I first saw a video of Brett Hennig delivering a brilliant 9-minute TEDx Talk entitled, “What if we replaced politicians with randomly selected people,” in which he talked about “sortition” replacing elections and bringing about the end of politicians.
There is a growing global interest in citizens’ assemblies, with members chosen randomly like a jury, who collectively study issues and provide recommendations to government.
Hennig helps organize single-issue citizens’ assemblies as a way of demonstrating the “wisdom of crowds” but his end goal is to replace elected legislators with citizens chosen by lottery, free from party politics.
He is co-director of the UK-based Sortition Foundation that in 2024 launched Project 858 — a campaign and petition drive calling for the replacement of the utterly undemocratic House of Lords with a randomly selected House of Citizens.
The 858.org.uk website explains:
858 years ago King Henry II shook things up by introducing juries. After eight centuries they’ve more than proven their worth as the backbone of the legal system and now it’s time to put ordinary people at the helm in politics too.
The Sortition Foundation claims that “the House of Lords is a hangover from our feudal past” and that “a House of Citizens would upgrade our democracy.”
Project 858 asserts that random selection ensures that the House of Citizens would be a “mirror to our society making it the first legislature in the world to be 50% women.”
Ordinary citizens are “in touch with the day-to-day reality of life in the UK.”
They would be “guided by experts, on tap but not on top” and would constitute “a counterweight to political corruption.”
The website explains that the House of Citizens would have powers equivalent to those currently held by the House of Lords and would otherwise leave the existing elected House of Commons with its role intact.
The House of Citizens would “hold government to account — shaping, challenging and, if necessary, rejecting government bills.”
It would also “have the power to initiate legislation” and “instigate citizens’ assemblies on topics of national interest and independent public inquiries into matters of significant public importance.”
According to the Sortition Foundation’s Project 858 website:
The members of the House of Citizens would be selected using a three-stage democratic lottery.
Stage 1. Official invitations are sent to 30,000 citizens, selected by democratic lottery, inviting people to register their interest in becoming a member of the House of Citizens, and inviting them to a day of information and discussion.
Stage 2. After the information day, those that accept the invitation are requested to provide some socio-economic and demographic details, such as gender, age, where they live, education level, average regular income, ethnicity and disability status.
Stage 3. An independent body, such as the Electoral Commission, in collaboration with the Office of National Statistics, would then be responsible for guaranteeing the fair selection by democratic lottery of the people from this group in such a way that it represents the make-up of people from all across the UK.
The House of Citizens would have up to 450 members who are chosen for two-year terms.
