeah. you know, kind of sliding towards authoritarianism and like definitely like hatred and discrimination against immigrants. Like there there’s there’s like
We have a problem. Right. And and so when people are thinking like, yeah, we need fundamental change, we need constitutional change. totally I agree. I agree. And and I and I think when those people try to think about I mean, as as a reformer trying to think about, okay, how do why are we so screwed up now and and how are we gonna fix it? Like I I think, you know, pointing to things like ranked choice voting or proportional representation or like publicly funding elections or holding elections on Saturdays or
Like requiring everyone to vote. Australia already does all of those things. Right. Every single one.
Scott Bennett (49:02)
And it’s having all the same problems we’re having.
Ian Troesoyer (49:04)
Yes. And in like the twenty twenty four constitutional values survey that Australia conducted, only like thirty-three point six percent of their population had any trust in their government at all. Wow. So if we think about all of those interventions and and and thinking about how many miles ahead of us Australia is, right, that can’t be the goal. Right.
33.6 or whatever percent of like trust government. That is god helpful. We that can’t be the goal. And so like trying to think about, okay, what do I what do I as an advocate or like an activist want? I I basically want the institutions that establish and amend constitutions to be the most democratically accurate ones we can think of. And to me, that means sortition. you know, like.
A lot of people when they think about establishing constitutions, like those did not happen democratically. Usually they’re the product of like some revolutionaries prior to a war where they happen to be successful, right? And and so it’s a a weird, narrow slice of the population that tries to think about these founding documents. For the United States, you know, it’s after the revolution, 1787, where they’re writing the constitution. But still, it’s like it it’s a a very narrow slice of the population, a very elite slice of the population that’s coming up with these foundational rules. Yeah.
And the rules that they made are incredibly hard to change. Yeah. and you know, I I I don’t go in for founder worship stuff. I think that’s dangerous. And even if you are someone who goes in for founder worship, I think the founders would think you’re weird. So don’t do that. not that I think we should care what the founders think necessarily, but like, you know, they they thought that every generation we should basically be rewriting that document. Right.
Scott Bennett (50:47)
Thomas Jefferson said it was he was basically you know, what, once every twenty-five years or something he expected a new constitution. And and it was Antonin Scalia, ultra arch conservative, who pointed out that it takes about 99% consensus to get a constitutional amendment in this country. And he was like, it should be hard, but it shouldn’t be that hard. Yeah. That’s what that’s where we’re at. Like good luck getting a ninety-nine percent consensus about anything in this country.
Ian Troesoyer (51:14)
Right. I mean, we are ruled by the dead hand of the past, a piece of paper, and and that’s problematic.
Scott Bennett (51:22)
Something that enshrines slavery.
Ian Troesoyer (51:24)
Yes, yeah, and talks about savages, yeah. God’s sake. And like I mean, like w we have moved so far beyond what the founders considered as just, right? We have moved so far beyond their conception of who should govern. They wanted a natural aristocracy.
I think most people want a democracy. We want the common people to rule. Our constitution does not reflect that. And and even if like I, you know, I hear people in the comment section, we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic. so republic doesn’t mean representative. Republic, the the etymology of that word is res publica, which is like of the or by the for the people, right? So republic is a a broader category that means like the government is for everyone.
you know, they they the founders still wanted an aristocracy. They thought it was in the best interests of everyone, right, or the best to rule, right? They seem to unironically think that that was in the best interests of people of color and women and people without land. And in retrospect, we can say that’s horseshit. Like, no, they did not govern the best interest of those people. Right. And and so really the people that you can trust to make decisions on behalf of the whole population are is all of us, right? The only person who has the
The only group that has the best interests of all of us in mind is essentially all of us. And sortition is just a scaling mechanism that allows us to get people to actually like get familiar with all the pros and cons of the decisions they’re making. Like hear from like the diversity of perspectives that exist within society, like a Dunbar stu type number where we can actually exist as we did in tribes, you know, hundreds of thousands of years ago, where or you I guess tens of thousands of years ago.
to say, like, yeah, we ever I know what everyone thinks. My my tribe is in agreement that this is the best path forward. That’s the way our psychology developed. and I I think we need to understand that those small group dynamics are important for decision making. Why is decision making?
Scott Bennett (53:17)
Yeah, that’s great points. Great points.
Ian Troesoyer (53:20)
Yeah.
Scott Bennett (53:21)
now I love you’re a content creator, and you did a post recently talking about one of my favorite recent series that’s out there now, the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. yeah. And in one in one book later in the series, Carl encounters a planet that supposedly had sortition.
it was run governed by Certition. And you you called them out. Yeah. And you said that I no, I don’t think you actually understand Certition, Matt Dinneman, author of Dungeon Crawler Carl. Could you talk talk a little bit about that?
Ian Troesoyer (53:49)
man, Scott, you have a much bigger following than me. So Matt Dinneman, if you’re watching, hey man.
Scott Bennett (53:54)
And I love your book. I doubt he’s watching.
