Bridging the Gap between Public Officials and the Public

Transcription

1 Bridging the Gap between Public Officials and the Public A REPORT OF THE DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY CONSORTIUM 2011 Tina Nabatchi Syracuse University Cynthia Farrar Yale University

2 This work is the result of a collaboration between the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Any interpretations and conclusions are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, its staff, directors or officers. About the Authors Tina Nabatchi, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration and International Affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. Her research focuses on citizen participation, collaborative governance, and conflict resolution. She has presented her work at numerous academic and practitioner conferences and has published widely in journals such as Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and The American Review of Public Administration. She is also the lead editor of Democracy in Motion: Assessing the Practice and Impact of Deliberative Civic Engagement (Oxford University Press, 2012). Dr. Nabatchi is also the co-founder and codirector of CNYSpeaks, a non-partisan effort of the Maxwell School to provide residents of the Central New York area with opportunities to have meaningful voice on the issues that affect them most. Cynthia Farrar, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at Yale University's Institution for Social and Policy Studies. She pursues and studies strategies for energizing citizenship, particularly at the local level, and has adapted methods of deliberative democracy as tools for local and regional governance. Farrar has a special interest in the implications of ancient democracy for modern practice, and in using the media to engage ordinary citizens as full partners in American democracy. She worked with MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and public television stations around the country to orchestrate non-partisan conversations among randomly-invited citizens. In 2007, she founded Purple States TV, to give ordinary citizens a voice on the issues that affect them. She is the author of The Origins of Democratic Thinking (Cambridge University Press, 1988) and has published articles and essays on randomized field experiments on deliberation, and on the implications of ancient democracy for modern practice. This report represents the first part of the Bridging the Gap research project. For a set of slides that brings in the lessons learned from recent evaluations of public deliberation projects Part 2 of the research see the Deliberative Democracy Consortium Resource page at: i

3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report explores what elected officials know and think about public deliberation, as well as what they need to know to assess the potential value of public deliberation as a governance tool. Data from interviews with twenty-four state legislators and senior staff for federal legislators yielded some provocative results with practical implications for the field of public deliberation. Only four respondents had familiarity and/or experience with deliberation. The majority of those interviewed for this study did not know what public deliberation was, and even after explanation, had trouble understanding how this approach differs from what they already do to engage their constituents. With few exceptions, the respondents conflated it with their present engagement practices such as polling, public hearings, town halls, tele-town halls, and opportunities to hear individual stories. Perhaps most interesting was the sheer skepticism lawmakers expressed about the feasibility of deliberation. Given that lawmakers generally did not believe public deliberation is possible, they were hampered in assessing its utility. All the legislators recognized that constituent engagement is a job requirement ( a necessary part of the game ) and essential for political survival. Standard forms of engagement were also seen as a way to foster connections and two-way communication between legislators and constituents to enable lawmakers to hear and respond to the concerns, needs, and positions of the real people as distinct from special interests. Despite these benefits, lawmakers were quick to point out several challenges and risks of engaging constituents, including limited resources and complicated logistics, dealing with an angry and hostile public, and the difficulty within a partisan political environment of engaging constituents in a realistic discussion of legislative options. Each of these drawbacks to traditional participatory mechanisms has important implications for public deliberation. Simply put, these risks and challenges shape and color the way lawmakers think about citizens, the role of public officials, and the potential of public deliberation. While the lawmakers could generally see the intellectual, ethical, and philosophical reasons for using public deliberation, they had trouble imagining how it could be employed in the real world. Beyond their suspicion that deliberation would be logistically challenging and resource intensive, they doubted the motivation and willingness of citizens to participate in such processes; were fearful of being attacked by angry, partisan, and uninformed citizens; apprehensive of cultivating critics, being caught off guard, or subjected to negative press coverage; and worried that such processes would be hijacked or commandeered by organized interests. They argued that deliberation was not politically feasible and expedient because they are forced to cater to the loudest and most extreme voices and the people with money to finance campaigns. They felt trapped in and saw fellow legislators as corrupted by a legislative system that is itself not civil and deliberative. Few saw political incentives to support the use of public deliberation, except perhaps, as some state legislators suggested, on issues that are politically unwinnable where there are tough decisions to be made, the politics are polarized and partisan, public misconceptions about what is possible abound, and there are no incentives for legislators to compromise. ii

4 Given these experiences and perceptions, it is unsurprising that legislators said they would need to see and understand the methods and processes of public deliberation for themselves before they would be able to assess the value of the deliberative approach or the content of a particular deliberation. Personal exposure would enable them to understand how deliberative processes are different from, and in some contexts and for some purposes, better than, what they already do. Proposals for a deliberative process would need to align with the interests and concerns of the member, be implemented at a district (as opposed to national) level, and with the buy-in of the member and her/his staff from the start. Five specific considerations emerged as critical: 1. Lawmakers want to know who organizes the deliberation and how the event is structured. They overwhelmingly indicated that it would be important for the organizers, conveners, and moderators to be neutral, balanced, and non-partisan, and to be perceived as having these qualities. 2. All of the interviewees indicated that it would be important to ensure that participants in such processes are demographically, politically, and ideologically diverse. 3. The majority of lawmakers were interested in seeing evidence that public deliberations are civil, informed, and take account of the complexities of the policy issue under discussion. 4. Lawmakers were curious about the likely impacts of deliberation on participants, particularly in terms of trust in government, learning, understanding the complexities of issues, openness to different perspectives, and increased political engagement. 5. Some lawmakers wanted to know how public deliberation might influence the policymaking process, and were interested in evidence demonstrating the public s willingness to confront and address tough choices and tradeoffs. Information showing that all perspectives were considered, and that new, politically viable and attainable options or ideas were generated would be welcomed. Based on these findings, we offer four broad recommendations intended to help the democracy and civic reform community advance the use of public deliberation as a governance tool. Invite lawmakers to witness public deliberation educate them through involvement. Hearing about deliberation does little good; description is not enough, lawmakers need to participate in, or at least observe, a deliberative process to understand it. Participation should not be limited to a familiar format (e.g. being on a panel as part of a plenary session), but must include exposure to what is most distinctive about public deliberation, namely discussion among ordinary citizens. Invitation by a known and trusted person or group is the golden rule of legislator recruitment. Build the capacity of the field to respond to the interests, needs, and concerns of lawmakers, as well as the characteristics of the political and legislative process. For public deliberation to become a regularly used governance tool, the field must build its capacity to address issues central to the realities of modern lawmakers. Promising capacity- iii

