Split democracy

There's been an interesting idea floating around in my head for a while: I think there are two roles for the people in a democracy, and I'm not sure both of them need to be filled in the same way.

Most democracies are bicameral: they have an upper and lower house, or a senate and a house of representatives. At its best, this system separates the legislative branch into two halves: one that proposes laws, and the other that scrutnises them. One body can then be dedicated to oversight and custodianship while the other is dedicated to a more proactive leadership role.

A similar structure appears with the executive and board of a company. The executive is empowered to lead the organisation, but their larger decisions have to go through the board, who ultimately are intended to represent the needs of the shareholders. Another example appears in academic institutions, where you will often have a university executive and separate representative groups of academics and students who have to agree to changes. Finally, unions, ombudsmen, and trade organisations also have a similar representative role, though their power is often less official.

The point is that these oversight groups are not designed to achieve something, but rather to protect something, be it shareholders, students, or union members. Democracy takes both roles. People are given a vote because they want things and those desires should guide the government, but people are also given a vote to protect themselves. After all, if you have the ability to choose who is elected, then they have every reason to avoid passing laws or taking actions that will harm you. Voting is a kind of bad government insurance.

There is a long tradition in democracy of suggesting that voting should be limited to people with certain achievements, income levels, IQ levels, land holdings, democratic knowledge, military service and so on. These ideas, unfortunately, fail the latter category. If dumb people can't vote, what's to stop the government screwing dumb people? After all, it's not like they have any way to fight back. Of course, you could hope that the smart people will stand up for dumb people, but that's a big risk to take.

However, perhaps if we separate these two democratic roles, we could have two kinds of voter. There could be a certain level of qualification required to vote for those who propose changes to society, but not for those who have to be consulted before those changes are made. In other words, the senate would still be elected by the entire population, but the house would be elected by a smaller set of, ideally smarter and more informed, voters. There would also need to be a commensurate adjustment to the power of these branches; the group representing all the people would need to be more powerful.

Interestingly, with these two ideas decoupled, you get a lot more flexibility in both directions. If lower house voters are intended to be the best of the people, there are a lot of dimensions you could use to determine that. More importantly, the upper house voters could perhaps be drawn from an even larger pool than citizens. Is it okay that the government is free to pursue policies that disenfranchise permanent residents? Temporary residents? Visitors and tourists? Refugees? Perhaps they too should get a voice to push back against harmful changes.

Of course, tinkering with democracy is enormously dangerous and I have no idea if any of this would work, but I think it's an idea worth exploring. If only charter cities had taken off so we could have some places to experiment with new forms of government. Still, it seems to me that democracies are doing a relatively good job at protecting their citizens, but a relatively bad job at enacting the changes they want. Perhaps there is a way to get one without giving up the other.