Brad Ideas - Why do elected officials preside over what voters don't care about? - Comments

Anton Sherwood — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 05:33:41 -0700

In the places where I've voted, the State cabinet officers and various specialized boards on the State or local level are separately elected, rather than appointed by the executive or legislature. Presumably such officers are more responsive than their Federal counterparts, though I suppose it could be hard to measure.

On the Federal level, in every 12 years we get 13 opportunities to vote (two Senators twice each, one Representative six times, the President three times). Does anyone really believe that the universe of policy can be compressed into that?

Peter McCluskey — Mon, 27 Sep 2004 01:51:15 -0700

The FCC probably responds to special interest groups because people there want job security and a larger budget, and satisfying special interests will encourage those special interests to influence congress in ways that increase the FCC's budget and stability.
With some agencies (e.g. the patent office) there is also the problem of employees on a career path to work for the special interests group (e.g. get hired as a patent lawyer).
These problems can be partly solved by higher salaries and by eliminating democratic control over the agency (this has been mostly done for the Fed and for judges), although that doesn't do anything about the agency's desire to increase its power (I wouldn't expect an independent FCC to turn more of the spectrum into a commons).
A more ambitious solution is Robin Hanson's idea of Futarchy (http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf), where factual questions are decided by markets (e.g. will turning this part of the spectrum into a commons increase GDP or some measure of equality such as the Gini coefficient 5 years later? will invading Iraq reduce the number of deaths caused by terrorism over the next 5 years?). The role of democracy would be to figure out what measures of wellbeing should be maximized, with congress and/or agencies being instructed to follow whatever rules the markets said would maximize those measures.

Why do elected officials preside over what voters don't care about?

brad — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 15:28:52 -0700

A lot of our democratic process involves our elected officials voting and presiding over things that voters are not going to change their vote over. Oh, they are important things, and the voters actually do care about them, but they are not going to change many votes.

That's especially true now. In deciding whether to re-elect your congresscritter, is how they voted on say FCC spectrum policy going to make a difference to you, compared to their stance on bigger issues like the war and the economy? Even when spectrum policy matters a lot to you?

The result of this is that there is no accountability on these committees, and little downside to selling your vote to somebody who does matter -- a big contributor who can give you the money you think you need to win votes.