USCIA SUGGESTIONS

Preface

The purpose of these Suggestions is to give the Assembly the benefit of miscellaneous ideas and thoughts that have been developed prior to its convocation, but which are not appropriate to become rules for adoption by the Amendment. They are for the guidance of the Assembly, to be interpreted, used or discarded as the Assembly sees fit.

1. Election of Temporary Officials
   The first order of business at the Initial Convocation should be the nomination and election of a temporary Moderator (i.e., Chairperson), a temporary Recording Secretary, and a temporary Sergeant at Arms to oversee the first day only of the first Plenary Session of the Assembly. More permanent officials should be elected on the second day.
2. Substantiate Independence of Assembly
   The second order of Business at the Initial Convocation should be to re-adopt the Assembly Rules in order to substantiate the independent authority of the Assembly.
3. Identification
   All persons on the Assembly premises must wear a photo identification badge hung from their neck while in public. The badges will be issued by the Security officer. The badge will be color-coded to indicate function. Members' badges will show legal name, nickname and start date of full membership.
4. Deliberative Blog™*
   In addition to any standard blogs, the Assembly has the authority to organize Deliberative Blogs that use standard blog features modified as necessary to suit specific Assembly purposes. Participants will consist of a cross-section of registered voters selected from those willing and able to participate, using a stratified random-sample selection process. The size of the cross-section will be chosen by the Assembly and will probably be about 150 bloggers—this number will vary based on experience and questions to be addressed. The bloggers will generally be paid an honorarium for good-faith participation. They will participate with write permission on a blog housed on a secure server. Each blogger (i.e., registered member of the blog) will have a unique username but their identity will be kept secret and only the blogger may reveal their true identity. The Assembly will choose one or more fixed questions or topics for the blog to address. The Assembly will be responsible for and have final authority over blog administration and moderation. After a period of about a month—duration will vary based on experience and questions to be addressed—the Deliberative Blog will vote on the questions. The results of the vote will be posted on the blog. It may be a dark blog, or with the knowledge and concurrence of the bloggers, the Assembly may permit anyone to view the blog with read-only access. The discussions will provide valuable insight into the issues that the Assembly wants guidance on or could not take up. Note that a related mechanism is the PICOLA Deliberative Poll® (Public Informed Citizen Online Assembly) developed at Carnegie Mellon, which may evolve or be modified to become an effective alternate.
5. Wikinitia™*
   The Assembly also has the authority to establish a cooperative platform to help groups develop initiative ideas in the same type of environment that other Wiki projects use. In this case, a group of Citizens would start a Wikinitia initiative development process. They would identify the persons and groups they want to participate and would control the content and evolution of the ideas.

6. Preliminary Initiative Ranking System Suggestions
   Selection is an elimination process using a ranking system and common sense. Rapid initial elimination slows to lengthy deliberation. The process is divided into a series of steps. The following may serve as a starting point that can be simplified by the Assembly for practical use:

   1. Selection Step One. The information shall be entered into the database in real time as the evaluations are made. Fields shall be provided for explanatory comments as the evaluators feel necessary for someone using their findings later.

      1. Log the Proposed Initiative so it achieves the status of Communicated Initiative. This should be done prior to the selection process proper and may be accomplished be contracted services. If the newspapers cooperate, they will provide electronic text of all proposed Initiatives. The master set of source Initiative will be all those that have been published at any time in the past. They must be kept current on a searchable database. The proposed Initiative shall be accessible to the public on the Internet; Assembly evaluations shall be kept on a secure internal database.

      2. Weighting computations shall be automatic and other features shall help the Members work efficiently without excessive complexity.

      3. The database shall present the proposed Initiatives in any order requested based on the criteria or weighting chosen.

   2. Selection Step Two. A two Deliberative Task Forces (DTFs) shall be assigned to make the first evaluations. They shall consist of Members drawn by lot. The task Force shall be reminded to exercise their oath of duty to act as deputies of the People and forgo personal preferences. Compromise and averaging of Member opinion is expected, but any members of the task force must promptly report back to the Assembly any serious discriminatory practice of the Task Force.

      Check for duplications in the database, and link to any duplicate proposed Initiative.

      The criteria are from 0 to 10, ten being best.

      1. Assign Primary Criteria (0-10). These are fundamental to the proposed initiative such that it cannot be significantly advanced by subsequent editing and refinement.

         ▪ Importance

         ▪ Urgency

         ▪ Value (e.g., Financial, Social)

         Add the primary criteria values to get the Primary Weighting (0-30).

      2. Assign Secondary Criteria (1-30). These relate to how the proposed Initiative meets the Direct Democracy Guidelines order of priority considering:

         ▪ Set policies, objectives and limits to help government best benefit the People.

         ▪ Resolve issues that the government finds difficult to deal with.

         ▪ Solve other matters troubling to the People.

         Secondary Weighting (0-30).

      3. Assign Tertiary Criteria (1-10). These relate to how the proposed Initiative meets the objectives of the Assembly.

         ▪ Specific project vs. program vs. policy.

         ▪ Special interest vs. nationwide public interest.

         ▪ Controversial vs. legal and constitutional soundness.

         Add the tertiary criteria values to get the Tertiary Weighting (0-30).

      4. Assign Quaternary Criteria (0-30). These are important to the proposed initiative, but can be significantly advanced by subsequent editing and refinement.

         ▪ Quality of ideas (e.g., Logic, Research)

         ▪ Quality of presentation (e.g., Persuasiveness, Proposed Initiative Guideline Compliance)

         ▪ Presentation (e.g., Brevity, Clarity)

         Add the quaternary criteria values to get the Quaternary Weighting (0-30).

      The following computations should be performed automatically on the database computer:

      Add the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary weightings to get the Overall Additive Weighting (0-120).
      Multiply the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary weightings and divide by 810,000/120 to get the Overall Multiplicative Weighting (0-120). (Multiplicative weightings can indicate overall balance.)
      Every weighting criteria or weighting shall be orderable and searchable, independently or in groups.

   3. Selection Step Three. A second Task Force shall independently review the first Task Force's evaluations in Step One using a similar process. The database shall provide the capability to enter their findings. They shall report back to the Assembly and resolve any substantial differences between the two independent findings.

   4. Selection Step Four. The Assembly in Plenary Session shall establish a current set of cut-off criteria for the database of proposed Initiatives. It shall assign two independent task forces to review the rankings and recommend those proposed Initiatives that should advance to the rank of Assigned Initiatives. The Assembly shall resolve differences of opinion and then approve the current list of Assigned Initiatives subject now to intensive review by the entire Assembly.

   5. Selection Step Five. Elimination of Assigned Initiatives shall be done by vote in Plenary Session. Those not eliminated become Nominated Initiatives and start to consume relatively large proportions of the time of the entire Assembly in debate and review and application of its external resources.

   6. Selection Step Six. Promotion of Initiatives to Candidate status are the final steps before the Initiatives are put to the Electorate, and receive the focus of the entire Assembly with all of its resources. The prioritized order of the finalists shall be obtained with rank order or pair comparisons by the full Assembly.

   7. Selection Step Seven. Annually, the Assembly shall assign task forces of Members to search the database for any worthy Communicated Initiatives that were missed by earlier task forces or have a change in status due to passage of time. If necessary, their evaluations shall be adjusted so that they rise up for re-examination.

*Deliberative Blog™, Wikinitia™, and Wikinitiative™ are a trademarks of Citizens for U.S. Direct Initiatives, a nonprofit corporation.