@wordywalt

In some states the initiative is an addition or enhancement, in other states an alternative. Compare our states. In Florida, amendments only. In California (amendments, statutes, referenda and recall ).
Source: ballotpedia.

Oligarchy, aka representative democracy, requires the public to do more than express our sentiments.

@prometheus, corporate and special interests have enough money to bribe “representatives”. Via advertising they can deceive voters, but do they have enough money to bribe millions of voters?

@yvilletom turns out voters are cheap. $100 per Republican is more than enough to reinforce their inherent fears.

@prometheus The GOP isn’t bribing its evangelical voters.

They are paying the Party and Trump to bring them their End Times and their Rapture.

@yvilletom that sounds like a cover story. I really think they are just in it for the money.

@prometheus Do cover stories survive for thirty five years, since Pres. Reagan invited the evangelical xians to join the GOP?

@yvilletom maybe the evangelical worshippers believe that, but their cult leaders know it is all bullshit. The only end times they will get will be civil war. We'd better hope the nuclear codes are in Democrats hands when that starts.

@prometheus Cult leaders may be atheists but are certainly hedonists.

@yvilletom if it is a good one, sure why not? Evangelical leaders have always been interested in more power = more money. It was Reagan who saw the symbiotic benefit of kissing their ring and acquiring their minions as voters giving the GOP more power.

@prometheus I didn’t know Reagan said that but I found it true.

In 1974 in very Republican Phoenix (Tucson in southern AZ was Demo) I ran in the Repub primary for the state legislature, hoping to unseat the incumbent. I was agnostic then but went to the divorced/single adults club that met each week at the Unitarian church. When conservative xians invited me to visit their churches, I thanked them and said I had a church. They seemed pleased with my reply but happily no one asked me which church. Also happily, I didn’t win; I wouldn’t have known what legislators do.

@yvilletom sorry, that was a typo from my phone - it should have been "saw" not "say". Corrected.

My partner's mother sent her to a Unitarian church in Oklahoma just so she could say she went to a church - which was essential there not be a complete outcast there. As it was some people would send her hate mail because she didn't go to the "right" church.

This is why I think if the theocrats ever did get the 100% American theocracy they want it would quickly turn into a witch hunt of routing out people who go to the wrong church. They always need a way to divide people and turn them against each other, this is how they derive their power.

“Pine trees are better represented than people.”

That was said of Florida when rural counties dominated in the legislature and ignored a constitutional mandate to reapportion after each census. As I dimly recall, a court order forced a change.

After a woman in PA told me that, I went to ballotpedia.org and in the state constitution found the provision that does what you said.

Wot, me compulsive? Never!

Sortition would certainly uncover a lot of talent that’s now hidden, unknown even to those who have it.

Did the speaker not know “our democracy” has always been an elected oligarchy?

@yvilletom he is, I believe, German. Not American nonetheless.

Lives in the UK

I read a scifi story by Asimov where the President was chosen like that. Ideally you'd just have a cabinet not one person and that cabinet would have a bunch of members serving for limited time but staggered end dates like the Senate. That way you don't have an entire new year of freshmen. If it was a six year term have three classes and stagger them at two year internals. Or three year term and one year classes. I don't see why you can't do this for all government.

However the fatal flaw in sortition seems to be that it assumed those chosen will be informed and able to make rational decisions. That said in the US we have allegedly informed people who make irrational decisions designed to harm people and destroy government. I have no reason to think a sortition chosen government in the US would do any different - unless perhaps you required all decisions to have a 2/3 super majority. However that would just cause quagmire. What we have now in Congress and will likely have for the next four years. That will give us 12 years out of 16 of basically do nothing governance except for autocratic executive management.

Incidentally there is a blockchain project called Kleros that does something like this for making arbitration rulings. Except there they have a built-in mechanism designed to encourage good decisions based on evidence and fact. But it does again rely on the assumption the majority are rational actors.