Do you feel that your voice is heard regarding the basics of your life? Do you feel that the priorities being set by your town or state or federal government are important, fair, equitable, and present a sense of a just future for all?

Or do you feel that a small group of the same people are making decisions, calling the shots over and over again, and never quite mirroring the will of the wider citizenship? Do you feel that the system is captured by the elite, the connected, the “professionals,” the status seekers, those who make more noise, or perhaps those in the clutches of the wealthy?

Think about it. Research suggests that most U.S. citizens favor gun control. Ditto regarding climate action or holding corporations responsible for societal harms. And yet, the will of the majority isn’t reflected in US policies or laws. We have no laws banning guns. We have no national policy holding fossil fuel companies responsible for the global warming that they knew about and misrepresented.

Why is that? We could argue about the role of big money, lobbyists, corrupt politicians, or corporations until we found the exact cause. Yet it’s not that complicated.

This disconnect is because the democratic system we’re using is broken—the priorities of most of us are not being heard. And they never will be no matter how much we play with campaign finance laws or term limits. There are solutions—a new system, a better way—we can put into place. Starting today. Here in Camden.

Let’s Try A Deliberative Approach That Casts A Broader Net

Instead of our cultural belief that voting and elected officials are the answer, what if we brought a deliberative approach to decisions, on both the local and wider level? What if randomly selected groups of citizens were convened to set priorities? What if the work they did then flowed into a referendum or a law, without having career politicians (from the local select board member who stays forever to our five-term senators) getting involved?

Sound like a pipe dream? In the last five years these deliberative assemblies—often called citizens' assemblies—have been convened around the world. The results are encouraging. In Ireland such a system was used to hash out the thorny issues of marriage equality and abortion. In France a citizen’s assembly was convened to create climate policy for the nation, and then again for end-of-life issues. 

In Connecticut this spring the U.S.’s largest state-level citizens’ assembly will “bring together 100 randomly selected Connecticut residents for several weekends of deliberation about the question of property taxes and how to fund local public services.” (See Helen Landemore’s  NYTimes essay, 4/7/26, “No Shy Person Left Behind.”)

These gatherings convene citizens like you and me to work through societal preferences and priorities. They also come up with real, consensus-based policy recommendations—and in some cases even laws. 

Other Benefits—Including Community Cohesion

Deliberative assemblies also provide several additional community and societal benefits. First, they create a sense of solidarity and friendship within communities. (Imagine that, after months of working through a tough local topic—maybe a thorny issue like dam removal—folks felt more united instead of more at odds.)

These assemblies also allow those who haven’t traditionally had a voice—including across income/class/race/professional barriers, as well as gender, and personality types—an equal seat at the deliberative table. Why is this important? Research shows that those who run for elected office skew to status-seeking extroverts. Other research finds that leaders in politics and corporations display more of the dark triad characteristics. In short, this democratic system brings better people to the deliberations table.

In Camden right now there are several unpopular policies that have been enacted or are in discussion: paid parking, full dam removal, police department makeup. Imagine if we had had a citizens’ assembly, say, of 25-randomly selected citizens, who were convened to work through even one of these topics, presenting policy ideas, or even potential referendums to the voters. No doubt there would have been vastly different outcomes than the community vibe we’re now experiencing.

Here are the benefits to Camden: we’d have a random selection of folks, not just those who town staff or other stakeholders favored; we’d empower those convened to govern themselves, providing support in terms of expertise and logistics—allowing them the freedom to work for the collective good. It would be “ordinary people talking to one another with the goal of coming to joint decision that works for most rather than the elite and interest groups bargaining with one another.” (Politics Without Politicians, page 9) 

On many issues, for example paid parking, our town mistakenly gathered folks already interested in a topic (business owners), or with expertise in topics (a paid consultant), to work on the solutions. Yet this leads to poor long-term results. Ordinary citizens with diverse backgrounds make better long-term decisions: “it is more useful for a group trying to solve a difficult problem to include people who think very differently from one another relative to the problem at hand, rather than to include only the smartest people, who are likely to think similarly…To crack a code, for example, it could be more useful to have a mathematician, a poet, and a linguist working together, rather than three top mathematicians. The friction between the three different ways of thinking may be productive in a way that having similar forms of individual intelligences seamlessly interact is not.” (Politics Without Politicians, page 112)

Better decisions are made when the group making them is more diverse in all ways. And that is how we create a representative democracy. We look to the citizens within the town. Selected randomly.

The U.S. Jury System As Help to Understand Citizens’ Assemblies

Hard to grasp how this would work? Think of the success of the U.S. jury system. You get a letter asking you to serve, and you make it a point to show up and do your civic duty. You get reimbursed for your time, and you do your best to listen to the advice of the judge, and the case as presented by experts. Then you and your citizen peers deliberate. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it is messy. And yes, minds can be changed and consensus can be reached. 

Citizens’ assemblies do the same: provide payment for citizen’s time and expenses; provide support regarding expertise on the topic(s); provide meeting spaces and times based on the needs of those in the assembly. And heading into the deliberations there are agreed upon standards for what will be done with the work of the citizens—that is, will their work be recommendations only, or will it be a referendum for voters, or  perhaps a referendum for a governing body.

This moves to a system where politics is not a job—it reinforces citizenship as a civic duty and occasional responsibility.

Local Events Where You Can Learn More 

If you’d like to learn more about Citizens’ Assemblies, join us at Resilient Reading Discussion Group, 4-5 p.m. on April 14 and 28 at the Camden Public Library. 

Other sources of information include Luke Kemps’s book Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse. Kemp, a Research Affiliate at the Center for Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, will be speaking April 14 at 7 pm at the First Congregational Church in Camden. 

Kemp’s topic is “Are We on the Road to Collapse?” According to Kemp, one of the ways we can avoid a full global collapse is to “introduce open democracy, with deliberative juries and assemblies creating national policies for governments and providing oversight of corporations. If decision-makers are randomly selected from society, we will no longer be selecting for those who crave status or power or who rank higher in the dark triad. The constant cycling through new citizens to make decisions will also help ensure no one is in authority long enough (or holds enough power) to be corrupted.” (Goliath’s Curse, page 438) (You can also attend a discussion of the book on April 9, at 6:00 pm at the First Congregational Church.)

Helen Landemore’s Politics Without Politicians: The Case for Citizen Rule, and the website Democracy Next offer more details. (“DemocracyNext is a research & action institute focused on broadening who has power and improving collective decision making with sortition, deliberation, and rotation.We believe in a more just, joyful, and collaborative future, where everyone has meaningful power to shape their societies.”) 

Molly Mulhern lives in Camden.