One side effect of the recent voting changes for the Representative Assembly is that our elections (when we bother holding them) have been turned into a 'beauty contest'. Voters really have no idea what laws their representatives will vote for or promote because.... candidates rarely say anything about them. Candidates tend to stress their values - integrity, inclusion etc. but not what laws they will support or push for.
Now, in the old days when only factions contested elections, voters had a good idea what they were getting because we used to publish manifestos which said what kind of laws we would pass. Some factions even described all the legislation they thought was needed in great detail.
I don't think we can go back to the old days. People wanted the freedom to elect people regardless of faction label and that's fine. People also wanted STV and I support that (and always have). But we need to bring back the power of the people to choose the laws and constitutional amendments that govern our little society. We already have commissions which bring citizens into the deliberation process before new laws or constitutional amendments are voted on but these are far from perfect. The last RA held a lot of meetings (a *lot* of meetings) but the attendees were mostly the same group of activists. These meetings involved no more than half our citizens when taken together (and some meetings which made big decisions were attended by no more than two or three people). There is no real guarantee that anything these groups develop actually reflects the will of the electorate. Nor is there any guarantee that the RA will be 'representative' when the members are mostly people who got elected in a 'beauty contest' i.e. their friends voted for them. (The 14th RA will be even less representative as no election was held for 6 out of the 7 seats, they are just the folk who showed up).
I think we need to check that people agree with the laws and constitutional amendments the RA passes before they become effective. So I propose that all laws and constitutional amendments passed during the term should be voted on in referenda at the next scheduled general election. Laws would only take effect if they got support from a simple majority of the votes cast (as would any other momentous decisions such as to merge with another community). Constitutional amendments would only take effect if they got support from 2/3 of the votes cast, and more than half the citizens eligible voted for the measure. I think this would help to make sure that our representatives were truly acting in the community's interest. It would force those in favour of new laws etc. to get out and get support from the electorate, not just the people in the Representative Assembly.
I'd be interested in proposing this for the RA to consider. Any thoughts?