this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2023
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politics

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The public has increasingly soured on Congress — and now, some House lawmakers are starting to agree.

With legislating all but brought to a halt and partisanship at an alarming high, members of Congress in both parties are running for the exits, opting out of another term on Capitol Hill to vie for higher office or, in some cases, leave politics altogether.

It is a trend that skyrocketed in recent months — amid a tumultuous 10-week stretch on Capitol Hill — and one that is likely to continue through the end of this year, highlighting the challenges of navigating a polarized, and oftentimes chaotic, era of Congress.

“Right now, Washington, D.C. is broken,” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) said in a statement when announcing that she would not run for reelection. “[I]t is hard to get anything done.”

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] Neato@kbin.social 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Absolutely fucking not. Random assignment is ridiculous. All it'd take is one or two bad assignments with crackpots to ruin the country forever. Imagine if enough Trumpers got assigned by chance. We'd have a dictator the next day.

Not to mention no one would ever trust if their methods were accurate as everyone would call foul.

And with people who are mostly not wealthy and only serve a single term the ability to totally bribe would be a foregone conclusion.

[–] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Absolutely fucking not. Random assignment is ridiculous.

Don’t we basically use this process for juries?

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Even that's not purely random. Voir dire is a process to ensure the jury is selected intentionally by prosecution and defense attorneys (ideally to have an unbiased and effective jury).

[–] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Granted, but it’s miles away from having professional narcissists who campaign and accept lobbying money to be full time jurors for 30 years.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago

There's lots of problems with the current system, I agree, but unless we can have a body of people who can act as national fiduciaries to "voir dire" the randomly selected politicians, I don't see how it would offer any improvements over the current system.

It would get money out of the initial political process, but it wouldn't necessarily create substantively better lawmakers.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It would come with a different set of problems, but they don't seem any more difficult than those we already have. Not that it matters today, it's perhaps more of a concern for some future society that has the courage to devote itself to democracy.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

...it's perhaps more of a concern for some future society that has the courage to devote itself to democracy.

Oh. You're one of those people. Nobody here is interested in your accelerationist bullshit.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I'm just a passing pleb who apparently wandered into the angry part of lemmy. Sorry to intrude.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

If I mischaracterized you, then I apologize, but accelerationists and naive anarcho-libertarians have been trolling Politics with points exactly like yours for weeks. They think allowing fascism to happen now is the only (or at least inevitable) solution, and they imagine some future revolution will allow a better society to rise from the ashes, some "future democracy" for those "courageous enough" to make some kind of ideological stand now.

Nevermind they have no plan to get there except "burn it all down," and there's no way to know with any level of certainly what comes after that.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Oh right. I just meant it's a pretty far-out idea and not really relevant to practical politics right now, interesting though it may be. Thanks for the explanation.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 0 points 11 months ago

Again, apologies. Hope you have a lovely day.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

He said nothing about allowing fascism to happen now, though.

[–] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

People who support an unsustainable status quo tend to interpret all discontent as support for the worst outcome.

[–] Telorand@reddthat.com 0 points 11 months ago

The bad-faith commentors rarely do, until pressed. This one appears to have been commenting in good faith, however.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

I like sortition, and I appreciate you bringing it up. If a position has so much power a random person could screw things up that bad, that position of power needs eliminated or divided.