Transforming Local Democracy

1. The Political Process ... Local politics is a divisive argument that alienates citizens from each other and from government. Facts get distorted into sound bites and polarized camps form. In the end, a majority coercively imposes their will on the minority.
   
   
2. The Citizens ... Most people are unempowered, not feeling they can make a difference. The extremes are engaged in their debates but the voice of the vast middle is largely missing.
   
   
3. Government ... Local government either seems to serve a particular constituency or to be bureaucratic and inefficient. Government employees suffer from a lack of leadership from the people. There is a limited opportunity to be entrepreneurial and serve effectively, combined with an ongoing culture of criticism and distrust.
   
   
4. The Results ... Collectively, we are incapable of making creative, whole-system decisions, i.e. what is best for all, and instead make piecemeal decisions that are sub-optimal or dysfunctional.

Questions: How might we ...

1. Establish a new, creative political conversation? We need to start talking about what is really important. We need to get to the heart of issues rather than debating in sound bites. We need to be respectful of differences and reach wise, consensus decisions that benefit everyone.
   
   
2. Involve everyone?  Everyone needs to be part of the decision-making conversation, not just the powerful or those who are especially interested in one issue.
   
   
3. Create a wise and responsible voice of the people?  We the People need to decide what we want and state it clearly. Political campaigns, debates, representatives and votes do not suffice.
   
   
4. Assure minimal risk? Any changes should be low cost and low risk to all stakeholders.

The Solution is to implement a Wisdom Council

The City Council should first approve this resolution, followed by a vote of the citizens:

We, the People of "Yourplace," resolve that:

Section 1: Every six months a group of sixteen registered voters shall be randomly selected and assembled to meet for two days. Those who attend both days shall form a Citizens' Wisdom Council whose unanimous views are termed "Statements of the People."

Section 2: The Citizens' Wisdom Council will present these Statements back to the people in a new ceremony. The Statements will be widely posted and provided to the media. Whenever possible, these meetings will be locally televised.

Section 3: Meeting facilitators shall assure that the conversation in the Citizens' Wisdom Council is collaborative, open-minded and creative. They will assure that the views of each member are respected and help the group reach consensus. Facilitators shall not determine topics nor shall their personal views influence decisions.

Section 4: After the presentation, the City will support and encourage informal dialogues so that all citizens have an opportunity to meet with others to consider and respond.

Section 5: Representatives from the City Council or Board of Commissioners will serve on a Wisdom Council Oversight Committee. This committee will assure the integrity of the process, hire facilitators, and provide expert information when requested.

Section 6: For deciding procedural issues within the Citizens' Wisdom Council, like meeting times and agendas, a majority vote may be used.

Essentially, the Wisdom Council process is ...

Every six months, a lottery is held and 16 registered voters are randomly selected to form a Citizens' Wisdom Council. They meet for two days only, where a facilitator helps them develop unanimous statements. These Statements are then presented back to the people in a new ceremony. Everyone is then invited to gather informally in homes and public places to "ratify" the Statements. An ongoing conversation is established among all that, over the years, builds and articulates a genuine Will of the People.

Background

Minimal risk ...

• Adopting this proposal does not directly change any existing structure. All governing bodies work are still in charge and work as before. The Wisdom Council exists for only a weekend every six months.
  
  
• The Statements of the People and the Citizens' Wisdom Council have symbolic power only. There is no coercion of any kind.
  
  
• Members of the Citizens' Wisdom Council must reach unanimous conclusions. This is not about power politics, but about seeking genuine consensus.
  
  
• It is low cost ... with a high potential of saving money.

Potential benefits ...

Adding a Wisdom Council promises to:

• Increase the quality and efficiency of local government ... It will lower time demands of members of the City Council or Board of Commissioners, for example. There will be more trust, greater clarity of direction, less complaints, and more celebration of successes. It will benefit many relationships, citizens to government and citizens to one another.
  
  
• Generate widespread understanding of the issues and build a spirit of community ... The Wisdom Council involves everyone, the vast middle as well as the extremes. It establishes a new kind of conversation, one that is respectful and heart-felt, a far cry from the alienating debates we currently have. The new conversation will generate wide-spread understanding of complex issues and bring us together rather than sound-bite simplification of issues and debates that pull us apart.
  
  
• Improve the quality of collective decisions ... Currently, our joint decisions are made in a politically charged environment and are coercive in nature. The Wisdom Council will help us generate a shared vision of what we all want, develop creative ways to achieve it, and build the political will to implement them.
  
  
• Facilitate responsible behaviors ... When people feel that they belong, that they are respected, that they have control, and that they are working on something meaningful, then individual attitudes and behaviors improve. Even health improves.

Keys ... to understanding how this works

• We the People come into being. Currently, "the people" are individuals, not a collective voice. The Wisdom Council provides a way for all of us to meet, talk together about issues and speak with one voice.
  
  
• The Wisdom Council is the ultimate authority. When the Wisdom Council articulates points that everyone supports, then it is a true voice of the people, and more powerful than any official body. It is a way for the people to provide leadership to local government and even state and federal government.
  
  
• The Wisdom Council frames the issues creatively. In the current system, most issues are framed as yes/no decisions, e.g., "Do you support this regulation or not?" But, because the Wisdom Council seeks consensus, it is likely to frame issues holistically, even as questions, e.g., "how can we assure that the children in this community realize their full potential?" This framing elicits creative responses from all.
  
  
• The process involves everyone. Whatever the Statements of the People are, they have power only to the extent that everyone resonates with them. After the Wisdom Council presents its Statements to the people, there are many opportunities for citizens to respond - in small group discussions, in the local paper or through a web site. These conversations will continue throughout the year and over the years, until true consensus is reached.
  
