{"id":17307,"date":"2016-08-29T11:23:51","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T15:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17307"},"modified":"2016-08-29T11:23:51","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T15:23:51","slug":"a-reason-for-hope-the-citizens-initiative-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=17307","title":{"rendered":"a reason for hope: the Citizens Initiative Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Posted from DC) The Massachusetts 2016 Citizens Initiative Review<\/a> just concluded. Twenty randomly selected citizens spent four full days hearing testimony and intensively deliberating to write a statement meant to inform Massachusetts voters about the pending marijuana legalization referendum. Tufts’ Tisch College<\/a> is a sponsor of this process, and I made a few visits during\u00a0the days of deliberation, which are open to the public. I can report that my fellow citizens were deeply responsible, thoughtful, serious, and civil. At the end, I understand they found themselves moved by what they had accomplished.<\/p>\n

Their task was to write a statement to guide voters. Their short document had to include the strongest reasons to vote for and<\/em> against the initiative. Their fine product is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In contrast to politics as usual, the CIR isn’t polarized, and it’s not about winning and losing. In a good sense, it’s\u00a0personal: participants\u00a0get to know each other and try to make something valuable together. It is demographically reflective<\/a>\u00a0of the whole state. Money can’t get you into the room or buy\u00a0your ideas\u00a0a better hearing. It’s open-ended: no one can predict or determine what the deliberators will write, and each voter who reads their statement will make\u00a0up\u00a0her own mind about the referendum.<\/p>\n

To observe 20 of your fellow citizens–of all ages, races, and walks of life–playing a role in making policy is a beautiful thing and an antidote to despair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Posted from DC) The Massachusetts 2016 Citizens Initiative Review just concluded. Twenty randomly selected citizens spent four full days hearing testimony and intensively deliberating to write a statement meant to inform Massachusetts voters about the pending marijuana legalization referendum. Tufts’ Tisch College is a sponsor of this process, and I made a few visits during\u00a0the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deliberation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17325,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17307\/revisions\/17325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}