About This Project

Sortition Democracy proposes constitutionally embedding randomly selected citizen assemblies as a permanent fourth branch alongside executive, legislative, and judicial. Assemblies of 150 citizens (stratified random sample for demographic representativeness) are convened for 12 months with expert briefings, deliberation support, and full pay. They have three powers: (1) veto any legislation by supermajority — a democratic check on captured legislatures; (2) initiate referenda on issues legislators avoid; (3) conduct independent review of long-term policy areas (AI governance, climate, pension reform) that electoral cycles systematically neglect. This is not replacement of representative democracy but structural augmentation. Ireland's Citizens' Assembly on abortion and Scotland's Climate Assembly demonstrate the model works — sortition bodies make better long-term decisions than partisan legislatures on complex issues.

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