Ian Troesoyer (53:58)
But yeah, in in one of the books, the the Lemmig Sortition. And I like from comments on on my content, I think if you’re reading like an online version of that book, it’s called the Lemmig Sortion. if you’re reading like the hardback copy, which is what I have, it says Lemmig Sortition. interesting. so I mean how
Who who knows what Matt intended there, but I imagine probably it was the hard copy version he meant sortition. but yeah, so in in the book, it’s like Mordecai, which is sort of like the guide for Princess Donut and Carl, is saying, like giving feedback about this society that called the limic sortition, where everybody votes on everything and you need 80% agreement to change a decision once it’s passed. Which is like
Totally contrary to sortition. Sortition like directly addresses the types of problems you would have if you h needed to have everyone vote on everything. Yeah. Like that representative random sampling, the most empirically validated way to accurately understand a population, like that’s a scaling mechanism. Yeah. So that you don’t have dumb decisions stay forever and you don’t have like rational ignorance problems, right? So I don’t know what Matt Deniman’s intention was there.
it’s it’s like the Lemmig sortition like does play pretty heavily into the later books, and he, you know, hasn’t finished the series. And so I don’t know if like that’s gonna be some like galactic conspiracy to like suppress real democracy, which is totally my hope. So Matt Dinman, if you’re watching, you can finish that series in a way that’ll make one fan really happy. But but you know, it might have just been an oversight. He he wrote a ton of books and and they’re great books, you should check them
Scott Bennett (55:37)
Fun. I just read the first one. I really loved it. I I have the second one racked up and ready to go. I’m really looking forward to it. Sweet. okay, let’s see here. what else? yeah, okay. So what do you think of expanding sortition beyond legislatures into the judicial system? Could we hold lotteries to appoint judges or even supreme supreme court justices, do you think?
Ian Troesoyer (56:03)
yeah, I think we could. I mean, I so I mean I think a tricky thing is here, like for some some positions you really do need expertise. and and so like I think it might be reasonable to say like we have a set of justices or you know, maybe people who qualify to be a chief justice or to be a Supreme Court justice. but of that pool, instead of like someone politically appointing them, we randomly select them. Honestly, what I would prefer.
is if we just had like advisory cheat like Supreme Court justices, people who could write opinions. Right. And then we had like a big jury body decide which of those opinions is actually going to become constitutional. Yeah. and and then also probably give that sortition body an option of none of the above, in which case it would call one of those smaller, like a hundred person civic assemblies to to review the case and c write their own opinion, but then would like go before a bigger five hundred person jury decide, yeah, that that’s what becomes constitutional law.
Scott Bennett (57:01)
Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (57:02)
yeah, I I think that would be a great, great way to approach the judicial system. Yeah or
Scott Bennett (57:07)
Just like everybody in the bar system could be randomly appointed a judge at some point in their career, just like plucked out like, hey, you’re a judge now?
Ian Troesoyer (57:15)
Yeah, I mean I think that is still a u interesting use of sortition because it has that same anti-corruption scheme where and like helps to reduce partisan influence because if you can’t predict who’s going to be like your successor and who’s who’s going like also for these people that are appointed randomly, they should probably have their performance evaluations completed by a sortition body that like hears from advocates and detractors to say
Yeah, this this justice did a great job or no she didn’t and and then decide whether or not she gets a fat bonus or whether she goes to prison, right? Or whatever. Whoa. Okay. I mean, you know, just as an example. and I I so is you since you brought up the judicial system. Yeah. I think another common concern that people have is like, well, what about the president or what about executives? Right.
And I would say it would be a mistake to apply sortition like random selection to an executive, someone who needs like special administrative skills, right? that being said, we I think we should treat like executives more as like city administrators or like city managers, basically, where they are hired to implement the will of the people rather than to make policy. Right. so like the the office of the president.
basically has has gained so much legislative author authority because of how dysfunctional our Congress is. Right. And if we had a more like functional legislative system, ideally with sortition, that would be much less of a problem. And we could say, hey, we’re gonna hire this administrator. They’re gonna be paid well enough so that we we don’t we’re not super worried about corruption. And then they’re gonna have like regular performance evaluations by sortition bodies to say like to hear from, you know,
Proponents and detractors to say, yep, this person is doing a bad job, or no, they’re not. We can write specific rules about like how much discretionary like policy leeway do they have on different things. And I think that should happen for basically every like administrative position. So, you know, I work in public health. Like the director of health and human services is someone who like should basically answer to a sortition body. They should be hired, fired, and have their performance evaluations performed by
a representative random sample of the public that they are answering to, yeah, who has access to experts in public health who can say, like, yeah, I I like what they’re doing in Medicaid, but holy holy hell, the what they’re doing in HIV prevention is idiotic. And then, you know, they can design like policy guardrails for whoever they hire next.
Scott Bennett (59:42)
Right. I love that. I l I love the idea of expanding this just beyond legislation. Like and I think about if we were to reshape the constitution to bring sortition f elements in, I think, you know, government tends to in economics they kinda they mirror each other, right? So we have a very capitalistic government here because we have a very capitalistic economy. But I wonder I was thinking also like about the applications in the workplace of having
randomly selected members of the board and, you know, from from the workers, you know, the the workers of a company. Just like this group is in for a certain amount of time or what have you. Any thoughts on that?
