Hope for Democracy

What happens when ordinary citizens are actually in charge.

Dallas · September 2019 · "America in One Room" · Stanford University

In 2019, 523 Americans were randomly selected from among us — ordinary citizens. A steelworker, a nurse, a rancher, a teacher, a retiree. They flew to Dallas for a weekend. Then did something Congress hadn't managed in years: they sat across the table from each other, with real information, listened, considered, and came to decisions.

They deliberated immigration, healthcare, the economy. On immigration alone — arguably the most polarized issue in American politics — 71% reached agreement on a comprehensive path forward. Deliberation, as the founders intended. That was one weekend. Imagine it as a permanent institution — written into law.

We don't need to live under a broken hyperpartisan mess. With a fair process, real information, and enough time to talk, citizens can do far better than the partisan circus in Washington.

We, the people, are in charge — when we act like it. It's time to look outside the corrupted model.

They saw this coming → Read the Initiative Get Updates

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The architects of American democracy — in their own words

They didn't just design the Constitution.
They warned us about this specific failure.

Political parties would destroy the republic. We haven't heeded that, but the flaws in the system have become undeniable.

Founders designed a system built on debate, compromise, and citizen deliberation — and they expected future generations to keep innovating. Instead, we got exactly the disease they feared most.

The good news? The American people do value innovation. We've demonstrated creative brilliance, resolve, and perseverance, time and time again. It's time we turn that attention to how we self-govern.

"I am no believer in the amalgamation of parties, nor do I consider it as either desirable or useful for the public."

"A division of the republic into two great parties … is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil."

"Political parties are the 'most fatal disease' of popular governments."

— Later voices, same warning —

"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence — whether sought or unsought."

The partisan rot they feared has arrived. But we have the means to do better.

Politics seem broken.

But the parties, the politicians, the lobbies — they're following their incentives. This isn't about bad people. It's about a machine designed for people seeking power: terrify your base, ignore or belittle any legitimate concerns from the other side, court the donors, generate outrage for followers and ratings. Governance — actual problem-solving — gets punished.

The outrage machine — how the incentives run
↳ Diagram coming — here's the logic:
  • Politicians need fear to fundraise — donations spike when your base is terrified. Policy achievement doesn't convert; fear of the other side does.
  • Media profits from conflict — every platform earns more from outrage than from resolution. Compromise is boring. Enemies are ratings.
  • Primaries punish moderates — the most partisan voters pick the nominees. Working across the aisle ends careers.
  • Nothing gets solved — solved problems stop fundraising. Gridlock keeps the machine running. Governing well is a professional liability.
  • Voters have limited input — we vote every 2–4 years, on candidates pre-selected by the machine. Not much leverage there.
So we spend ~$27 billion per election cycle1$27.6B — total U.S. political market, 2024–2026 cycle: $15.9B federal electoral (OpenSecrets), $5.3B federal lobbying (Bloomberg Gov.), ~$10.8B policy advocacy, ~$0.9B systemic reform. feeding this machine — while the problems it's supposed to solve keep getting worse. Even lobbying for campaign finance reform — very broadly supported across the political divide — faces long odds getting voted up.

The research confirms what we feel. A landmark analysis of 1,779 policy outcomes found that average citizens have near-zero measurable influence on what becomes law2Gilens & Page (2014), "Testing Theories of American Politics," Perspectives on Politics. After controlling for the preferences of economic elites and organized interest groups, the preferences of average Americans have a statistically near-zero independent impact on policy outcomes. — regardless of party, regardless of polling, regardless of how many people agree.

We need a new approach — but what?
There's a better way

Citizens govern themselves — and outside the partisan mess, can be highly effective.

For decades, a different model has been quietly proving itself: take a representative group of ordinary citizens, give them real information, adequate time, and a fair process — and watch what happens. The results keep surprising people who've only ever seen politics run through the party machine.

Over 100 citizen assemblies have been convened in the United States. Hundreds more in Europe, Australia, and Canada. Academic research spanning 30+ years, across dozens of countries. The track record is real, the stories remarkable.