5 building approaches include: 1) focusing deliberative events on lawmakers priorities and concerns; 2) the development of a robust network of neutral, balanced, experienced, locally trusted, and non-partisan organizations who can partner with legislators to deploy deliberation on issues as they arise; 3) the use of consistent, opportunistic, and locally-driven follow-up to deliberative events; and 4) the purposeful design of public deliberations to address, in advance, lawmakers perceptions about legitimacy and utility. Build documentation and evaluation into the design of public deliberation processes, and communicate the results to legislators promptly after deliberation. Key documentation and evaluation indicators will include whether 1) the organizers, conveners, and moderators of the event, as well as any informational materials used during the event, are demonstrably neutral, balanced, and non-partisan; 2) participant recruitment is carried out in a way that produces demographic, political, ideological, and geographic diversity; 3) the deliberations are structured so as to promote informed, civil, constructive, serious, open-minded, and productive discussion; 4) the deliberation helps create a better public and better citizens ; and, 5) the conclusions reached by participants are informed by a broader range of perspectives, generate new options or ideas, and are politically viable and attainable. Develop and implement a comprehensive and concrete education campaign organized around specific deliberations and aimed at politicians, policymakers, the press, and the public. While we recognize the limitations of any educational effort that does not include personal exposure to the process, we recommend that the field develop and implement an education campaign that is responsive to the concerns and suggestions of the lawmakers. It will also be important to educate the public, the media, and other policymakers about the methods and value of public deliberation. For each of these audiences, vividness and concreteness will increase the likely success of such efforts. The next phase of this SOND initiative will use these findings as the framework for presenting data from several major deliberative initiatives conducted in 2010, supplemented by generic information about public deliberation assembled over the years. The resulting presentations will be shared with key stakeholders, including groups representing elected officials at the state and national levels, interested funders, and the public deliberation community at large. The reactions to those presentations will further inform the field s ongoing effort to make public deliberation useful for democracy. iv

6 BACKGROUND In early August 2009, a group of experts and advocates active in various aspects of public engagement convened the second Strengthening Our Nation's Democracy (SOND II) conference in Washington, D.C. One committee that emerged from the conference (co-chaired by Cynthia Farrar of Yale University and Joe Goldman of AmericaSpeaks), was charged with exploring ways of demonstrating to policymakers the potential value of deliberative public engagement. The co-chairs convened a group of scholars and practitioners, and developed two related research projects under the heading Bridging the Gap between Public Deliberation and Public Officials. 1 The first project, which is the focus of this report, seeks to discover what legislators know and think about public deliberation, as well as what they would need to know to assess the value of public deliberation as a governance tool. The second project will use these findings as a framework for compiling and presenting the substantive evaluations of several major deliberative initiatives conducted in 2010, along with additional information about public deliberation assembled by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and other organizations over the years. The resulting presentations will be shared with key stakeholders, including groups representing elected officials at the state and national levels, interested funders, and the public deliberation community at large. Appendix One briefly describes both Bridging the Gap projects. This report also contributes to the research tradition of the Kettering Foundation (see and its focus on the questions: What does it take for democracy to work as it should? And, what does it take for citizens to shape their collective future? In particular, this report builds on Philip Stewart s research about A Public Voice, which sought to deepen our understanding of the conditions under which elected officials at the national level [primarily those in Congress] come to the insight that building a relationship with a deliberative public is valuable, if not essential, to addressing effectively the policy dilemmas they face. 2 OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY In consultation with the Kettering Foundation, the working group overseeing this Bridging the Gap study (led by Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium) identified four questions about public officials and public deliberation: 1. What are the key obstacles to elected officials ability to recognize and utilize citizen work arising from public deliberation? 2. What findings from public deliberation might lead elected officials and policymakers to see the approach of public deliberation as useful for the work of policymaking? 3. What kinds of information arising from public deliberation about a significant public issue might be of interest to elected officials and other policymakers? 4. How might the gap between the public and elected officials be bridged? 1 The working committee includes the following members: Cynthia Farrar, John Gastil, Joe Goldman, Gail Leftwich Kitch, Matt Leighninger, and Tina Nabatchi. 2 Stewart, Philip D Connecting the Deliberative Public to its Elected Representatives: A Research Report on A Public Voice. [ 1

