My Congressman, Jerrold Nadler

As a new resident of the West Village, my congressperson switched from Yvette Clark to Jerrold Nadler. And it is exciting. The man is cool. While Yvette Clark tended to vote liberally, she did not take the lead on issues. Nadler sponsors bills, and they are awesome. Freedom to Choose Act, Support for Marriage Act and 40th Anniversary of Stonewall Act are all awesome.

An Alternative Form of Congress

I'd like to propose an alternate congressional structure, then spend a while talking about why:

Congress would consist of two parts, representatives, and policy-makers.

Representatives:

• Term: one year
• Can be re-elected? Yes, with no term limits
• Role: 1) Vote on policy. 2) Elect policy-makers 3) Inform policy-makers of issues
• Representatives (should) spend 75% of their time with constituents, and 25% of their time voting (ideally from their home town to prevent needless travel).
• To be clear, representatives do not make policy. They represent their constituents through voting, and by electing policy-makers.

Policy-Makers:

• Term: two years
• Can be re-elected? No.
• Role: 1) create policy, 2) vote on policy

For law to be passed, it needs to pass both the Policy-Makers and the Representatives.

The Ideal Representative:

The Representative's goal is to represent people, and knows she will most likely be re-elected if she does a good job representing her constituents. She will spend most of her time getting to know constituents, going to town-hall meetings and acting as a conduit between policy-proposals and her constituents. Her role exists because citizens do not have the time to immerse themselves in politics, but still want their views to be represented. Her two roles are voting on policy and electing policy-makers.

Why Representatives (and not Citizens) vote on Policy-makers:

A policy-maker's (PM's) job is arguably complex. While representatives and citizens come to the PM with problems (issues), the PM must come up with policy to solve the problem. This requires a lot of education in the field of policy-making, law, history and economics. A policy-maker need not be an amazing public speaker. In fact, an ideal policy-maker is most likely an academic, perhaps used to giving lecture to students, but not used to rhetoric. And this is a good thing. If a PM is elected based on their depth of knowledge, and papers published, how would an average citizen know how to choose? It would take time to digest the papers, and this is why the election falls onto the shoulders of the representatives.

The Ideal Policy-Maker:

The Policy-maker (PM) is only going to serve in this capacity once, and thusly their decisions will not be affected by thoughts of re-election. They were elected based on their ability to demonstrate a mastery of policy-making. This would most likely come in the form of academic papers published, interviews, books written, and general respect within their community.

The Election of Policy-Makers:

If we keep the method of choosing the number of representatives (which I'm not a fan of, but that's for another time), then even in larger states we have fewer than 60 representatives. The take-away is that potential policy-makers would have the opportunity to meet with each representative, give talks about their positions, and generally show that they have what it takes.

Who are Policy-Makers Answerable To?

If PMs can not be re-elected, what is to prevent corruption both in their policy-creation as well as their voting? There are a few answers to this. First, it is in the representatives interest to find candidates whose background suggests dignity and professionalism. Second, the PMs are only in office for two years. Third, this problem already exists for any second-term president, and any lame-duck congressman. Forth, the PMs were elected due to their prestige in their academic community. If some sort of corruption is found out, it would certainly get to the university, and to the community in general, and the many years of work to gain status in their community would be destroyed.

On The 17th Amendment:

In 1913 we ratified the 17th amendment which took the election of the Senate away from the state's government and into the state's populace. This was done for good reason. However, it should not be seen as a reason to object to the idea stated above, for a few reasons. Firstly, a senator need not be an expert at policy given today's system. They need to be an expert in rhetoric, and they need to be well funded. They need to focus on the will of the majority, because they are concerned with re-election. These are real problems that continuously lead to dubious policy. The system I mention above would be devoid of all of these problems.

Freedom of Information Act, 9th exception.

There are 9 exceptions to FOIA. They mostly have to do with topics you would expect: national security, privacy, etc...

