 I've been a member of the Green Party for many years,
but I've
frequently duelled with them over their preoccupation with
getting
candidates elected rather than getting good legislation passed. In
Canada, although 'private members' bills' have an uphill battle to get
time on the legislative agenda, they are often introduced and
occasionally even passed into law.
I can appreciate that, a hundred years ago, it may
have been
necessary for elected politicians to hammer out legislation in
smoke-filled back rooms. Communications and travel were slow and
law-making is an iterative process, requiring not only
consensus-building but also multiple redrafts to incorporate matters
that the original draft forgot to consider.
But today there is no reason why the legislative
(law-making)
process cannot be completely transparent and draw on the collective
wisdom of many citizens. In order for that to happen, I would propose a
radical change to the way in which that legislative process occurs:
- Each jurisdiction would have a wiki where any citizen
or group of
citizens can post, contribute to and comment on proposed new
legislation. Such draft legislation would begin, as is the tradition,
with the 'whereas' clauses that lay out the policy and rationale for
the proposed legislation. The drafts would include both the legislation
and the regulatory enforcement mechanisms that would assure that, if it
were passed into law, it would be properly enforced. The drafts would
have to meet standards of simplicity (as short as possible), clarity
(understandable language, not legalese) and consistency (each bill for
one purpose, with no pork or other irrelevant riders attached).
- Political parties and independent
candidates would be required to
commit in writing, prior to any election, precisely which draft
legislation they would propose to pass into law if they were elected.
Once in office, they would be bound to vote on all draft legislation in
accordance with these commitments: There would be no need for votes.
The purpose of elected officials would be simply to carry out their
mandate, to ensure the legislation that they committed to approving is
passed and that the resources and budget necessary to ensure
enforcement of such legislation are put in place.
- Individual elected officials would
be able to break ranks with their party on a specific piece of
legislation if and only if they had
committed in writing prior to the election to do so.
- If an emergency situation required the passage of
additional
legislation that had not been committed to in advance of the last
election, a new election would have to be held within 60 days of its
passage to ratify and/or amend the legislation. During this time, the
wiki would be used to discuss and amend the legislation. The first
order of business after this emergency election would be to ratify or
amend the emergency legislation in accordance with the commitments of
those elected, failing which the emergency legislation would expire.
- Failure to provide adequate resources for enforcement
of the law
(as determined by government auditors) would constitute a breach of
duty and be an indictable offence.
Such a process would have a number of benefits:
- It would drastically reduce the power and
authority of elected
officials, and therefore the value of lobbying and other
anti-democratic activities. Pork-barrelling would be impossible, as
would subsidies to big corporate oligopolies.
- It would drastically reduce the cost of legislature,
the salaries
and sizes of staff needed to draw up legislation and to respond to
lobbyists. Through citizen participation this would become a zero-cost,
more inclusive process. The cost savings could be used to ensure proper
enforcement of laws, which are now routinely and conveniently ignored
by governments that don't like them.
- It would engage citizens, think tanks, unelectable
minority
parties, scientists and others in the legislative process, and lead to
a great deal more reasoned, evidence-based legislation, instead of
legislation designed to respond to knee-jerk reactions of citizens, to
get re-elected, and to pay off political campaign contributors.
- It would educate citizens in the political process
and reduce the
propensity of citizens to abrogate their responsibility to be informed
and involved in the process.
- It would direct the majority of political energies
towards the
drafting of legislation instead of towards the influencing and election
of candidates to do so without proper oversight.
- It would democratize the legislative process without
the use of
oversimplified, emotionally-charged and ill-conceived
referendums.
- It might well eliminate
the need for presidents, cabinets and prime
ministers, and reduce the need for the judiciary to have to interpret
(and the propensity of ideologically-driven judges to distort and
misinterpret) ambiguous, poorly-formed, politically-motivated laws.
This proposal is directly analogous to the Wisdom of
Crowds
process I've recommended to devolve authority and decision-making in
organizations from overpaid, isolated executives to a much broader,
more informed (collectively) and more representative groups of
employees and customers.
It's not a panacea. It would reduce but not eliminate
the need for
comprehensive, real campaign finance reform towards a fully
publicly-funded system. It would not reduce the need for the
elimination of partisan, gerrymandering redistricting groups
in favour
of independent electoral boundary commissions. It would reduce but not
eliminate the need for single transferable voting or other proportional
representation systems of election.
I know, it's a radical change and one that will be
loathed and
opposed by politicians and big political parties because it
strips them
of power. But it would not be at all difficult to do, if there was the
political will to do it. We might even get groups like the NRDC and the
Green Party to start the ball rolling by setting up sites to
collectively draft scientifically-supportable, concrete,
workable environmental laws and regulations, and get political
candidates of all parties to announce where they stand on adopting them
before the next elections. If that worked, such that instead of debating
vague and emotionally-charged policy planks we were debating real
legislation, we just might find that this becomes the way a true 21st
century democracy operates.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
