Hold National Town Hall meetings which would be conducted according to Robert's Rules of Order. The President would call a national town hall meeting, set the agenda including the issues to be discussed and will determine the number of states, counties and cities to be involved and specify the date and time of these meetings.
CONDUCTING TOWN HALLS
A person representing the President and members of Congress from the district would call each meeting to order, and put the question of who will be elected meeting chair to those attending. The meeting would then vote on who will be Chair and the Chair will read the agenda and divide the group up into policy issues or small groups of 5-10 people who will then elect group moderators who will lead the group in discussion and ensure Robert's Rules are followed.
At a specified time the group will vote on their issues electronically or by voice vote. This will then be electronically passed to the group moderator or the group moderator will pass the information to the group moderator who will enter it electronically.
Then the entire meeting will be called back to order and the Chair will lead a discussion of the issues as voted on by the various groups. Once discussion has been completed and everyone has had the opportunity to speak or the fixed time has been reached the Meeting Chair will put the question(s) to attendees who will vote on each issue either electronically (depending on the software being used) or in person. The issues and votes will then be entered into the computer if they haven't already and the President, members of Congress and other town halls will be able to see how each town hall voted.
Then the President will call on the first town hall to obtain the floor by logging on and ask the Group Chair to present their conclusions. If he or members of Congress who are co-hosting the meeting have questions they would be able to ask them.
The President would then go through the list of town hall meetings until each group has had the opportunity to speak at least once. Then the attendees of the national town hall would be asked to vote on what was discussed. This if at all possible would be done electronically or directly but either way the results would be electronically or manually entered into a computer.
The President would then conclude the meeting, thank everyone for their time and turn the meeting back over to the town hall chairs. Each chair would then conclude the meeting.
TECHNOLOGY TO BE USED
Depending on the needs of each town hall the technology used may vary but the technology exists and the technology used by the town halls would vary based on size and current needs and resources yet the administration would provide each state, legislative district, or city town hall representative with basic to be used at the meeting. Depending on the size of the meeting the President may choose to provide each attendee with a voting machine (simple clickers which are inexpensive could also be used).
HOW MANY ATTENDEES
Depending on the issues and what the administration and members of Congress would like to accomplish anywhere from 1 to 1,000's of town hall meetings could attend the national town hall meeting. The number of attendees at each would vary but the administration could (on a first come, first serve) basis determine a fixed number of attendees at each of the town hall meetings.
Let's assume that the President would like to hold one meeting in each state to be held at its State Capitol. The number he wishes to attend is 1,000. The town halls would be divided up into small groups of 10 (as I noted above) and the total number of groups at each town hall would be 10. These meeting would convene on the specified day and time with an agenda.
The meetings would last or about 2 to 3 hours depending on the agenda and then they would link up with the White House, members of Congress and the other town halls through the chosen online medium.
If each town hall would be allowed to address the President for 10 minutes that would be a total of 50 minutes of the President's time and a commitment of 3-4 hours of attendees time. The voting results would be provided to the President in aggregate form and he could use the information to make decisions or if he chooses he could ask the attendees to stay for a prolonged discussion that lasts for a few more hours.
CONCLUSION
As you can see the idea could be tailored depending on specific circumstances and could be a major town hall involving millions of Americans in cities and states around the country or a town hall meeting with several legislative districts. I have tried to avoid going into the details of such town halls because that would detract from the simplicity of what can be done and which can be expanded to include millions of Americans.
Comments (12)
I agree with the thrust of Edward's suggestion for town meetings and having them convened by government representatives would make them worthwhile for people to attend.
I disagree with trying to format the meetings too thoroughly. Let such organization happen more from the bottom up than from the top down.
My own post urging identifiable responses to comments and continuing into a conversaton was stimulated by the need for such more extensive interchange in order to achieve that sense of participation that leads to genuine consent to whatever the final decision might be. It takes a while before people have thought and talked their way to accepting what needs to be done.
They wouldn't need to be so through once people get into them and understand how to participate in such meetings. Right now a lot of people do not have the experience to be involved in such meetings or have an adequate knowledge of the issues that would be discussed which means that a through, detailed and informative town hall is better than a brief, free for all discussion of issues of the day.
Let's take education as an issue. If people don't know anything about how our education system works then there's going to have to be more discussion.
Also, the meetings will be inclusive of people with a wide range of views, opinions and ideas. Without following Robert's Rules (which can be simplified if necessary) there is likely to be a handful of people who take over a town hall.
The agenda, on the other hand, can be something as simple as one issue that people can just talk about but if we don't use Robert's Rules then everyone at the meeting should have the same or similar opinions since you don't get a group of people who disagree into the same room and expect them to not get into arguments if you don't have a clear set of rules protecting the rights of the majority and a large minority.
You lost me at "conducted according to Robert's Rules of Order," Edward. This category is called "New Strategies and Techniques" and meetings conducted with Robert's Rules are anything but new and have been shown to promote divisiveness and extreme power imbalances between the chair and participants.