7 Tina Nabatchi of Syracuse University and Cynthia Farrar of Yale University were asked to conduct interviews with federal and state legislators to explore these questions. 3 Considerations of efficiency and ease of access led them to contact the interview subjects through intermediaries known to members of the working group. Interview Subjects From June through September 2010, researchers interviewed a total of twenty-four state legislators and senior staff for federal legislators. In selecting interviewees, attention was paid to geographic and party diversity, seniority, and range of experience. Table One shows the number of people interviewed broken down by level of government, party affiliation, and gender. Appendix Two provides a list of the state-level interview subjects; however, to preserve confidentiality, no quotations in this report are attributed to any specific person. Federal-level interview subjects requested complete anonymity; thus, no list of these subjects is provided. Table One: Interview Subjects Democrat Republican Total State Level Federal Level Total Male Female Total State Level Federal Level Total State-Level Interviews A total of eleven interviews were conducted with state-level legislators, of which six were Democrats and five were Republicans. Seven interview subjects were legislators from Michigan, and four were legislators from other states. Table Two shows the number of interviews with state-level legislators, broken down by both state and party affiliation. Table Two: State-Level Interviews Democrat Republican Total Michigan Other States Total The working group discussed the desirability of interviewing public administrators in addition to legislators; however, given the variety and breadth of administrative roles in the two levels of government and our timeline for completing this research, we decided that a study about public deliberation vis-à-vis administrators was better left for future research. 2

8 In Michigan, a local public policy consulting firm arranged interviews with seven state-level legislators. Although the consulting firm was known to the working group through its assistance with a Deliberative Poll held in Lansing in November 2009, none of the selected legislators were connected to that event. The interviews were conducted in person by Cynthia Farrar during the second week of June The remaining four interviews were arranged by Bruce Feustel, who staffs the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) Government Effectiveness Group. Cynthia Farrar conducted these interviews; Gail Leftwich Kitch was also present. These interviews took place in person, at the NCSL annual meeting on July 26, Federal-Level Interviews A total of thirteen interviews were conducted with senior staff for federal-level legislators. Due to access issues, direct interviews with federal legislators could not be arranged. Of the thirteen interview subjects, nine were Chiefs of Staff, two were Office Managers, two were Staff Directors, and one was a District Director. Nine staff worked for members in the House of Representatives and four worked for members in the Senate. Six staff worked for Democrats, and seven for Republicans. Table Three shows the number of interview subjects by both legislative chamber and party affiliation. All of the interviews were arranged with the assistance of Tim Hysom, Director of Communications and Technology Services at the Congressional Management Foundation. Interviews were conducted by Tina Nabatchi via telephone in August and September Table Three: Federal-Level Interviews Democrat Republican Total House of Representatives Senate Total Interview Protocol In May 2010, the lead researchers developed an interview protocol in collaboration with the working group. The protocol was designed with open-ended questions so that interviews would be conversational; however, prompts were used in cases where the subject lacked the knowledge to respond to the question (the interview protocol is presented in Appendix Three). In addition, the protocol was designed so that it could be used with both state and federal subjects, with minor adaptation to accommodate differences between the two levels of government. It was also designed to be responsive to the amount of time allotted by each interviewee, which ranged from 30 to 75 minutes. Data Analysis and Findings All interviews were tape recorded with the permission of the subjects. The recordings were then sent to a professional for transcription. The researchers collaborated on the analysis. In conducting the interviews and analyzing the transcripts, the researchers became aware of two 3

9 unanticipated factors. First, legislators generally had little to no understanding of public deliberation; thus, in most interviews, a significant amount of time was given to explaining and clarifying public deliberation as an engagement mechanism. Second, because the lawmakers did not fully understand deliberation or believe it was possible, the original focus of the study became blurred. The interview protocol was designed to ascertain what kind of generic information from evaluations of past deliberations would help persuade lawmakers of the utility of the approach. But since personal exposure or testimony from trusted informants was considered crucial to any reliable assessment of deliberation s potential, lawmakers tended to move away from generic evaluation questions to how they themselves would judge a proposal to hold a deliberation, or interpret what participants in such an event had to say. For these reasons, the findings only loosely reflect the interview questions, and are organized into four overarching sections: 1. What mechanisms are legislators currently using for citizen engagement? What are the aims, benefits and drawbacks of these mechanisms? 2. What do legislators know about public deliberation? What do they see as the risks and benefits of public deliberation? 3. What criteria would legislators use to assess whether and when the methods of public deliberation would be (or have been) helpful? 4. Given a deliberative event that meets these criteria, what information about what occurred at the event would be useful? The findings for state-level legislators are presented first, followed by the findings from the federal-level. For both sets of interviews, results are presented in order of the four questions listed above. However, the report does not seek to impose an inappropriate uniformity or clarity on what were wide-ranging and provocative conversations with their own center of gravity. Many of the quotations incorporated in what follows were edited to improve readability, for example by removing repetitive statements and extraneous language ( ers, ums, ahs, and so forth). No edits to the substantive content of the quotes were made. STATE-LEVEL FINDINGS What mechanisms do state legislators currently use for citizen engagement? The state legislators identified twelve different mechanisms used by their offices to engage citizens or constituents. Table Four lists every engagement mechanism brought up in the interviews, as well as the number of respondents who mentioned each mechanism. Traditional constituent engagement mechanisms, such as newsletters, mass media, constituent casework, phone calls, office hours, and mail, remain popular with the state legislators. Seven respondents discussed the use of newsletters to connect with constituents. Some penned their own weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletters, and others wrote columns or information that were published in the newsletters of local organizations. 4