Ian Troesoyer (1:00:24)
I think that’s I mean, I am a strong proponent of worker democracy. I think the pr the people who make the value should own the value. Yeah. And but you know, like Mondragon, Mondragon, I I guess I don’t know how to pronounce
Scott Bennett (1:00:38)
Sometimes I give it a Spanish flair and say Mondragon.
Ian Troesoyer (1:00:41)
Mondragon. Yeah, I I’m trying to l yeah. Mondragon, they are actually I’ve heard that they’re doing small experiments with sortition bodies.
Scott Bennett (1:00:57)
Fantastic. Yeah.
I did I think I could love them even more than I already did. I did not.
Ian Troesoyer (1:01:02)
I mean no institution is perfect, but I mean that’s I think that’s a strong point in favor.
Scott Bennett (1:01:07)
Yeah, absolutely. That’s great. That’s great. Okay. boy, I think I’ve gone through all of my questions here. wow. Any any other thoughts? Is there anything we didn’t touch on in this discussion that you you would like to bring up?
Ian Troesoyer (1:01:24)
I think I covered all the high points and God, I’m just like incredibly grateful that you invited me to be on your podcast and
Scott Bennett (1:01:31)
Flesher’s all mine, Ian. I I’m so glad I love I love your content. I I I’m a big supporter of sortition. I just I really like this idea. It’s got me really jazzed. You know, if I could talk about my own personal sortition journey, I read a I read a book about ten years ago, Astra Taylor’s Democracy May Not Exist, but we’ll miss it when it’s gone. Right. And she she didn’t spend a lot of time talking about sortition, but she did bring in Aristotle’s quote that
you know, well, pointing out that Aristotle and Plato hated democracy because they saw it as rule by the poor. And that sortition was, you know, that Aristotle said that sortition’s how you have democracy and elections are how you have oligarchy. And and I that was tough for me to hear. Like you know, because we grow up in this society hearing over and over elections are democracy. Elections are democracy. This is our only and it’s the only outlet we have, you know, unless you’re
a real activist and you’re out there on the streets, you know, it’s one of the only options for everyday people to f to participate in our political system. And so I was drinking the Kool-Aid and I in and it took me a l but that stuck with me, what you know, the Aristotle quote and what she’d said about it. And I I thought about it for a long time and finally I was like, Yeah, I I see it now.
Ian Troesoyer (1:02:51)
Listeners, take heed. If you feel poor, sortition is what puts you in power.
Scott Bennett (1:02:55)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ian Troesoyer (1:02:56)
Yeah. I mean, I guess since we’re kind of wrapping up here, the thing that I’m really hopeful for is that we get constitutional reform in in my lifetime that establishes a recurring sortition body, basically, so that we don’t have to do everything all at once. Yeah. I I think.
It might be reasonable to try ranked choice voting or proportional representation, or, you know, shout out to approval voting or Condorcet or star voting people out there, like I mean
Scott Bennett (1:03:26)
It’s part of the democratic socialist platform right now. Yeah. Or some of those changes.
Ian Troesoyer (1:03:30)
Yeah, so but the point is we want a a permanent foothold for these fundamental documents that will allow us to learn and adapt over time. So that if we try ranked choice voting and it doesn’t give us like it doesn’t give us the outcomes that we want, we we don’t have to like build up another giant movement or have another crisis to try to change the constitution again. I want a permanent foothold so that we the people can like wisely and and change the constitution in a way that benefits us.
That we can make well-considered decisions that truly reflect what all of us would would want if we could, if we had all the time to fully participate, become informed, and deliberate towards consensus together. So I I think like for people who are out there advocating for a general strike, for people who are thinking about like, okay, yes, we need constitutional reform, I would say like please think about sortition as a way to get us a permanent foothold that we don’t have to get it all right on the first track.
Scott Bennett (1:04:26)
Yeah, I think that’s I think that’s a totally reasonable thing to to sh be shooting for. But I’m I’m shooting for more septition than that. Yeah. I won’t Me too.
Ian Troesoyer (1:04:38)
Yeah.
Scott Bennett (1:04:39)
Fabulous. Well Ian, thank you so much for coming today. it’s been a real pleasure having you. And I’ll say what I always say at the end of my episodes, let’s make them pay. What is Substack? It’s like the greatest newspaper that ever existed. Completely
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To make sure you never miss a post and allows you to go back and watch or read it again. Every writer on Substack has ownership of their email list and can take it with them. Substack also makes it super easy to monetize your content. That money is not dependent on some creator fund or algorithm. A subscriber pays, Substack takes a small finder’s fee-size cut, you get your money. Easy peasy. Fair too. Decentralization. So check out Substack today.
A really worthwhile platform. Maybe consider publishing a little content of your own. Flex some creative muscle? Download the app or go to let’s make them pay dot substack dot com to get started. Let’s make them pay. Thanks, dude. Yeah. Great job. That was great. That turned out great. A little over an hour? Perfect.
Ian Troesoyer (1:08:08)
Sweet.
Scott Bennett (1:08:09)
All right, man.
