Disclosure: This interview does not endorse the candidate - but I did find it an intriguing idea and worth learning more about.
In his public declaration of his candidacy, Hugh McTavish, Ph.D., said, “I am running because I want to really create a government that is, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, ‘of the people, by the people’ and ‘for the people.’” He went on to add, “Instead, we have government that is of the elites and the corporations, by the elites and the corporations, and for the elites and the corporations.”
His proposal, Jury Democracy, involves having large, statistically valid juries of 500 to 2,000 randomly selected voters come to the capitol, hear arguments for and against a particular bill or proposal, deliberate on it, and then vote on that one bill or proposal.
According to McTavish, Jury Democracy would impact public debate and transform political power and how the government makes decisions.
“As governor, before I sign any important or controversial bill into law, I will submit it to a citizen jury of at least 500 people,” he added. “If the jury approves the bill, I will sign it into law; if it rejects the bill, I will veto it. Effectively, I will not be governor—WE ALL WILL BE! I will give the power to you!”
I had a chance to interview him about this idea.
How did you come up with the Jury Democracy idea?
I actually thought of it 25 years ago as I was writing my first book, Ending War in Our Lifetime. I’ve elaborated it a bit over time.
Let me explain what the idea is.
To begin, what is the ideal form of government? I think it is to have all of us involved in the decision, everyone gets to vote, everyone can propose anything, and everyone is heard in their arguments for and against any proposal, and decisions are only made after everyone has had the chance to voice their arguments. That is basically the way we make decisions in our families and in small societies (with about 200 or fewer people) such as hunter-gatherer tribes. But is presumably not possible with societies numbering in the millions, such as ours. Right? Having everyone participate like that is not possible but we can get the same result.
Jury Democracy is the idea of having decisions of government made by large juries that are statistically valid samples of all citizens. The juries would make their decisions only after presentation of all the evidence and arguments for and against each proposal and after careful deliberation. Just as juries of randomly selected ordinary citizens decide the guilt or innocence of accused criminals—and according to nearly every judge and practicing lawyer do an excellent job doing so—they can decide the size of our government budget and whether we should forbid single-use plastic bags at grocery stores and every other decision government makes. And I am very confident that we, all of us who will be those jurors, will do an excellent job making those decisions, far better than our current legislators, governors, Presidents, and bureaucrats.
The system I propose is to call to the state capitol 500 or 1,000 randomly selected citizens to serve as jurors to consider a bill passed or proposed by the legislature. Both or all sides of the issue will present their arguments and evidence for and against the bill. The jurors will then break into smaller groups of 12 and be given the time to read the entire bill and then will deliberate in their smaller groups of 12 and have the opportunity to argue to your fellow jurors the way you plan to vote or think they should vote. You are likely to learn something in that group because there will be people from all parts of the state with different backgrounds and life experiences than you who may have a different view of the issue. Then after that deliberation we take a secret ballot vote of the entire large jury of 500 or 1,000 on the bill. For new laws, I would require a 55% majority in favor for passage of the bill to give deference to the status quo and because that is outside the margin of error of less than ±5%.
With 400 or more randomly selected jurors, the result of the vote will be within ±5% of the result you would have gotten if you had every registered voter in the state participate in the jury. With 1,000 jurors it is about ±3% (with 95% confidence). So with only 500 people or more serving, which is about 1 in 10,000 of us in Minnesota, you get the same result as you would if you could call every citizen to consider the same evidence and participate in the decision. It is therefore equivalent in output to the perfect form of government, which would be where all of us are fully informed and all of us participate in every decision. But it has the additional advantage that the other 99.99% of us do not have to spend our time on the issue and can go about our lives.
What are potential disadvantages to this idea?
I don’t think there are any, other than that the current elites and wealthy and corporations will no longer control the system. So it is a bad deal for them. But for the other 99% or 99.9% of the population it is a good deal.