What is a citizens' assembly?

A randomly selected panel of ordinary citizens — matched to the demographics of the community — convenes to work on a specific policy question. They hear from experts they choose, receive testimony from people with lived experience, deliberate under a skilled facilitator, and reach a recommendation.

Not a focus group, a poll, or a performative town hall focused on gripes. A real, structured deliberative process with time, information, and diversity built in — designed to produce a recommendation that reflects the considered judgment of the whole community, not just the loudest voices.

And unlike almost every other form of citizen engagement, the outputs are used. Ireland used their assembly's recommendation for a constitutional referendum. France used theirs to drive climate legislation. Oregon has run state-sponsored citizen review panels since 2010 — written into state law — where randomly-selected citizens analyze ballot measures and publish their findings for all voters.

The research is in

When citizens deliberate, something remarkable happens.

These aren't anecdotes. Thirty years of academic research and documented real-world cases show the same pattern: ordinary citizens — given time, information, and a fair process — consistently outperform partisan politics on the same questions. They find workable directions. They cross the divide. They trust the outcome.

Ireland · 2016–2018
87%
unity on one of the most divisive issues in the country's history

99 citizens solved what politicians couldn't touch

Randomly selected Irish citizens — across age, gender, class, religion, and politics — spent five weekends deliberating abortion rights. They reached 87% unity. The national referendum followed, on their proposal, and it won in a landslide. Nearly every participant said they would recommend the process to others — including those whose views were challenged by it.

Oregon · 2010–present

Citizen review panels, written into state law

Oregon has run state-sponsored citizen review panels since 2010 — random selection, structured deliberation, published findings. The panels analyze ballot measures and give every Oregon voter a vetted, non-partisan analysis alongside the official voter guide. A permanent institution that works. The American spirit for democracy has inspired people around the world, and now the success of this format, outside party control, is growing not only in the USA but worldwide.

France · 2019–2020
149
climate policy proposals aligned with expert scientific guidance

150 citizens reached the same place as the scientists

France's Citizens' Convention on Climate selected 150 people at random to tackle the country's climate policy. After months of testimony from scientists, economists, and industry experts, their proposals closely matched what IPCC researchers had been recommending — measures that elected politicians had considered politically impossible. Citizens and scientists independently converged on the same answers.

United States · 2002

5,000 New Yorkers set the course for the 9/11 memorial

In 2002, a massive deliberative process — Listening to the City — brought 5,000 New Yorkers together to deliberate on the future of the World Trade Center site. Their clear rejection of the first six rebuilding proposals led to a fundamentally redesigned process. A city that could have fractured found a path forward through structured, facilitated deliberation.

30+

Years of evidence, in the face of disinformation and complexity

James Fishkin at Stanford's Center for Deliberative Democracy has run Deliberative Polls since the early 1990s — in the US, UK, Europe, China, Australia, and more. The finding is consistent: when ordinary citizens have access to balanced information and time to deliberate, their views shift measurably toward more evidence-based, less tribal positions. The distance between what people believe and what the evidence supports shrinks dramatically when you take the party machine out of the room. Stanford CDD →

✓

Participants trust the outcome — even when it challenges their prior views

The most consistent finding across all these processes: participants don't just agree with the result — they believe in the process. The political scientist Hélène Landemore and others have documented that randomly selected assemblies are consistently viewed as more legitimate than elected representatives on contentious issues. The mechanism is straightforward: a participant was chosen by lot, not by donors and party gatekeepers. Their conclusion is their own.

The problem isn't citizens. When ordinary people are given a real process — not a press conference, not a poll, not a partisan hearing — they do the work. They engage across differences. They reach workable directions on issues that the party machine has deliberately kept unresolved for decades. The problem is we've never given them the institutional standing to make it count.

Let's stop living as victims. It's time to take action.

Most political energy in this country flows in one direction: get the right candidates in, hope the right bills pass, fight the other side. That approach has been running for decades — and the system keeps winning. It's time to try something structurally different.

