Model FAQ: digging deeper

No — this is the design feature we call the automatic ballot measure. If the legislature does not approve the assembly’s bill as is by the deadline, it goes directly to the ballot. The assembly’s work always reaches the people. Advisory reports get shelved; this doesn’t.

The model is built around citizen control throughout. Assembly members are lottery-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.

No. Legislators will have ample opportunity to communicate concerns to the civic assembly before their bill is finalized. The assembly will hear testimony from many perspectives – the legislature’s perspective is often key in ensuring a viable route to policy enforcement. But the legislature may neither alter the citizens’ bill once finalized nor put a competing measure on the ballot.

A separate Topic Assembly, chosen by lot, picks the question from public nominations, asking only which issue is most important to people’s lives and least addressed. It can’t consider likely outcomes. No organized interest chooses what gets deliberated.

A separate, lottery-selected Rules Assembly designs the process each cycle and is prohibited from considering likely policy outcomes. Everything is public and recorded.

All software — the sortition algorithm, the public input platform, the selection system — must be published under an OSI-approved open source license and be publicly auditable before each cycle begins. There are no black-box tools in any function that affects selection, deliberation, or results.