Then there is The 9th Exception (sounds like a title for a movie, right?):

"geological and geophysical information and data, including maps, concerning wells."

Of course the DOJ has some explanations. But to single out wells? Why would this information not be held under exception 1, or exception 4? Something (from a deep dark well) smells here. Thoughts?

Transparency Should not be an option; A proposed amendment

The Obama Administration is aiming at greatly increasing government transparency. While this is a good thing, such an important matter should not be left up to the whim of a president.

I'd like you to consider the following Amendment:

A person's right to relevant information about public institutions shall not be infringed. This right shall not be construed as to infringe on any other rights. Congress shall have power to enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation.

There are a few words in here that are a bit unclear:

• Relevant: By this I mean any information you as a citizen might use in forming an opinion about the efficacy of the institution, and its use of your tax dollars. A public hospital is a fantastic example. Citizens could use the information to form an opinion about the efficacy of the institution (how good is public hospital-A over public hospital-B with regards to heart transplants? What is the survival ratio, etc....) This would foster competition amongst hospitals, which was proven to be a good thing - Pennsylvania has such transparency with their hospitals and since doing so costs have decreased (for both hospitals and insurance) and quality of care has increased.
• Information: By this I mean two things. Firstly, machine readable data, available in the popular formats such as xml and csv. Secondly, PDF summaries.
• Public Institutions: The Freedom of Information Act is only concerned with the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Public Institutions is broad on purpose. Like FOIA, we would need the relevant exceptions.

On Privacy:

The second sentence is important, and is used to assuage the privacy concerns some might raise over the hypothetical situation of Citizen Joe demanding to know nurse Jane's salary, etc... When dealing with these decisions, it should not be too difficult for the the judiciary to adjudicate properly.

The flow might be as follows:

1. Congress passes a bill stating some road-map and timeline for this process.
2. The data is used
3. A citizen/organization requests new metrics from an institution.
4. The institution either complies or does not.
5. The citizen/organization raises signatures or appeals to a representative or...
6. The citizen/organization takes the institution to court
7. Based on points 4/5 the institution either adds the new metric or does not.

What Would It Be Like:

Imagine our country with such an amendment. To give an idea as to the scope of significance, consider the following questions, all of which would be answerable if the mentioned institutions complied with the amendment:

• What percentage of my city's budget is spent on administration, in comparison to every other city with a similar population?
• What is the ratio of crime to officer/capita in my city compared to every other city with a similar population?
• What ratio of my child's school's budget goes to teachers in the rubber-room?
• What is the average salary of school teachers in my state versus every other state?
• Which hospital in my state offers the highest probability of single-surgery hip-replacement? (OK, I totally made that up but you get the point)

It should be clear that we could go on and on and on. And it should also be clear that every one of those questions could seriously alter the decision process of a citizen both when making personal decisions, as well as voting on public decisions.

On the Availability of New Metrics:

Suppose a citizen asks the city of Los Angeles to deliver a report indicating the average speed of cars for every 100-yards of the freeway throughout Los Angeles. The citizen argues that this information would help him stay away from the sections of the freeway where people tend to drive too quickly (and by extension dangerously). The request is reasonable, and certainly fits the criteria. That being said, the technology and infrastructure to supply such information does not (say) exist in Los Angeles; there are not sensors every 100 yards. So then the question is, given this amendment, would the city of Los Angeles be required to build the sensors in to supply the data? I hope you were not expecting me to answer the question! While I have my opinion, the only answer I'll offer here is this: The judiciary will decide, if it comes to that. My guess is they will consider things like cost/reward ratios, and a slew of other situation specific criteria, that we could never account for when writing the amendment.

Why an Amendment

FOIA came about in 66, then despite Ford's Veto (partially due to the brilliant but totally demented Antonin Scalia) the powers were expanded in 74. Clinton expanded them. Bush contracted them. Obama expanded them again. As stated in the opening of this blog post, the right to this information can not come at the whim of our executive. So in an effort to mitigate this yoyo-ing, I suggest a constitutional amendment.