Citizens already have tools to self-govern — and our power, when we actually use it, is enormous. The American people have demonstrated creative brilliance, resolve, and perseverance across every challenge we've faced. It's time we turn that to how we govern ourselves.

None of what follows requires politicians to want to change. It requires citizens to stop asking permission. We're not advocating for better politicians — we're building alternative civic infrastructure where citizens can make decisions, take action, and make their power felt regardless of what Washington does.

In more than 20 states — and many US cities and counties — citizens can put this directly on the ballot. We don't need the politician's permission to make laws based on real deliberation, listening, and common sense. When community will is organized across the divide, collective power is achievable. The tools exist. What's been missing is a specific model worth organizing around — and a founding community willing to build it.

Our primary project: Annual Citizen Assemblies with Real Power

Model State Initiative — Hope for Democracy

A permanent, recurring citizens' assembly — written into state law.

Hope for Democracy is building the model initiative, the legal framework, and the organizing infrastructure to get it on the ballot in the best candidate states. The initiative creates an annual cycle:

A randomly selected, stratified panel of citizens — trusted like a jury, chosen by lot so no one can stack it — deliberates on one policy question per year, works with legislative lawyers to draft an actual bill, and sends it to the legislature. The legislature is required to vote up or down within 60 days. If they vote no (or don't vote), the measure goes to the people on the next general election ballot.

Citizens always have the final word. No room for partisans, lobbyists, billionaires, or special interests to take control. The process is transparent and democratic — built on real deliberation, not hyperpartisanship and grandstanding. And it's built to endure, so long as the people find it so.

Read the full initiative → 24-state viability research →
Concern
Won't the legislature just ignore it — like they've ignored everything else?
Design: Automatic Vote
The vote is mandatory. Every legislator goes on record — yes or no, no abstaining, no tabling, no committee burial. If they fail to pass it, it goes directly to the ballot. The assembly's work always reaches the people. Advisory reports get shelved; this doesn't.
Concern
Won't insiders control what the assembly hears? The framing shapes the outcome.
Design: Citizen Control Throughout
Assembly members are randomly selected — no one gets to stack it. They choose which experts to hear. They control the questions and the deliberation. Anti-lobbying provisions apply from day one: no private contact with assembly members outside official proceedings, required to be reported. Well-funded interests don't get a back channel.

In states without the initiative path: citizens still have power — if they can organize across the divide

In the states where citizens can't put things on the ballot directly, coordinated cross-partisan action is worth exploring. In closely contested districts, a relatively small group of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents who agree to vote together — for whoever listens to the district, not the donors — can hold the balance of power.

That said: building genuine cross-partisan discipline is hard. It's been done, but it requires real trust across a political divide that the outrage machine has spent years deepening. We don't want to oversell it. What we can say: citizens in those states aren't powerless — and the question of how to exercise collective power across the divide is worth taking seriously.

The initiative is the main project. It's the mechanism that makes deliberative democracy durable — not dependent on any single election or administration.

Citizens can take back our power. Join us.

We're raising seed funding and building a founding community.

Read the Initiative

Full model text — every provision, every protection.

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§About the Founder

Brian Burt, Founder of Hope for Democracy

Brian Burt has spent 20+ years leading multi-million-dollar technology projects, starting companies, and leading teams to successful launches.

He founded and ran MaestroConference for 12+ years — working closely with the Obama White House and campaigns on 30,000 events (including 50+ with the President and Michelle personally), and serving customers including Airbnb, the World Bank, Stanford, and hundreds of other nationally respected organizations. He invented breakout groups for conferencing, holds three patents, and exited the business in 2022.

Before MaestroConference, he led Charles Schwab's first AI-driven personalization system (serving billions of messages to 20M users monthly), and later managed a $25M+ portfolio at the Federal Reserve Bank.

Brian's career has spanned administrations and sectors — Wall Street, central banking, civic tech, and presidential-level convening.

Working on a solution based on citizens rather than politicians gives me tremendous hope. But to make this happen, we need a lot of people to contribute either with their time or resources, and join the effort. Will you join us?

— Brian Burt, Founder