Tired of government gridlock? A new group called Voice of the People is launching a Citizen Cabinet. It’s a standing online panel that uses technology to give people a direct link to Congress.
The Citizen Cabinet is still in the pilot states—with only three states initially participating—Virginia is listed as a purple swing state…Oklahoma is conservative red…and Maryland is liberal blue.
Organizers are trying to recruit about 500 households in Virginia, comprising a representative sample, demographically balanced to match census data.
The University of Virginia Survey Research Center will partner in recruitment. Voice of the People Executive Director Rich Parsons advises Virginians to watch their mail.
“They’ll be getting communication from the Citizen Cabinet and from the University of Virginia, asking them to sign up and be a part of this panel. You have to be selected, it’s kind of like the golden ticket moment,” says Parsons.
Once selected, participants will receive a new issue about every three weeks—they’ll be briefed online, those without internet access will be given it, along with a device—and from there, they’ll discover pros and cons to the issues facing Congress…and then they weigh in, with a direct path to lawmakers.
“There’s a huge wave of emails and calls coming into Congress every day. Yet never has Congress been less able to discern the role of the public because most input is generated by special interest groups. They dominate it all, but the Citizen Cabinet is like a grand jury..” says Parsons.
Volunteers will serve six month terms. Each issue they receive ends in a policy simulation online questionnaire that takes about 20 minutes. The federal budget, taxes and spending, social security, immigration…it’s a non-partisan crash course in policy issues.
“If you ask a sample of the public, do you want to cut the budget deficit? Oh, yes. Huge marjoity says yes. Do you want to raise taxes? The majority says no. Do you want to cut spending on this or that? No, no, no. no. So it seems like the public’s voice is kind of incoherent. But we find when we put the public actually into a situation where they have to face the issue and solve the problem they do a phenomenal job.”
From there, cabinet recommendations are broken down by state, and reported to each member of Congress, the President, and the public. You can try an issue simulation yourself online—at the Voice of the People’s website.