Conclusion

We must remember who runs our country. Our ability to articulate and advance good government is proportional to the quality of data which guides our decisions. Our job should always be to strive for better government. But we must do it constructively. To do this, we must have the tools to offer constructive criticism. I believe that such an amendment would empower us, at the local, state, and national levels to better sculpt our government, and consequently our lives.

Quote on the 1st Amendment

Justice Kennedy has a fantastic quote on flag burning (and the 1st amendment), from Texas v Johnson:

It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt.

Eloquent.

Rockefeller and his fight against Ethanol

History is amazing.  

Below is a timeline of events I've compiled to tell the story about Rockefeller's involvement in the Prohibition, and the underlying motives.

"There's enough alcohol in one year's yeild of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for one hundred years." - Henry Ford

 

1908: Ford Model-T comes out, and car sales begin to skyrocket.  They run on either gasoline, kerosine or ethanol.

1913: Rockefeller Jr. (director of his family's Standard Oil ) begins pushing for prohibition.

1919: 18th amendment ratified -- no alcohol INCLUDING ethanol.

1919 - 1933: Purchase of cars with ethanol retrofitted engines plummets.  Petrol infrastructure has 13 years without competition.

1929: great depression begins.  Car sales decline.  Petrol infrastructure firmly in place.

1932: Rockefeller pushes to stop the prohibition.  From wikipedia:  In a celebrated letter to Nicholas Murray Butler in June, 1932, subsequently printed on the front page of The New York Times, Rockefeller, Jr., a lifelong teetotaler, argued against the continuation of the Eighteenth Amendment on the principal grounds of an increase in disrespect for the law. This letter became the singular event that pushed the nation to repeal Prohibition.^[5]

1933: 21st amendment ratified : end of prohibition.

Accountability in Debate

These days I think about debate and communication all the time. As stated earlier, I'm developing software to assist debate. At my local coffee shop this morning I sat reading the 2008 presidential debate in Mississippi between Obama and McCain (available on the kindle for a few dollars).

This debate is amazing for a few reasons, but right now I want to point out something that is both prevalent in this debate as well as most other debates between candidates with a voting track record (and they always have a track record): there is often disagreement about voting history and position. Let me give some examples from the debate mentioned above:

McCain: Now, Senator Obama didn't mention that, along with his tax cuts, he is also proposing some $800 billion in new spending on new programs ...

Obama: I -- I don't know where John is getting his figures.

And again...

McCain: And so, again, look at the record, particularly the energy bill. But, again, Senator Obama has shifted on a number of occasions. He has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year.

Obama: Thats not true, John. That's not true.

McCain: And that's just a fact. Again, you can look it up.

Obama: Look, its just not true.

And again:

McCain: ...Senator Obama refuses to acknowledge that we are winning in Iraq.

Obama: That's not true.

And again:

McCain: Admiral Mullen suggests that Senator Obama's plan is dangerous for America.

Obama: That's not the case.

And again:

McCain: No one from Arizona is against solar. And Senator Obama says he's for nuclear, but he's against reprocessing and he's against storing. So...

Obama: That's just not true, John. John, I'm sorry but that's not true.

It's not my intention for this to seem so lop-sided. There is in fact not a single instance of McCain saying "that's not true" in the debate. This blog entry has nothing to do with my political views. I'm trying to point out one of the problems with our current form of debate. And below, I'm going to propose a solution.

The U.S. Open has come and gone, with an amazing upset, Del Potro beat Federer! I was fortunate enough to attend one day, and saw first hand a practice in tennis that did not exist in my youth. Players are now able to challenge a line call up to three times per set. A computer would show on the big screen, down to the centimeter where the ball landed, and determine the proper line call.

As I was watching this, (and you can guess where I'm going), I thought, "man, this is what we need in debate!"