There are many techniques that have been used at the community level, state level, and even national and international levels to engage citizens in tough issues as equal participants in dialogue and deliberation. These techniques often provide people with background info on the issue from a variety of perspectives, involve people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and are designed to handle disagreement and conflict in order to generate new and useful data for policymakers and/or help people decide how they want to take action on the issue themselves.
I invite you to check out the video playlists posted at www.youtube.com/profile?user=sheierbacher&view=playlists . Watch a few of the videos in the playlist "dialogue and deliberation in action" and you'll get the sense of how meetings involving citizens and decision-makers can best be held today.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say "This category is called "New Strategies and Techniques" and meetings conducted with Robert's Rules are anything but new and have been shown to promote divisiveness and extreme power imbalances between the chair and participants."
First, this belongs in the New Strategies and Techniques section because it deals with the use of technology to hold national town halls.
Second, unless you believe a Chair should have more power than the assembly then I'm not sure what you are trying to get at since the balance of power under "Robert's Rules" is in favor of participants who have almost absolute power.
Let me list a few simple Robert's Rules:
1) A majority rules;
2) A minority has the right to be heard;
3) A person who makes motion speaks first;
4) Only one person may speak at a time;
5) People who want to speak must be recognized;
6) You can't interrupt somebody whose speaking;
7) You talk to the Chair; not other people;
8) Comments must be pertinent to current issue;
9) Chair must rotate from pro to con speakers;
9) A person can't speak twice until everyone has an opportunity to speak;
10) No one can speak more than twice to the same motion;
11) Each speaker is limited to 10 minutes;
12) You must decide what to do before moving on;
To suspend Rule #2 and prevent someone from speaking requires a 2/3rds vote of everyone present. So how is there a "power imbalance" between a Chair who can't silence someone or prevent them from speaking and participants who can only do so with a 2/3rds vote.
The only reason there may be an imbalance in favor of a Chair is because the participants don't know Robert's Rules and we shortchange people if we don't expect them to learn them and how to apply these rules.
Because when the rules are properly applied the Chair has absolutely no control over anyone but a minority but even then that minority even if its one person has the ABSOLUTE right to appeal decisions of the Chair to the entire assembly.
The assembly have such absolute power that they by a super-majority can vote to suspend Roberts Rules if they are interfering with the ability to conduct their business.
Just doing away with them altogeter isn't fair to people since some day those people may go on to become elected officials and have almost no knowledge of how legislatures operate because they haven't had practice in applying Robert's Rules.
If you have a handful of people meeting you may get away with not using Robert's Rules but when the number increases and you fail to use those Rules you will soon have a free for all and not a single thing gets done.
I also don't agree with "There are many techniques that have been used at the community level, state level, and even national and international levels to engage citizens in tough issues as equal participants in dialogue and deliberation"
The reason I don't agree with this is because someone always ends up making those rules and then applying them to everyone who attends and no one is on equal ground except for those who created the rules and who conduct the meeting.
I'm concerned when people speaks against the use of Robert's Rules because they are the only thing that can keep a meeting from becoming a zoo. If I don't agree with a meeting, you are conducting, not applying Robert's Rules. What would you do? How would you deal with those of us who don't like the idea that you get to set the rules?
Not using Robert's Rules almost certainly make us unequal and the funny thing about Robert's Rules is that they are almost always based on common sense so those who are not familiar with the rules are already using them in their day to day life. When you are having a chat with a friend you almost always follow the rule that you never speak when another person is speaking and you certainly don't interrupt them.
Given the negative response I think the substance of this idea is misunderstood. The idea of national town hall meetings is a great way to get people involved and connect the people to their elected representatives.
Robert's Rules are useful for formal decision making meetings if the meeting is chaired fairly and the participants understand the rules (e.g. "Why can't I ask a question?!")
However, there are a number of more open discussion/dialogue systems that facilitate broader discussion and consensus-building, such as Dynamic Facilitation, Wisdom Councils, Open Space Technology, World Cafe, etc.
I agree that some shared protocols would help forward the quality of online discussion. For example, so far on this forum people are offering thoughtful responses, compared to many negative comments on youtube and other social networking forums.
If we separate the idea (town halls) from t he process (Robert's rules), would this idea find more favour?
PS - one definition of brainstorming is to "post ideas without judgement". In this case replies should forward the initial idea, not trounce it.
...loving the conversation! --DD
@d1doherty,
I do think that people take issue with the idea of Robert Rules more than they do with the idea of Town Hall meetings because many people don't know anything about Robert's Rules. Nor do they understand the principles behind the rules. If they did they would understand that the Rules are based on how we conduct ourselves in normal every day settings and conversations.
Instead they assume that it is a structured system that grants an unlimited authority to the Chair when in reality a Chair is just the face of the entire body.
There are also problems with the other systems you listed which are address by Robert's Rules and which can't be adequately addressed by the other systems.
Take Dynamic Facilitation: This system assumes that everyone shares a passionate interest in the same thing and that they are immersed in a common problem that they all share and they are friends, family or work together frequently and that a resolution is desired.