  
• It's about freedom not coercion. This process will change the way we self-govern, away from an emphasis on coercion to an emphasis on mutual respect and self-control. Managing through laws and regulations will be deemphasized.
  
  
• It is about genuine involvement, not input. Involvement requires more than input. It is where each person is part of a creative process -- more than just a hearing or being part of an advisory board.
  
  
• It's about real democracy. In the current representative system, the people are not very powerful. They play a small role within a structure they did not create. But with the Wisdom Council, the citizens reassume control.
  
  
• It's about pro-action vs. reaction. Currently our system is oriented to stopping bad things from happening rather than encouraging good things to happen. With the Wisdom Council we figure out what we all want ... and go for it.
  
  
• It's a microcosm, not representation. Wisdom Council members are picked randomly, like in a lottery, so there are no representatives on the Council. Each person speaks only for him or her self. Over time, all factions and demographic groups will be included in proportion to their percentage in society.
  
  
• Sixteen people are plenty. Many people wonder how such a small group can "represent" such a large group. They do not represent, they symbolize. As such, the statistical concepts of "sample size" and "confidence level," are not relevant here. This is not a poll.
  
  
• It is not like a jury. Jury members are given a specific issue and a limited range of decision possibilities. The Wisdom Council chooses the issue, frames it creatively, and seeks creative solutions.
  
  
• Achieving consensus in a short period of time is not difficult. Consensus is often difficult to reach in a yes/no conversation about issues that are predetermined. But, because the Wisdom Council frames the issue and because the facilitator assures a creative conversation, reaching unanimous Statements is not difficult.
  
  
• It adds a heart-felt dimension. The Wisdom Council adds a new kind of talking to our political process, where people speak from heart about what we all want and how best to achieve it. This is not the normal agreeing and disagreeing, or influencing process we are accustomed to.
  
  
• It would promote other democratic approaches. The Wisdom Councils may determine issues that need further study. They may recommend Citizen Task Panels or other democratic methods which will bring even more democracy.
  
  
• There are no losers. With this change, officeholders do not lose power but gain in effectiveness and citizen appreciation. For fifty-one weeks of the year, there is an informed citizen dialogue and the Statements of the People. Elected officials retain all their existing powers and even enhance their informal power because they will work with We the People as a responsible presence.

How it is different from other approaches?

It has long been thought that true democracy is impossible to achieve. There is no way for all the people to come together, hold a wise and deep conversation and reach consensus on what is best for all. Because of this, representative democracy was adopted as a substitute and the struggle has been to try and involve average citizens. A number of different strategies have been developed to help do this.

The Wisdom Council is not  one of these strategies. Rather than aiming to make representative democracy work, the Wisdom Council is designed to facilitate real  democracy. It is a process where everyone comes together, holds a wise and deep conversation and reaches consensus decisions on what is best for all. Other strategies help support this.

Some of these other strategies are:

1. To involve citizens

   Town hall meetings, Citizen Task Panels, in-home gatherings, and computer-based "group-ware" networking are powerful citizen inclusion processes. These seek the "involvement" of as many people as possible. But, these processes include only self-selected people, those who choose to attend; the issues they address are usually predetermined by some authority; and the conversation is back and forth discussing, rather than creative dialogue. It is "input" not "involvement."

2. To educate the citizens

   If people are knowledgeable about democracy and the issues, if they are respectful of others, and if they have problem-solving skills, then democracy is more realizable. Many programs seek to teach this knowledge and these capabilities. But, even with perfect knowledge, our system doesn't use it well. It oversimplifies complex issues and puts people into competing interest groups to do battle.

3. To improve the quality of leaders in government

   Currently, the main lever for people to exercise democracy is to elect good people to represent them. But this does not generate a feeling of involvement and as these representatives understand the issues more fully, their constituents can feel betrayed. In response, people can seek ways to control elected officials. Examples include: citizen initiatives to reduce taxes, campaign finance reform, balanced budget initiatives, or term limits legislation. While these can help prevent abuse, they also limit the exercise of common sense.

4. Direct democracy

   Many see new technologies as an approach to achieving democracy. It can now be arranged, for instance, to have the people vote electronically on nearly every issue and for everyone to be linked through the internet during live television debates. But, these can be a step toward less democracy. With mass media the opinions of voters can be molded by those with money. Special interests have discovered that a fear-based sound bite can generate easy votes compared to an informed dialogue.

5. To reinvent government

   The book Reinventing Government  by Osborne and Gaebler suggests many ways by which the people in government can become more entrepreneurial and provide better services to constituents. But in our current form of democracy, the problem is with the people, the ultimate boss, more than the bureaucrat. When the ultimate boss is critical and short-sighted, government employees will naturally be less entrepreneurial and hide behind bureaucratic rules to protect themselves.

6. Deliberative democracy

   A growing number of people are recognizing the importance of getting everyone involved in a deliberative conversation. Some times this can happen through large group forums, like the Charrette process, coordinated home meetings, or large group gatherings. Today, with the use of small group facilitators, expert presentations, local television, web sites, groupware and the internet, many people can be linked together on one topic. Usually, this boils down to hearing experts, meeting in small groups, and then voting among predetermined options. Unfortunately, this brings input, not involvement, to only the few who participated.

   As our society becomes more interdependent, however, true involvement and joint decision-making become essential. A wisdom council, especially when used with these other approaches, can genuinely involve everyone.

The Next Step

• The Local City Council or Board of Commisioners should consider the Wisdom Council in more detail.
  
  
• The Local City Council or Board of Commisioners should vote to enact a two year trial of the Wisdom Council once every six months.
  
  
• At the end of a successful trial the Local City Council or Board of Commisioners should recommend it to the voters for their approval as a permanent aspect of local government.