And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term?
> And like jurors in juries, wouldn't we then be governed by people not smart enough to get out of their congressional term?
Now, I think that a by-lot Congress is a really bad idea for a variety of reasons, but that's a moderately stupid argument when it comes to juries (given that it assumes that everyone is actively seeking to avoid jury service, so the only people who actual serve are those who fail), and its even stupider applied to Congress -- its relatively common for people to want to have a say in the government of their country (to the point where already wealthy people will sometimes spend many times the salary a member of Congress earns per term on a campaign out of their own money), and shifting from an elected to a by-lot Congress would reduce the political power of voters as voters, increasing the delta represented by serving in Congress.
And that's even before considering that members of Congress are paid substantially more than most workers; changing nothing besides the selection method would make being selected for Congress not much different than winning the lottery for most citizens -- only those who are both already wealthy and politically disinterested would have rational, self-interested reason to avoid service.
Overall, the problem is that the system bends to accommodate the judges and lawyers, who get paid very well to be there, and abuses the jurors, who do not. Why do I have get up at 6:00 AM just to sit around for three days while you idiots figure out if you need me or not? This isn't rocket science, and you all already have scheduled dockets.
The bigger problem with jury selection is that everything is trying to screen out people who bring in outside knowledge. This actively screens for the ignorant. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, though. I suspect that it's a good thing overall as the number of times you get someone smart who recognizes a fault is probably far exceeded by the ignorant who think they know something false.
My wife was called for jury duty a couple years back. It was a drunk driving case. During the preceding 12 months, she'd lost family in one accident involving a drunk driver, and a close friend of hers was hit (thankfully, not terribly injured) by a drunk driver in a separate accident. There was no way they were going to let her on that jury - they were dismissing people for far less. And she had to go back three days.
Neither she nor I try to get out of jury duty - we view it as important and want to do our part - but yeah it can get abusive in pretty stupid ways.