Democracy 2.0

It is high time we wrested power from the moneyed interests and greedy politicians, and vested it back with the people. This is no easy task. Even allowing that history is on our side, the devil is in the details, so we must not shy away from them. Some of the ideas offered here will change, other will fail entirely; they are just the first pass. What is important is that we will no longer sit idly by as the democratic process is co-opted from us. We will be masters of our own destiny.

Platform: The Medium Is the Message

If government is truly to be a platform for the advancement of its citizens, it needs the appropriate tools. There is no right answer to what those tools are, but it is clear that they should make the best use of the technology we already have. Many of these technologies are not technically complicated to implement, and their use is well-established.

Here, I will describe the fictitious website, OpenCongress, where the following tools will be provided and processes enforced.

Writing the Law

Any citizen can draft a law and publish it for consideration by all other citizens. Inasmuch as there is structure to the law-writing process, Congress 2.0 will enforce it through the design of the software. It should be within the grasp of any literate citizen to penn and publish legislation.

As today, legislation will have authors, who will drive the writing process. Also as today, the basic text will be open to the submission of amendments or changes to language. If a citizen likes the foundation of a piece of legislation but perhaps not its direction, setting a new course would be as simple as copying a Google Doc and making the right changes. It is then on the author to rally support behind her new direction and show its superiority to the old one.

Laws can be written and proposed at multiple levels of government, from municipal to state to federal. As in our system, it is a matter of the constitution and existing law whether legislation is appropriate for a given level.

When a piece of legislation is published, a period of support-building immediately begins, akin to the signature-gathering of a California ballot initiative. A new bill has two weeks to acquire sufficient signatures — a number which depends on the locality of the legislation. A signature at this stage does not imply a yea vote; merely a desire to see the bill continue its process.

In practice, most legislation will not come from any random citizen with a concern. We live in a complicated work, and often those best equipped to write legislation — and more importantly, build support for it — will be technocrats, with career expertise in a field. Often legislation will come from the government agency with domain over an issue, e.g., the EPA might author new legislation on cap-and-trade of carbon emissions. In such a case as legislation originates from civil servants, it will not need the same amount of initial support that direct citizen legislation would.

Discussing the Law

A draft bill that meets the threshold of initial citizen support — or originates from the government — then enters the discussion stage. It is here that the most collective creativity will be expressed, and citizens read, ask questions, critique, and propose changes to the legislation.

Discussion will be first and foremost text-based, and carried out online. All comments are made in the form of annotations to the existing work, keeping the discussion grounded in the actual text of the proposal, and the same platform that hosts the proposed bill would provide the forum for discussing it.

Any proposed changes or additions to the law come with a prompt for simple “Approve/Disapprove” feedback options, to quickly gauge the climate of a proposal.

Enacting the Law

Discussion remains open for a set period of time before which it moves to a final voting period that lasts 24 hours. At that point, any eligible voters may cast their ballot online, voting Yea/Nay/Abstain for the legislation and any amendments.

Civics 2.0

A more open model of civics cannot be foisted upon the electorate without a proportional change in civic culture.

The Responsibility to Vote

All citizens would have a responsibility to vote on the legislation that applies to them (at the municipal, state, and federal level). Typical voting remains open for 24 hours, and failure to vote on an issue would result in a 25-cent fine. All votes have the possibility to abstain, so this does not force voters to vote on something they are ignorant about.

If a voter does abstain, they can indicate why the did so, in addition to specifically indicate (1) if they feel uninformed enough to decide or (2) if they are ambivalent on the issue. If #1 is too high for a given bill, it indicates that there may not be a mandate for it, at which point dissenters of the bill may appeal to have it stalled.

The Moderators

Effective discourse around legislation is fundamentally important, consequently giving rise to a crucial role in Democracy 2.0: the moderator.

A moderator is in the 1 percent of active users, and is given special privileges and responsibilities as such. Mods have the general meta-level goal of making sure the system works. This might mean tagging legislation appropriately so it is discoverable by those it is of interest to, or removing offensive or off-topic comments on a piece of legislation.

These are all roles a moderator on Wikipedia or Reddit might perform, and they are critical to the success of the online space. But for Democracy 2.0 moderators, in dealing with the very fabric of our civic discourse, the responsibility does not end there. They will wear many hats: they are the former get-out-the-vote volunteers, the community organizers, and the speakers of the houses. Unlike purely online communities, political must communities extend very much into physical as well as cyber space. Moderators are therefore no less visible offline: they might organize a virtual town hall (or a real one) around an issue of importance to a community. Or they might simply use social media to share a bill that is being under-reviewed.

Legislation and the Press

The higher volume of laws that need to be understood by the average citizen will undoubtedly increase with Democracy 2.0, instigating the need for better public education and awareness of legislative processes and content. Media outlets, instead of pseudo-paparazzi coverage of politicians bickering, will be forced to refocus on the more important matter of the actual content of bills. News will shift to actually explaining legislation and the public debate, rather than merely being mouthpieces for political in-fighting.

Civic Education

Because of the centrality to political involvement for every citizen, schools will make civic education a priority. Students will participate in voting and referenda for school policy the way their parents do for public policy. Exercising children’s democratic voices early will breed a more robust and engaged citizenry.

Government 2.0

All forms of government are in some way oppressive, and all forms of government tend toward consolidating power. Though one can envision a system without it, it is not easy to see how such a society could survive on 21st-century Earth, where the sovereign state is the chief form of political expression. So what we cannot do away with we will reform.

