This piece is a follow-up to “The Second Newburyport Renaissance is About to Begin. A Retrospective from the Year 2051,” published January 7, 2025. In that piece, John Giordano argues for four major reforms that would improve Newburyport over the coming decades. This article details one of those reforms: Citizens’ Assemblies.
Imagine a political process that really gets to the heart of the interests of citizens, while keeping a check on our representative form of democratic governance.
The problem we face today is that representative democracy is being bought by monied interests, which can influence even local ballot questions, and school board and city council elections. The Citizens United ruling has wreaked havoc on democracy in the United States, which trickles down to us. We, as voters, also cannot be certain that elected officials will vote in a way that represents our interests. We gamble every time we vote for a particular candidate.
While they do not generally have voting power, Citizens’ Assemblies offer a necessary check to our flawed representative political system by amplifying the citizens’ voices.
So, what are Citizens’ Assemblies?
Groups of voters in a particular community are randomly selected (a process called sortition) to deliberate on important policy issues and make recommendations after a period of learning, consultation, and deliberation.The idea is that the random nature of the process allows for demographic representation, transparency, and independent facilitation where the problem or policy being discussed is facilitated by neutral parties.
Citizens’ Assemblies generally use a multi-staged process. There is a learning phase (with expert presentations and stakeholder inputs), a deliberation phase (facilitated small group discussions), and decision-making phase (developing recommendations).
Rather than replace representation in local government, Citizens’ Assemblies complement representative democracy by providing a productive process for expanding the public’s understanding of polarizing issues, all while rebuilding trust in democratic institutions.
We need this.
If we look at issues like the development of the Waterfront, the use of the Brown School, and the parking garage, we can see how a process that both objectively educates the public and presents a majority view of the community to city officials can potentially bring about outcomes that reflect what Newburyporters truly want.
Citizens’ Assemblies have been taking hold in Europe and elsewhere with exciting outcomes, such as the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016-2018). 99 randomly selected citizens (who were chaired by a Supreme Court judge) addressed Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion laws. After deliberations, the assembly recommended significant liberalization of abortion regulations, which led to a referendum in 2018 where the Irish public voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment, allowing for legal abortion.
In a national political climate where social architects want to remake the United States as a conservative theocratic state, even though poll after traditional poll shows that the majority of Americans do not support their minority views, local Citizens’ Assemblies could expose the man behind the curtain trying to move the people of this country where they don’t wish to go. Fighting this starts on the local level.
I want to discuss an example of a Citizens’ Assembly process that was nothing short of breathtaking, and should, I hope, provide inspiration regarding why Newburyport should strongly consider adopting such a political process.
The “Texas Deliberative Poll” on wind energy (which, though not a formal Citizens’ Assembly, functioned similarly to one) was held in the late 1990s and early 2000s as part of a series of deliberative polls conducted by utility companies in Texas.
The idea was that Texas utility companies saw the potential in renewable wind power in a (very windy) state heavily controlled by politicians in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. The process aimed to gauge informed public opinion about renewable energy investments at a time when wind power was still emerging as a viable energy source.
A random, representative sample of utility customers was selected and invited to participate in a weekend-long deliberative event. They were provided with balanced information about energy options, costs, environmental impacts, and sustainability concerns. Participants engaged with experts, asked questions, and deliberated in small facilitated groups before expressing their final views through surveys. Why was this process so important to Texas, and why is it a great example of where we need to go right here in Newburyport?
The results showed significant shifts in participant attitudes after deliberation. Support for wind power investments increased substantially. It was revealed that the majority were willing to pay more for renewable energy, and an understanding of the long-term economic and environmental benefits were put on the table.
The Texas Deliberative Poll helped establish public interest in and support for wind energy development in Texas, contributing to the state’s decision to create Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) and invest in transmission infrastructure to support wind development.
The deliberative process helped demonstrate that when ordinary citizens were fully informed about the issues, they supported policy change regarding sustainable energy development more strongly than indicated by conventional polling. Politicians couldn’t obfuscate and delude the public to protect their funders.
Going forward, I see the creation of a Citizens’ Assembly in Newburyport that deliberates on issues the citizens care about. Sortition can be used to randomly select voters: seniors who know the community’s history, newly-minted 18 year old voters, stay-at-home parents, highly involved civic leaders, nurses, and you.
Rather than allow city councilors or mayors to speak for us, we can speak for ourselves and make sure elected officials know what we want. Rather than allow a for-profit local newspaper owned by outsiders whose conservative views are out of step with our community to incite sensational public squabbles on social media when they post articles outside their paywall, we can push back with thoughtful discussion and respectful debate that aims to reveal the majority voice of the people.
As I learned in middle school history and civics (thank you, Mr. Hays), this “push back” was one of the fundamental ideas our country was founded on. Let’s take it back.
John Giordano
Newburyport resident
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