It gives us all equal power, regardless of income or influence. It gives perfect proportional representation. Blacks, Native Americans, women, etc., every group has representation proportional to their numbers, without quotas or affirmative action, just automatically. The poor have representation and power proportional to their numbers. The bottom 50% of the income bracket, who currently have zero influence on legislation, will have 50% of the power. The young will have power and representation. Lawyers are something like 80% of legislators. With Jury Democracy every occupation will be represented proportional to its numbers.
Perhaps most importantly, the meek or non-power-hungry individuals will have power and influence proportional to their numbers. Under the current system you get elected only if you seek election. So those people are seeking power. Many of them are power hungry. Probably none of them are meek. But in itself the fact that you would seek power makes you to some extent unsuited to hold it. We want to give power to people who are not power-hungry. Jury Democracy does that.
One argument that has been raised against this idea when I present it is that we should weed out “stupid people” or there should be an IQ test for participation. That of course is nonsense and insulting to people. But the idea would be that smarter people make better decisions and there is a “right” decision to public policy questions. First, there is usually not one right decision and smart people are found on both sides of every issue. The Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court are all good lawyers and very smart people, but they make some terrible decisions in my view and on any controversial issue some are on one side of it and some on the other. Also, policy decisions are usually based on values, not a right and wrong answer as in mathematics. Do you build a new mine in an ecologically sensitive area? It depends whether you value protecting the environment more than jobs for the miners.
Second, it is not true that smart people make better decisions in many areas than less smart people. Studies show that, for instance, if you ask many people to guess the number of jelly beans in a large jar at the county fair, the average of all guesses will be very close to correct and better than nearly all individual guesses. Most professional mutual fund managers do worse than the stock market averages. The average of all our judgments, as I am proposing with Jury Democracy, results in better decisions than the decisions of almost all individuals on their own.
One apparent potential disadvantage of Jury Democracy is that it is an additional house of the legislature and an additional hurdle to getting legislation enacted, and it is already too hard to get needed change and legislation passed. But in reality Jury Democracy can break through that logjam and help get needed legislation enacted. I would introduce bills to the juries, rather than just have juries consider bills already passed by the legislature. All ideas can be considered. I would allow every elected legislator of both or all parties to introduce one bill to the jury in each biennium. We can introduce ideas that the media or elites consider unacceptable and refuse to consider now. Then, any bill that passes the jury, I would demand of the legislature that it hold an up or down vote on that bill. I would argue it is disrespectful to the people who have declared, after full consideration of all evidence and arguments, that this bill is something they want enacted, to refuse to even hold a vote on it. In that way, I think we can get more laws enacted and more innovative laws. Also, every law enacted, by definition, will have the informed support of the majority of the population.
What are other ways that citizens can get more involved in government?
Of course you can write to your legislator and congressperson. Studies say those letters are really considered. You can run for office. You can donate to your preferred candidate. You can campaign for issues you care about.
I encourage everyone to do all of those things. But if Jury Democracy gets enacted, all that becomes less important and elections become less important. In a way all you need to do is show up for the jury when you are invited and vote on the jury. That will be how decisions are made. Lobbying elected legislators and electing your preferred legislator and even moving public opinion on an issue will all become somewhat less important. So we will be more free to just live our lives and not feel obligated to devoting them to moving decision making on the issues we care about.
A Ph.D. biochemist and immunologist, patent attorney, entrepreneur and author, McTavish has authored 18 refereed scientific journal articles and is the inventor of 21 U.S. patents. He has started two pharmaceutical companies off his own inventions. He lives near St. Paul, Minnesota. Now he is running for governor of Minnesota, primarily to bring the innovation of Jury Democracy to Minnesota and the world.
Besides hoping to positively impact government, McTavish entered the governor’s race because, in his words, “Everyone’s life matters.”
For more information about his candidacy, please visit https://www.mctavish4mn.org/, and follow him on Twitter at @McTavish4MN.
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