So here is how it would work:

When a debater makes a remark pertaining to their opponent's voting history or view, the opponent is allowed to "Challenge." This requires the accuser to state their source. So for the second example above (regarding taxing people who make below $42,000 / year), McCain would be required to name the bill to which he is referring, since in this case Obama would clearly "challenge". Furthermore, each candidate's voting history would be on hand, and accessible to a team of experts who would assist. Just like the computer in tennis, they would be able to quickly determine the truth about such accusations. To keep opponents from challenging every single accusation, there could be a limit. Say three challenges per Lead Question.

As the debate proceeds, there would be a running tally of Challenges to which the accuser was wrong -- something which would look very bad, and thus something opponents would want to avoid.

This would add much needed accountability to these most important of events.

Assisted Debate

My mother is a physical therapist who specializes in gait analysis, which is a fancy way of saying, "she studies how you walk and suggests modifications to alleviate chronic pain." This is often frustrating for new patients. She gets a lot of, "I know how to walk, I've been doing it for thirty years. Just give me a massage to make the pain go away." After so many thousands of healed patients, she has the confidence, and the patience to explain why what she does works.

Debate (formal or informal) suffers from a similar problem. We as a society have been doing debate the same way for so long that it rarely occurs to us that the source of frustration is not due to "the other guy being a moron", but due to the format we use: semi-structured oral turn based blurbs. What prevents someone from simply changing the subject? From giving a flowery answer that does not in fact address the question? From answering with facts that neither party has true access to in real time? The list of problems goes on and on. And importantly: this is vehicle by which we make the worlds most important decisions.

In a few weeks I'll be coming out with software which is an attempt to improve upon this most important activity: two or more minds coming together to form understanding.

This little post is dedicated to my mom, who taught me strength when exploring new ways to help people.

You Can't A/B test in Reality

As a programmer, I get to run usability tests. So when a user comes to my website, I can offer 50% of the traffic one version and 50% of the traffic another version, and see which works better. This is called A/B testing or split testing.

Ah if only we could do this in real life. Would crime really go down if we got rid of (legal) guns in D.C.? While I believe this to be the case, ultimately we can't know unless we do. And even when we do, there are other factors - perhaps a contract for a new stadium created many new jobs, lowering crime rates. The point is, we can not perform perfect tests. So what do we do?

When discussing issues, its important to agree upon metrics. While this sounds obvious, its tricky because metrics suffer the A/B testing problem. Looking again at gun control, one person might feel looking at two different areas covering the same time span is a good metric, while another person might feel that looking at the same area over different time spans is a good metric. Amazingly, before the issue of gun control even comes up, the pre-debate about which metrics are best often turns out to be a difficult talk. The time is not wasted however, because in actuality you are learning the deep (usually unspoken) beliefs about what drives someone's final opinion.

Its not only a nickel

On Thomas Jefferson's epitaph at his home in Montecello, he listed three achievements. The three achievements were:

AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

Given these three achievements, and given what is NOT there (his presidency, his role as diplomat, his role in forming the Constitution, etc..) we can safely say that he considers these achievements with highest regard. Focusing then on the second achievement -- The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, (one of the inspirations for our First Amendment), how can we put his face on a government issued nickel and write above it: "In God We Trust"

Delegatory Representation

When our Founding Fathers created our government, they chose a republic because it offered a solution to multiple problems:

1. Acumen: It allowed citizens to entrust decisions with others who were more educated on the issues.
2. Federal Representation: It overcame the logistical problem of informing remote districts.
3. Constituent Representation: It overcame the logistical problem of remote districts informing the central government.
4. Federation Concerns: It's bicameral structure satisfied those who wanted proportional votes (with the House) and those who did not (with the Senate.)