10 Table Four: Engagement Mechanisms used by State Legislators Engagement Mechanism Number of Respondents 7 Newsletters 7 Town Hall Meetings 7 Phone Calls 7 Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.) 6 TV or Radio Show 6 Meetings/Forums Convened by Others 5 Office Hours 4 Mail 4 Casework/Personal or Individual-Level Work 3 Website 1 Informal Weekly Meetings 1 To communicate with their districts, representatives maintain a presence on traditional media, including TV and Radio: Media, mass media, is still probably the most effective way of doing that [informing people about what the representative is doing]. And television, even though it s been around a long time, is still a very powerful tool. It always amazes me, in my district, when I go home and talk to people, they ll say, oh! I know you! I saw you on TV. Legislators also use and other internet tools. Seven respondents noted that they use to connect with constituents. They send individual s (i.e., the constituent s the legislator and the legislator responds) and mass s (i.e., the legislator sends an to every constituent in her/his database, or distributes an electronic version of the newsletter). Six respondents said that they had a social media presence, and used tools such as blogs, Facebook, and Twitter. One legislator who has made considerable use of social media tools conceded that the next generation [will] force us all to think that way, but he himself prefers the human interaction... the face value. And I think our world s losing that a little bit. Another respondent asserted, The internet poses a whole new way of doing business social networking, Facebook The paradigm is changing. As this and other respondents suggested, social media and online tools are transforming the ways in which legislators interact (and have to interact) with constituents. Legislators don t get many old fashioned letters anymore, and need to adapt to interface with a wider range of constituents. This is particularly true in the wake of the Obama campaign, which used such technologies quite successfully. The most creative idea for exploiting the potential of new media to reorient the relationship between elected official and constituent came from the reluctantly digital legislator cited above: I think there s [an aspect of] social networking that could be about once you ve built some trust up with a group of folks [in a deliberation], they could become advisors in the process electronic advisors I mean you could try to translate that into something maybe with the younger generation. One-on-one constituent casework remains a high priority. As one respondent said, Somebody calls, this is the issue, you go and meet with them, you go talk. Another noted, ongoing 5

11 constituent casework is vitally important I would say the largest part of my job is the constituent service part. Seven respondents noted specifically that they used phone calls to connect with individual constituents; four discussed holding office hours; and snail mail was also mentioned. One legislator noted that he conducts a weekly informal meeting, where he sits with his constituents at a local restaurant and talks for one to two hours, depending on who s there and how active the group is. He stated, I go with an agenda, where I control the conversation, [but] I totally go to respond to what they come with to talk about. When asked about face-to-face engagement mechanisms that go beyond office hours, seven respondents said that they use town hall meetings. The frequency of the meetings ranged from doing a lot of town meetings to doing one every year with our senator and other representative. One legislator noted, I do quarterly town hall meetings now, spring, summer, fall, winter, where we essentially give the town hall a theme. The respondent then provided examples, such as school issues, public safety, zoning, and bills in the legislature or bills that have passed. Another noted, We pretty regularly hold town hall meetings, just to get general input. Sometimes we ll have a specific topic; most times it s just general discussion. A lot of engagement opportunities seem to be initiated by local groups and organizations. For example, five respondents said that they attended meetings or public forums convened by others (e.g., meetings in townships, cities, and villages, or meetings convened by local groups and organizations such as schools, farm bureaus, and senior citizens). In some cases, the representative hears about the meeting and asks to be placed on the agenda. As one noted, If I call and say, I d like to stop by and see you and share some things that have been happening on the state level I ve never had anybody refuse to put me on the agenda. This respondent also suggested that it s important to go where the people are because usually it s better to take advantage of a meeting that [the public is] already going to be at, that they re already availing themselves of. In other cases, a local organization or group reaches out to and invites the representative. As one said, I pretty much go to almost anything I get invited to.if I m invited, I go. Likewise, five respondents said that they work directly with advocacy groups such as senior citizen organizations and Parent-Teacher Associations and that they are in the community a lot. Aims, benefits, and drawbacks of current engagement mechanisms Several respondents explicitly noted that engagement was part of their job. As one said, I was elected by the public to be out there. Others suggested that in addition to being part of the job, engagement was necessary for political survival: The objective is to serve the constituency, and a happy constituent is a constituent that votes for you. But at the same time, that s what I promised I would do if I was elected. One legislator observed that reaching out to constituents is especially important, but also challenging, for state representatives: Other than real local government, you know municipalities and townships, and counties, we re as small as you can get. I ve got approximately 90,000 people that I represent. I have a challenge in my district that s different than the challenge in some of the urban areas. I have four counties [and] getting out and interacting with people face to face is hard. 6