But National Town Halls will involve thousands of people who don't know each other, who will have different ideologies and opinions and are affected differently by the various policies so Dynamic Facilitation wouldn't work in national settings.
The problem that Wisdom Council suffer from is the assumption that people will be willing to work together and to reach unanimity when they are totally different and coming from different settings, background and experiences. These kind of groups work best when the people know each other and have to continue to associate with each other after the meeting concludes. They also operate based on the assumption that everyone agrees with the rules. Robert's Rules doesn't require unanimity.
Wisdom Council would work best in settings where people have an agenda such as promoting Wisdom Councils because they have a vested interest in making sure the process works. Those who don't have any interest in Wisdom Councils will be disruptive. Even the name "Wisdom Council" may be offensive to those who don't agree that any body of people can call themselves wise without being arrogant.
I wouldn't participate in a political meeting that didn't use Robert's Rules or some adaption of the Rules simply because not doing so would give the host or those who called the meeting more power than the participants of the meeting even if the setup and meeting agenda appears to be participatory.
It would essentially guarantee that a handful of intense people control everything and set the rules. I also think it is important for people to get used to the idea of using some form of Robert's Rules since those rules are derived from legislatures and Parliaments and allow people to learn about how those rules are applied before ever holding an elected office.
Every political meeting we have should be a training ground for how people interact with each other in government. There is never going to be a time that Dynamic Facilitation, Wisdom Councils or any other system will be used in Congress or State Legislatures because they are geared to a different type of meeting which is a meeting of those who agree or have a common goal.
When members of Congress aren't busy dropping an F-bomb towards another Congressman they are bound by the rules. They know the rules and they understand how they are applied and even if they are in the minority they are protected. We can't become like other countries where fist fights break out in their legislatures because the rules aren't strictly enforced.
Political meetings aren't chit-chats, firesides or a neighborhood social. We need to be careful to remember that town hall meetings aren't meant to build consensus or to have an open discussion or dialogue. They are meant for people to be heard.
I don't want to come across as a die hard but I think it is always important to remember that I am not going to a meeting that is there to build consensus because that is just another word for the hosts or participants to try to get their way and appear like everyone agrees when they don't. If you can find me one issue that consensus can be reached on and you will have found an issue which is not political in nature.
Edward,
I couldn't have said it better myself. Holding a deliberative meeting without following Robert's Rules is not a deliberative meeting at all. It's just a means for those in power to wrap their agenda in a cloak of public unanimity.
ex animo
davidfarrar
David, Edward,
I am alive to tell you there is rational life outside Roberts Rules :) I use/teach a variety of group process and decision-making models. Most democratic organizations adopt Roberts Rules as their guiding principles for good reasons considering what was going on in politics 200 yrs ago. Thank G*d Mr. Roberts brought "civility" to democracy.
FFWD to 2009
Edward said "what Wisdom Council suffer from is the assumption that people will be willing to work together and to reach unanimity when they are totally different and coming from different settings, background and experiences."
That is precisely the purpose and outcome of a Wisdom Council (WC). I have both observed and facilitated groups of 12 strangers with conflicting opinions who came together, discussed challenging issues and arrived at a consensus statement which they shared in a public meeting. Dynamic Facilitation is the process tool that made it work.
I respect that your experience with deliberative groups may have been less satisfying. I agree that a coherent model helps move a group to their intended goal. It works best when the event is convened by the people, not by those with strongly vested interests. In fact, in the latter case, by definition, it would not be a WC).
Pick the tool for the job...I use Roberts Rules to make a formal, debated decision, and when a group wants to explore a big, messy issue I choose Dynamic Facilitation.
There is lots of good theoretical discussion here. The only way to test our assertions is to do a head to head comparison...online/F2F...RR/DF
And now all we have to do, gentlewo/men, is move this whole Town Hall meetings process online, using Robert's Rules of Online Order -- which hasn't actually been invented yet, but is being worked on.
And here is a scoop known only to this group, it soon will be completed.
ex animo
davidfarrar
I love the idea.
I have Robert's Rules and have never read it through but a parliamentary procedure makes sense.
I think it should always be a video conference with a voting unit that has big Yeah Neah and Abstain buttons on it and is hooked up in such a way that the buttons actually pressed would light up on the unit at the other end so that the button pressed can be seen on video and confirmed on the unit.
I think that the number of attendees should never be above 90 total. I think that would be the limit that would be manageable and never fewer than 5 per group...if able. If more issues needed addressing then more town halls would be needed, that's all.
This idea almost sounds like it should be on par with Jury Duty...in a good way. Participation should be mandated.
Well, this kind of online deliberative meetings can be used by many, many local, state and federal governmental committee meetings presently held in one place at a time certain. If Robert's Rules of Online Order could be adopted for online use, these governmental deliberative committee meetings could now be held online and attended by many, many more people from all over the country. This is the real value of developing Robert's Rules for Online Order. Virtually every governmental committee meetings presently used RRs. These are public meetings but who can go due to time and distance limitations? Once these governmental committee meetings are held online now the public can attend from all over the United States...thereby increasing citizens' participation in government tremendously.
ex animo
davidfarra