tried posting a comment three times before it finally worked…..

Mark, first, thanks for engaging me on this topic and asking more questions. I haven’t thought it all through, and clearly, re-chartering the city will be a group effort, but for me, connecting citizens to their city in a more direct way is fundamental to what I want to achieve out of charter reform.

I’m going to get to the answer by going a round about direction. Modern democrats tend to equate the exercise of the franchise with the exercise of political power. Traditionally, democratic political theorists have posited democratic control through many other sorts of institutions which have largely withered away. The people out of doors, public speech in parks or on corners, a free press, public deliberation – and in many democratic ages – large public councils – have been important institutions for the whole people to exercise democratic control. Today, the public square is largely devoid of politics. It is a walkway between shopping centers, a hygiene stop for homeless people, and stopping and talking about politics with a fellow citizen is considered rude and aggressive behavior. Such is the state of civic life in Seattle.

One of my favorite differences between Greek democracy and our own is the institution of ostracism. This treasured democratic institution practiced by the ancient Greeks highlights the very different attitudes we have today from our democratic forebears. The Greeks understood that the powerful and wealthy members of society would attempt to influence the public, through graft, patronage, and often, elections in which votes were bought and monied interests combined with public matters. The institution of ostracism was created to allow the people of a greek city-state to expel a bothersome citizen from the city even if they had not broken any laws, precisely because they understood that the wealthiest and most powerful citizens could influence the very creation and administration of the laws. Today, we are offended by the lack of due process the institution of ostracism represents, and we fear for the Socrates that suffers at the hands of the demos more than the populace, in the grips of monied interest. In many ways we are a liberal society more than a democratic one. But who wouldn’t like to give Frank Carluccio or Paul Allen the boot?

What’s the value of this roundabout journey of political theory? Perhaps now we can better address your concern about why, if we have the franchise, we don’t just vote out our rulers. It is an interesting question, with reelection rates in the US Congress rivaling those of the Soviet Politburo, with the US Senate a club of some 90plus millionaires, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent by corporations, unions, and wealthy citizens to influence electoral outcomes, why don’t we just use the franchise to select better representatives? Perhaps it is because the electoral system is so thoroughly corrupted that the monied interests have figured out how to buy the electoral outcomes they desire? Perhaps it is because political interests have figured out how to make their districts safe and the political spectrum so constrained, that the nation is divided between two parties, funded by largely the same sources, who campaign in safe districts for your vote? Perhaps because both, along with a corporatized media, have trivialized politics to a point where more people trust a comedian on a fake news show to give it to them straight than our local reporters or editors? Elections in America are largely bread and circuses. The political class encourages you to equate democracy with elections because they’ve got the system rigged.

Now let’s bring it home to Seattle. Why does our Mayor run basically unopposed? Why do we not have a single libertarian, Republican, or Green party member on our council? Why do Seattle voters get a stadium they didn’t vote for and fail to get the monorail they asked for 4 time? Because Seattle is in the grips of a political class that sets the rules for how politics works in the city. And it works on their terms. You’ll lose your invitation to the Richard Conlin Christmas carol party if you challenge the Mayor. You wont be taken seriously by the press if you talk from the heart, instead of from the Business Rountable’s talking points. We don’t have districts in the city so that the majority takes all elections wipes out minority representation – and so that the campaigns are more expensive to run – and thus easier to influence with donations.

Anyway, sorry for the rant.

My idea about lot is very under-developed. Here’s how I see it starting. We begin to formalize a list of neighborhood councils that are already in existence, along with a list of neighborhoods recognized by the city that lack functioning councils or regular elections. From there we start to establish regular methods that would apply across the city for selecting members of these neighborhood councils. We begin asking citizens of these geographically defined neighborhoods to volunteer for public service. Out of the volunteers, a lottery is held and a council is selected. Eventually, I think this should involve 1-2 year terms with lots drawn every year to replace up to half the council. Citizens wouldn’t be eligible to serve back to back terms, but would be able to serve multiple times on the councils. Additionally, some areas of city government would be devolved to these councils. Parks and schools would be two areas I’d look to first, as well as neighborhood traffic issues.

Successfully completing a term on the neighborhood council to my mind would look like 1- 2 years service with no ethics violations and meeting some standard for regular attendance.

My notion of “the next level” of service – would likely involve city wide boards and commissions such as transportation, utilities, finance, libraries, parks, as well as the paternalistic ones the city now has like bike rider advocacy or pedestrian advocacy. A citizen who served on their neighborhood council and a city commission or board would become eligible to serve on the city council. Citizens who complete service on the city council would become eligible to serve as mayor. It would take a citizen at least 4-6 years of service (and rapid good fortune) to get selected as the mayor. More often, it would take decades of civic involvement and commitment. I think readership of local papers and blogs along with interest in public life could flourish as people came to see that they could be directly involved in the governance of the city, should they be called upon for service.

Now, I’ve written too many words already, but let me point out that if citizens were more directly attached to their city, Seattle could be schoolhouse for democracy. If Seattle citizens were empowered and educated to participate in their public life, they wouldn’t accept the regional authority that has been placed over us. The idea that the citizens of Seattle have to be subservient to the transportation planners of regional authorities or even state legislators is silly. Seattle is the engine of the regional and state economy. We have the means to determine the city we want, free of subservience. If we have a free citizenry, we can have a free city, and begin to make our own decisions about which stadiums we want and which we do not, which transit solutions we support, and which we do not – how much we want to fund education, what tests we want to administer, and basically, how we want to live our lives. The point of re-chartering the city is not to accept the politcal system as it is. The goal is to change it.