12 Most of the legislators observed that the benefits of engagement include productive two-way communication. At a minimum, reaching out to constituents establishes contact: You want to be as connected as possible. I want my constituents to feel that they re connected to me. As one legislator noted, engagement provides insight into how [constituents] are feeling, and gives them an opportunity also to communicate with me, which is very important. Another legislator said, I think you need to go back and be with the real people. My pastor at my church says he can tell if a lot s been happening in the capital the week before by the number of people who wait for me after church. Making contact with constituents often leads to the exchange of substantive information. Representatives emphasized the importance of enlightening constituents. For one, the goal of engagement is to inform people about the things that we re doing that affect them. Meetings with constituents give legislators a chance for give and take with real people about their concerns, with a view to providing assistance. Another legislator observed, I really see myself as somebody who is an information giver, with so much stuff that goes on in [the state capital], where people just don t even have a clue that we re there to help them, or we can help put them into contact with people who can help them. Constituent stories can help legislators identify concerns that apply to others in the district or the state, and that could appropriately be addressed through legislation. One legislator remarked that engagement is a two way street. I always have believed that the best information I get is from my constituents. It s not from lobbyists, it s not from special interest groups, it s not from my colleagues down here always, but it s from my constituents. Similarly, another said, I m trying to find what the issue really is. I m trying to figure out where they re coming from trying to understand the issue, and then trying to figure out, is there a solution that I should be a part of, or is a solution coming from somewhere else, and I help them find that other solution [it s about] connecting dots. As others stated, when they engage constituents, we re getting intelligence and information that we can use to help others and we identify opportunities for legislation. One legislator remarked, I can t tell you how many times someone has made a suggestion that I ve run with, or they ve come up with some proposals that I ve used. As a concrete example of how sometimes it s one individual that can influence public policy, a legislator explained that a constituent with Crohn s disease had expressed a need for stores to have public restrooms. The representative wanted to help, and legislation was passed. When asked about the benefits and drawbacks of current constituent engagement efforts, some legislators observed that they and the policymaking process benefited by being exposed to the way issues look to their constituents. As one lawmaker said: [Sometimes] I ve had a proposal and gotten some feedback, and have changed my point of view as a result. He believes that we get a better product when more people are involved in the process. When all sides, all perspectives [are present] we can get divergent views, divergent opinions about particularly complex legislation As bright as sometimes we think we are, very often someone comes with a different perspective that causes you to think a different way. That s why I value our town hall meetings. Another legislator expressed a similar sentiment: Well, I think it s always good when I hear from people, even when I hear from people who disagree with me. Because, 7

13 sometimes you hear from people and quite honestly, they tell you things that you never considered. I think the thing that we don t do often enough is talk directly to the people who are being affected by what we do. After giving an example about education, this legislator continued, We talk to the people who are in charge so to speak, or who represent the people who are in charge. And, what happens is, I don t think you get the variety of opinion that s out there. So, I think it is a good thing when something happens that gets people s attention so they do react to it and they do make their voice heard. I believe it does [make for better legislation] if you can get input on something. The fact that constituents often come to meetings with a specific personal issue to raise was mentioned as a benefit and an opportunity, but also as a challenge. The citizens who turn up are invested, and concerned. One legislator observed that people are busy living their life. And what we do down here [at the capitol] isn t always their number one priority. It only becomes a priority when it affects them directly. And when an issue does affect citizens directly, they may have difficulty seeing the larger picture. After noting that engagement results in the exchange of useful information, another legislator proceeded to describe the opportunity to help citizens look beyond their own individual needs to the challenges faced by the state as a whole: I see my role as a policymaker also as an educator. I mean I m there to learn and listen to them, because it s amazing what you can learn from your constituents, and how much it does influence you. But I also see my role as one of an educator, to talk to them, for instance about the budget crisis that we ve been in a lot of people have no clue about the real [issues]. It s always just keep my program whole, cut somebody else. And so I say, who would you like me to cut? And how much would you like me to cut them? To try and help them see the real challenging decisionmaking that we re going through. Most of the lawmakers mentioned the trend toward a more oppositional tone in public forums. Several commented at length on the increasing passion, even anger, of constituents who come to meetings to articulate their pressing personal concerns and do not seem open to reasoned discussion about how their interests fit into the larger picture. The primary risk of engagement perceived by state representatives is public anger: There s a perception right now that the only people that would show up to an opportunity to engage their legislator are going to be the mad and angry folks who don t always come with good suggestions. They come with a lot of opinions, which are valuable, but no suggestions on how to fix it. Other legislators commented at length on the effect an increasingly angry public has had on the willingness of legislators to participate in group discussions with constituents. The anger has gotten worse in the last year or so, really since 08 when the economy hit the skids. Prior to 2008, it seemed like elected officials saw [town hall meetings] as a great opportunity to show that I am engaged, and I am seeking feedback, and we re going to have a town hall meeting, and I m going to sit down front, and I m going to stay there as long as people want to stay there, and they saw it was something that was beneficial, either, for information for them, or for just raw political gain. They wanted to be perceived as looking good, or caring. About 2008 that election cycle, things started getting nasty. People weren t really actively seeking out opportunities to hold town hall meetings, because it wasn t a positive 8

14 experience. The people who were at these meetings, who really wanted to engage their elected official in a constructive way, were turned off by the tone, and the yelling, and the confrontational, negative vibe. folks just don t get out of their house like they used to 50 years ago, they don t want to go sit in a room. Let me put it another way, the kind of folks who would leave their home to go sit in a room don t always offer the most constructive criticism of their elected officials. They re there because they re angry and they want to yell at somebody. And as an elected official, I ll take some of that. I ll take a lot of it, because that s my job. But at a certain point, when someone goes over the line, or you just get to the point where everyone said the same thing, you just have to say I understand you re angry, I understand why you re angry, and there s not really any more reason for us to sit here for another 3 hours for you to yell at me and tell me the same things over and over again. Now that s just an impression that a lot of elected officials in my state have expressed. The themes that emerged in discussion of the legislators own attempts to engage constituents the value of attending to constituent concerns, and the difficulty and importance, especially in the present climate, of reconciling the most vocal voices with each other and with the legislator s responsibility to consider the best interests of the public as a whole also surfaced when the conversation moved on to the role of the public in the policymaking process, and how that affects what lawmakers accomplish. Asked to offer examples, some Michigan legislators pointed to a recent smoking ban as an effective and appropriate expression of political will on the part of the public, with the help of advocacy organizations: The public has a great influence actually. I ll give you an example; the smoking ban, that was passed. In all honesty, the reason why that passed is because there was such an aggressive push over a sustained period of time, until it got to a point of critical mass. And the legislature just had to dispose of the issue, period. There was no getting beyond it. That s a great example of how organized advocacy really does work. You really need to pull us largely around that issue and keep hammering. And in that regard, the people truly do influence the legislature. For a second legislator, the mobilization for the ban succeeded in conveying genuine and important information about constituent preferences: I think you get caught in a beltway mentality like you would in D.C. as to how you make your decision-making process, based primarily off of what you think is normal from up here so for example the smoking ban we just did in the state, well, a lot of my district smokes, so you d assume that there d be enough of a percentage of people down in the district that might not like the idea [of a ban] [but] the letters I got were huge [in saying that] they don t want any more smoking. A third respondent said that the smoking ban passed because there was large scale mobilization, where you get thousands of people signing online petitions. 9