Two Branches of Government

Our Congress is in a state of disfunction never before seen in American history. The gridlock over common-sense, popularly supported issues is stunning, as is the outsized influence for money in politics: the average lower- and middle-class voter matters little our “representatives.”

There are certainly reforms that might improve this situation: strict limits to campaign spending, and nonpartisan commissions to draw district lines and avoid gerrymandering. But why bandage the problem when we can do away with the imperfect democracy of representation altogether?

In Democracy 2.0, there will be no need for elected representative, and therefore no need for a Congress. The entire legislative branch will be excised, at every level of government.

In its stead will be the world’s first direct-democracy platform: OpenCongress.

The Executive

The executive branch is open to many of the same criticisms in America as the legislature: it consolidates power among a small group — indeed, only one person! — and is plagued by the endless campaign cycle and the taint of moneyed interests.

Unlike representatives, though, executive roles are a necessary evil. In times of crises or uncertainty clear leadership is needed. Even in peacetime, the advantage of singular leadership is the potential of long-term direction the simple majority rule often lacks. The same logic applies at the state and local levels. Instead of working through a Congress, the executive will be able to directly author legislation, making clear when something is an initiative of the president.

The Judiciary

Courts will be no less crucial in Democracy 2.0, and indeed the possibility of laypeople writing laws will only compound the necessity of a judicial system to enforce, interpret, and ensure the validity of the laws passed by the people.

Judges will remain appointed by the executive, but will require approval by the public instead of Congress.

The Bureaucracy

Although some laws are clear manifestations of the people’s will, a great deal are nuanced, highly technical documents that require domain-specific knowledge to write. Currently, Congress addresses this by forming committees which employ experts in the field to actually write the legislation.

These technocrats will be no less important in Democracy 2.0: indeed, they will have more power over their domains. Government agencies will be able to sponsor legislation like any other entity, meaning that the Department of Education could take school reform into its own hands. Although the executive will retain power to appoint a cabinet of secretaries, most politically appointed positions will be removed in favor of career civil servants, and every government agency will have a nonpolitical executive that the cabinet will work with, not over.

Government agencies would further be responsible for the review and evaluation of laws from other sources that effect their focus areas.

Complicated issues that span multiple domains of concern will require coalitions of government agencies, increasing the flow of information and resources within government as well as outside of it. A bill to cap-and-trade carbon emissions, for example, might require buy-in from the Fed, the EPA, the Department of the Interior.

Criticism & Critique

Direct democracy in general is not without its pitfalls, and we must address some of the most common critiques when talking about Democracy 2.0 on the web.

Voter Fraud and Identity

That voters are clearly associated with an identity online is vital both in preventing fraud and in keeping discourse around legislation civil. Although there will undoubtedly be spaces for anonymous sharing online, the primary platform for civic voting will enforce real identities. Although actual voting will be anonymous, commenting and discussion will not be.

Voting itself will require a degree of protection akin to credit cards, and servers the store voting records will be subject to strict regulation. Any ballot cast online will require two-factor verification (e.g., entering a password online and responding to a text message sent to your phone to verify a vote). The possibility for voter fraud will always exist, but the fundamental technology to ensure identity online is already well-established.

Tyranny of the Majority

One feature of a representative democracy is that it allows the legislature to be more progressive than the populace. In theory, by having an informed, invested set of representatives, it becomes harder for the whims of the people to create impulsive or oppressive laws. If we had direct democracy, the reasoning goes, many European countries would still have the death penalty, and many American states would still have Jim Crow laws.

Tyranny of the majority is a real concern, but representative democracy is not a real solution. In America today, we have a Congress that, especially on the right, is often far less accommodating than the broader American public. The risk of minority oppression will be mitigated by a stronger Bill of Rights, and the usual oversight of the judiciary.

Additionally, the inclusion of direct voting will make disparities along race, gender, and religious lines more distinct. By allowing users to self-identify in their profiles (whether publicly or privately), aggregate data can be gathered around support for various initiatives. If support for, say, an affirmative action bill divides sharply on racial lines, that is an indication to the courts that it should be looked at more closely.

Lowering Barriers, Eroding Quality

The story of expression on the internet has been one of a double-edged sword: as it becomes easier to publish, the quality of publishing goes down. From blog posts to Facebook to tweets, the level of discourse has degenerated as the volume has increased.

This is largely true, except where it isn’t. Wikipedia has maintained an exceptional level of quality and accuracy, given that it is ostensibly open to anyone. Certain corners of Reddit have a level of discourse rare for any forum, internet or otherwise. And long-form journalism has seen its renaissance online, even has Buzzfeed-style headlines proliferate. With the combination of community norms, enforced processes, and clever feedback systems, many internet properties survive and thrive with high engagement and low vitriol. It takes tweaking and multiple iterations, but it can work.

Access to the Internet

This is both the most serious and the most solvable of the barriers to Democracy 2.0. Although many in America today are still without internet, that will not be true in the American of tomorrow. Hardware prices continue to drop every year, and the promise of mobile computing and internet access for all is within our grasp. Delivering internet to all corners of our society is a challenge, but it is a civil works challenge, akin to the railroads and highways, that will connect and progress our society for decades to come.

Ill-Informed Voters

Voters of today are nothing if not ill-informed, making the vision of a universally voting public hard to envision. But it would be a mistake to mix the cause and effect of voter misinformation. Our dismal voter engagement rates are rooted in our distant relationship from our government and politicians. In a culture where politics is every-bit as participatory as, say, sports, the incentive to be informed will be that much higher.