The question is, given where we are today from the standpoints of technology, ethics, economy, stability and security, is the Republic still the best answer to all of the issues raised above? Lets take them on a case by case basis:

1. Acumen: The more time one spends studying something, the more informed they are. It is overwhelmingly probable that members of the Congress know more about the issues (bills and resolutions) than the average citizen.
2. Federal Representation: With the advent of instant communication, access to television and internet, we no longer have this problem. it is no longer the representative's job to keep her constituents informed.
3. Constituent Representation: It is certainly still true today that a representative's job is to promote her constituents wishes.
4. Federation Concerns: There are still those who desire both forms of Congress, though desire alone does not suffice. Historically, while Madison was very much for proportional representation, the smaller nations (such as Rhode Island) were being asked to give up their sovereignty, and it is understood that the Senate was required to assuage the smaller states concerns that they would be bullied by states with large populations. We will revisit this issue shortly.

To summarize, points 1 and 3 are certainly still relevant, point 2 is not, and point 4 seems to be up for debate. Lets first take a closer look at points 1 and 3, since they seem to most strongly encourage the relevance of our current system. Firstly, we have Acumen. As stated above, it is true that members of Congress will know more than the average citizen. But what of those citizens that actually study enough on their own, and wish to make their own decisions. What if their representative falls in line with the citizen's views in some ways, but not in others. For example what of financial conservatives with liberal civil rights views? And conversely what of financial liberals with conservative civil-rights views? We are capable of tremendous diversity. So what can we do? On one side we need a way to express our views as individuals (the extreme scenario being a pure democracy with no representation). On the other side we have citizens who are happy with our system and want to delegate responsibility to others, except for the occasional vote for the representative. Can we one-up our current form of republic and satisfy both sides? Yes we can. We can do it with something we might call a Delegatory Republic. Here is what comprises a Delegatory Republic:

1. Each citizen has one vote, and citizens vote directly on all legislature.
2. A citizen can delegate their vote to any other citizen.
3. When a citizen comes of voting age, their default delegations are to their representatives.
4. Both voting and delegation can be done securely online, and at voting stations, which might take the shape of kiosks in federal buildings (like the Post Office).
5. Citizens may change their delegates at any time, with no restrictions on frequency or choice.
6. A citizen can associate different representatives with different keywords. So a citizen might delegate all bills regarding women's rights to their mother, while delegating all issues surrounding agriculture to their uncle (who is of course a farmer), while finally leaving all other keywords resting with their representative. In this way, we establish default behavior that a citizen may set up (and alter) at any time with the effect that once set up, the citizen may leave their preferences alone for years knowing that each type of issue is being handled by the exact person they want.
7. By extension of point B, citizen 1 may delegate their vote (on agriculture) to citizen 2, who might in turn delegate their vote (on agriculture) to citizen 3, so that agriculture votes by citizen 1 will end up being delegated to citizen 3.
8. If you accept the responsibility of representing another citizen, then all votes you make as a representative will be made public.

Would such a system work? Would it work better than the current system? Would such a system be feasible? Lets take a look:

Would such a system work? A Delegatory Republic weaves itself seamlessly into our current structure, in that if a citizen decides to ignore it completely, their vote would by default rest with their representative, which is how our system works today.

Would it work better than the current system? Given the way a Delegatory Republic could behave just like ours, we need only look for benefits resting outside the capability of our current structure. We find them immediately. Consider a bill proposing stricter gun control. Economic liberal who are conservative with civil rights would be unhappy if their representative followed the party line and voted against the bill. The diversity of our nation is endless, with factions within factions within factions, and a Delegatory Republic would embrace this diversity.

Would Delegatory Representation be feasible. Certainly. While we are not quite in the era of electronic voting, we are getting closer every year, and even if we stick with our current form of government, the opportunity-cost of electronic voting will force us to purse the technology.