15 Despite the strength of online petitions in the smoking ban case, other legislators expressed dismay about what they see as electronic lobbying that purports to convey the views of the public. They tend to dismiss mass as no better than old-style form letters. As one lawmaker said: Somebody [will] forward you an which is being forwarded by the special interest group, then call our office, and say I just received this , I don t know from who or what, but it s saying that, golly, you shouldn t do this. Well, that has no influence on us at all, you know. Cause when you see the you know exactly who s putting it out. So you feel like, it s the general public, it s just me and you but they re just being used by a special interest group to advocate their argument. And you see that all the time. A focus on the large numbers that can be mobilized by electronic means is seen by some legislators as the equivalent of governing by opinion poll, and as both a cause and a consequence of a polarized political environment. If the message is always just about polls and size, well, that s the reason why we don t agree, why there s so much indecision and so much political calculating and all these other things. I think it s easier to niche yourself today. The internet allows people to find more people who think like themselves. For example, flash mobs make it easier to pull a ton of people together real quick, or, for example in committee, say it s an environmental issue where the environmental groups might have sent up a person like a lobbyist at one time, [now] they ll stack the room. Usually you only hear from people on the specific issue that affects them and then you ll hear from both sides. And sometimes both sides just try to win it by pure numbers, not as much by argument or by reason. The legislators who mentioned the smoking ban acknowledged that one reason why the mass mobilization worked and worked legitimately, in their view was because there were no clearly divided party lines. There was no one side or the other. Many respondents suggested that the public s influence on legislation was lessened because the public tends to be misinformed, has an all or nothing attitude, and generally fails to see the complexity of issues. One legislator commented, I have very mixed thoughts about [the effect of public engagement on the policymaking process]. Sometimes I think it s just people venting about whatever the issue might be [and] I m trying to find the two sides to this issue, and to find out where a solution is at. In part, this is because people don t have time to do the homework. To have real influence on legislative outcomes, one suggested that the public would have to take the time to research it and really understand it and see how it affected their point of view, their beliefs or, what the role of government is. This was echoed by another: I think the larger public is usually not engaged. You re hearing from the stakeholders bringing forth their ideas of why. But, you don t hear the argument how it directly impacts them, or what their stakehold is or why it s good for the state or not good for the state. 10

16 How do state legislators understand public deliberation? By and large, the state officials did not know what public deliberation was or how it had been used, and most have had no experience with it. Only one respondent was able to accurately describe elements of public deliberation processes, saying, it s a cross section of people who come together to [listen to each other] at a table with 12 people, who just have very different life experiences. So they get a chance to think things through for themselves. Among the Michigan representatives, only one had definitely heard about a recent example of public deliberation in their state, the Hard Times Hard Choices statewide Deliberative Poll held in November (See Box One for a discussion of responses from legislators with previous knowledge about deliberation.) After the interviewer described that process, a few said they thought they had read about it. Another who did not know the term public deliberation had evidently had experience with the approach. Even after public deliberation had been defined and described, the legislators still had difficulty understanding the concept. With two exceptions (out of 11), these legislators found it hard to understand how public deliberation differed from practices such as polling, public hearings, town halls, and opportunities to hear individual stories. For example, one acknowledged that public deliberation would head off so many potential conflicts and problems when we can get into a discussion about proposals publicly, however, as an illustration of public deliberation, this respondent then referred to public hearings and the like, [where I can present] issues that I may disagree with, or they may disagree with me on. Another lawmaker responded that public deliberation sounded like polling and noted, I do have a problem sometimes with legislation that is poll driven. I ll be very candid, we have a lot of that. You conduct a poll and I ll get a very jaundiced eye It s just a snapshot in time. And, because the public doesn t have the big picture so to speak, there are times that you have 11 Box One: State Legislators Familiar with Deliberation The two state legislators most familiar with public deliberation were convinced that it is possible for ordinary citizens to engage seriously across their differences; this did not necessarily translate into a belief in the political viability of the approach. One was skeptical about the possibility that a deliberative process could impact partisan politics. He asserted that his colleagues would only register an argument for potential political advantage. In his view, the neutrality and open-endedness of the deliberative process makes it a hard sell to anyone who sees other ways to achieve a particular agenda. Pressed about the potential impact of taking public deliberation to scale, he said that perhaps exposure to the process could teach both sides to evolve to a higher level of thinking and of political being. The other legislator appreciated the potential value of deliberation, especially for polarizing issues (e.g., the siting of windmills), when public hearings are not useful in getting beyond the hysteria. He shrewdly commented on structural considerations that could affect procedural legitimacy, noting the impact the presence of an elected official could have on the participants sense of responsibility for considering tough tradeoffs there is this assumption by the crowd around the table that, [elected officials are] here to fix it. He also valued using confidential individual polling ( push buttons ) to register views and encourage frankness, and discussed the need to prevent people who share a concern from banding together. Interestingly, he was also the most optimistic about the political process itself. He criticized the widespread belief that legislators were incapable of negotiating across party lines.

17 to make decisions that would go against polling that would prove to be unpopular. A third legislator remarked, I m having a hard time figuring out how this is so different from a hearing that a committee would have, because you do bring in people from, from all different sides. What s going to bring these people in? I have a hard enough time when I think I have an issue that I think is important, getting people to show up. Even after further description, this representative expressed confusion, asking, So you think that s more effective than doing a phone survey or whatever? Finally, in a case where the Hard Times Hard Choices deliberation was described, one lawmaker asked: That wasn t those housewives on CNN that balanced the budget in 2 hours?... They just gave a real brief overview of what this budget does. Like cut $500 million here, $600 million there, without any idea of the consequences or ramifications of the cuts [and made it look] simpler than making cookies! The difficulty of conveying what is distinctive about public deliberation provoked initial resistance to or dismissal of the idea among many legislators: If it is anything like a poll, or a quick and dirty tapping of the public pulse, they don t want anything to do with it. Or, alternatively, it s useful to talk with people who come from various different backgrounds and perspectives, and they do this already. One feature that seemed particularly difficult for the legislators to grasp initially was the idea that a deliberation across difference does more than produce a range of stories and perspectives (of the kind they expect to hear at town meetings or office hours) that it gives members of the public a chance to consider their own concerns in the context of different needs and perspectives, and to reflect on the implications for public policy. One legislator commented that public deliberation as described by the interviewer might help a representative understand what voters are feeling, but then indicated this would not likely influence his own approach to legislation: A lot of times, when you re sitting and listening to voters, like wow, they are so uninformed, and so out of touch with reality that sometimes it s just scary. But it all, in the end, boils down to your own personal feelings, your own personal beliefs, and what you think is the best way. The risks, benefits, and possibilities of using public deliberation for policymaking Once they began to grasp what is distinctive about public deliberation, most of the legislators were intrigued and willing to consider the value of the approach. However, there were exceptions. One respondent did not share the premise or goal of deliberation, arguing that there is no need to consult the public, and that it might even be counterproductive, in any context other than voting. In his view, the representative system works: ordinary people just want to get on with their lives and be left alone; they ll pipe up if they re concerned. In cases where more engagement is required, existing tools are sufficient. He expressed a concern about the low and skewed voter turnout, and an interest in getting more citizens to respond, not just react. And if there are going to be voter initiatives (referenda), he thinks it would be better to get (a broader range of) voters to look beyond the marketing message to the facts of the matter. However, this respondent thinks there are other (and sufficient) tools at hand to provoke scrutiny from different perspectives, even in the initiative process: recent legislation in his state requires petition signatures from across districts, and stipulates the convening of public hearings regionally. Some legislators who shared or were at least open to the aims of public deliberation pointed to features of the existing governmental system in explaining why they thought the approach was 12

18 not feasible or needed. A legislator who has extensive experience with public deliberation tended to portray it as an alternative to representative government, and believes that so long as a traditional leadership model of government is in place, this rather different understanding of the relationship between elected officials and the public will never get a real hearing. He said that legislators just convene [town meetings], they show up, they don t have any responsibility, it s input, and it s at a distance. You don t have to build a relationship, you re not obligated to follow it Thank you for sharing. And, we ll have to do what we do, and I hope you understand that this is a representative form of democracy, and, there s other players, and I m only one vote, and all of that. Another legislator pointed to the impact of Michigan s term limits, which tend to enhance the power of lobbyists, who influence the uninformed new representatives and lead legislators to focus on a narrow agenda that they believe they can accomplish in 6 years. Moderates and generalists, who might be open to the idea of deliberation across difference, get squeezed out. Another legislator who was intrigued by the idea of public deliberation noted that he had found more traditional ways to get the uninvolved majority to weigh in, namely by providing economic incentives for them (and associated advocacy groups) to do so. The example he cited was a tobacco tax bill. By earmarking the resulting revenues for health care programs and services, he gave many constituents a reason to speak out against the smokers and corporate lobby. Even those legislators who thought that public deliberation could improve the policymaking and political processes were skeptical about the feasibility of this approach to public engagement, both logistically and politically. One legislator quipped, I m kind of intrigued as to how you would start. I mean, what would you do? Where would you begin that process? Because it sounds like it s different than what my perception of citizen engagement is, which has been getting yelled at it s my job to sit in a room and get yelled at sometimes. As this comment implies, legislators were skeptical about the very possibility of civil and balanced engagement across parties and perspectives, by the public, and between the public and the legislator, in the present political, media, and advocacy context. When they challenged the feasibility of the approach, many of the legislators focused on public capacity and motivation to engage in serious deliberation. Some asserted that deliberation is a pipe dream because people are not in pursuit of knowledge and that they don t have enough time to really do their homework. Other similar comments include: There is so much information out there. There are no renaissance men anymore. You can t be expert on everything. And I think we ve become very attuned to 30-second sound bites and I don t think we deliberate enough. And I m including myself in that. We want easy answers, and often I don t think the answers are easy; they re very complex. I think the art of deliberation has been severely hampered in general The general public, especially 20 year olds, I mean, [Jon Stewart is where] they get most of their news. It s all show today, or they get it off one little paragraph on [a] website or [they] have Google alerts. It s much easier to be much more narrow on your issues than it s ever been in history. 13