Finally, lets take a look again at the issues the Republic solved, in particular point 4: Federation Concerns. The Senate was required to satisfy the needs of the smaller states who did not want to be overshadowed by the large states in a strictly proportional vote. At the time, this concession was necessary, as we were trying to convince small states to give up their rights as a sovereign nation. But what exactly does this accomplish today? Small states get a disproportionate vote in Senate. Can we find even a single justification for this? I can not. Note however that in truth this is somewhat of an unrelated issue: Delegatory Representation would work just fine with our bicameral Congress.

There are obstacles to overcome with the implementation of a Delegatory Republic, though they are largely technological, which is the best kind of obstacle, because between technological evolution, human evolution and social evolution, technology is by far the fastest.

Issue Awareness and Mandatory Voting

State and Local issues are numerous. To stay educated on the matters is difficult. Yet in a Democracy (and in a Republic) it is informed voting that makes the machine operate at its greatest potential. What follows is a method to raise awareness of issues:

Upon every issue where citizens may vote, randomly select a small group of people that MUST vote on the issue. This sample would be determined by population. We might shoot for 1/10th population. Not only must these people vote, but there would be a series of questions about the issue, a "test", that would expose the level of knowledge of the voter. If the voter does not pass the test, they are fined.

If there are ten issues on the ballot, then it is likely that each citizen would be required to learn about at least one issue. Socially, people would begin to talk about the issues much more. And from a tax standpoint, there would be revenue from those who do not pass the test.

Our country demands very little from its citizens. We do not regularly draft young adults into the military, and we offer immense freedoms. To demand that people educate themselves and vote, if such practice leads to a better democracy, seems reasonable.

Why Kirsten Gillibrand makes me sad

1. She opted not to co-sponsor HR 1246 during her time in the House:

   To amend title 10, United States Code, to enhance the readiness of the Armed Forces by replacing the current policy concerning homosexuality in the Armed Forces, referred to as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", with a policy of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

   
   
2. She opted not to co-sponsor HR 1820 during her time in the House:

   Members of Congress were asked to co-sponsor legislation, introduced on March 29, 2007, that would equalize tax treatment for employ-

   er-provided health coverage for domestic partners and other non-spouse, non-dependent beneficiaries. As of Oct. 3, 2008, the measure

   had 120 co-sponsors: Democrats 116; Republicans 4.

3. She opted not co-sponsor HR 2221 during her time in the House:

   To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to eliminate discrimination in the immigration laws by permitting permanent partners of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents to obtain lawful permanent resident status in the same manner as spouses of citizens and lawful permanent residents and to penalize immigration fraud in connection with permanent partnerships.

4. She opted not to co-sponsor HR 3326 during her time in the House:

   To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to permit States the option to provide Medicaid coverage for low-income individuals infected with HIV

5. She scores a 100% by the NRA. She voted yes on HR 6842, offering a slew of ways to ensure someone can easily get an automatic weapon in D.C.

Here is the Source for points 1-4) above.

Note: In an interview she says something I really like regarding Civil Unions, but so far her actions speak louder than her words.

When she was in the House she represented district 20, a rather conservative district (voted for Bush twice), so the question is, as representative of this district, was she simply following her constituents orders? Now that she represents the entire state (which is more liberal), how far will she swing back to the left? The great promise of a Republic is that the people we elect to represent us are better suited, more informed and perhaps more passionate about the issues and not simply representing the plurality of their constituents. If representatives were simply extensions of the plurality, I'm not sure I'd be such a big believer in the usefulness of a Republic.

LGBT Rights and a "Find and Replace" Bill

The LGBT community is taking a circuitous route to achieving their goals. In particular, they should not be fighting for "Gay Marriage." A more direct approach would be focusing on the 1st Amendment, and arguing that the word 'marriage' be taken out of all laws, and replaced with 'civil union'. Marriage should be considered a religious concept, and left to religious institutions. This disarming move would leave conservatives without much ground. Our president would like it -- as he is not for gay marriage, but he is for gay civil unions. The ACLU and LGBT community should be pushing for a "Find and Replace" bill, not "Gay Marriage."