19 Deliberation can only be of value when the public is truly informed. They just can t get information from one source, or one source that has an interest, or one source that s trying to keep you involved in their organization. It s a challenge to get people who are interested enough, and open enough, to [participate in serious deliberation across difference]. Quite often, people who get involved in these public policy issues are driven by a passion, but often that passion is, from my observation, pretty narrow. According to the interview subjects, the difficulties of getting the public to connect across difference are aggravated by the present polarized political environment. No one media, advocacy groups, politicians has any incentive to engage the public in both sides (or multiple aspects) of an issue. Instead, everyone feels they have to engage in partisan play-acting, which is exacerbated by interest group mobilization and competitive media. The interview subject who was sympathetic to the aims of public deliberation but thought it was impossible given the current state of affairs suggested that in general, the better the conversation at a public forum, the less interested the public is in participating because the way most media works, they re for the car crash, they re not there to see the traffic flow well. He also noted that the groups that organize these discussions have no interest in a real deliberation. He then gave as an example a business group that wants to make Michigan a right to work state. He invited them to have a debate, but there was no debate they just wanted to show how unions were bad. I don t know if there s many decent forums out there, and who d be willing to listen to a decent forum? Moreover, he stated, even if you start with productive discussions, I don t think it ll stay that way. I think it ll deteriorate into something about Democrats are bad, Republicans are good. Even though nine of the lawmakers thought it was worth pursuing the aims of public deliberation once those objectives had been explained and understood, most shared the suspicion that it could never get traction, given the current state of politics: One side will say my people don t want their taxes raised, period. And then on the other side, my people want these services, and let them tax, period. Many people over there in the capitol, they don t necessarily get to a point where it s politically expedient for them to marry those, because politically, you have to play to your constituency. So, you don t tell the part about how we need the taxes to pay for the things that the people that don t want their taxes raised will want you don t tell both sides of that story. One legislator expressed concern that the more people you get engaged, the more critics you could be breeding. And a lot of my colleagues would say, I d rather keep them in the dark. Another echoed this perception, saying that public engagement breeds opponents and breeds detractors. As illustration of the same point, a lawmaker described a process in Michigan with diverse groups that went around the state of Michigan, took testimony from folks it was a deliberative process, they took time doing it. They came out with data, they came out with recommendations. We pretty much ignored everything they said, because [their conclusion was that] if we re going to continue to maintain our infrastructure and our highway system and our transportation system we re going to have to raise revenue which meant raising taxes. The poll-driven data says better not do that or you won t get reelected. 14

20 Any short-term ability of deliberation to move people beyond narrow self-interest to a broader understanding of the challenges facing the state would, these legislators believed, be washed out by the polarizing effect of political incentives, aggravated by the media and by special interest groups. For example, one respondent said, I think the apprehension of your average lawmaker [is not] necessarily because they don t want to interact. [The] concerns that I have heard are, well the press doesn t cover this. If they do cover it, they just pull out a couple little things, and they always make me look bad. Similarly, another stated, The environment has to be changed, because I think the politicians and the media that reports on us, I think our agenda is an us versus them thing, and the media has become an us versus them purveyor of what s going on. Echoing this concern, another respondent pointed to problems with advocacy organizations that have to justify their means of existence and often put out false alerts, create issues that aren t really real, just to make sure that their membership believes they re doing and working hard for the dues they pay per month. This respondent went on to suggest that often these organizations know what s right, what needs to be done, [that] there s a compromise needs to be reached. But their problem is the same thing: they won t be able to sell it to their membership because their membership feels so strong. That s the one reason they belong to this organization. Therefore when the organization tries to do something reasonable or practical, or to move the state forward, their own people are in an uproar. It makes it impossible for them to be part of [a] constructive dialogue [at the Capitol]. While many legislators asserted that the policymaking system had been crippled by the progressive polarization of the electorate, others did not believe that was the case. A couple of lawmakers insisted on the responsibility of elected officials to make hard decisions that the public (seen as individual voters, or respondents to polls, with personal interests to protect) would never be disposed to make for themselves. One legislator said he believes there are times because the public doesn t have the big picture, that you have to make decisions that would go against polling, that would prove to be unpopular. Another legislator, familiar with and supportive of processes of public deliberation, observed that traditional ways of resolving an impasse remain available. He referred to the public perception that there is gridlock, and denied that this was so. There is still negotiation among legislators, he said: I think people don t understand that. I think they really believe people are chasing each other with blunt instruments, and it s not that way. Legislators observed that polarization both renders public deliberation unlikely, and demonstrates the need for this kind of engagement across difference. The legislator just quoted about the continued potential for legislative negotiation also noted that in Michigan, this kind of discussion [i.e., public deliberation] has really ramped up over the last couple of years. You got people all trying to engage a little of everybody. He attributed the move toward new forms of public engagement to the feeling that we re sick of this partisan fighting, and we re sick of nothing getting done, and there seem to be people trying to find solutions in this process without the legislature. The appeal of public deliberation seemed to be the admittedly unlikely prospect of shortcircuiting the vicious cycle of partisanship by stepping outside it. For example, one interview subject said, that s what we need. We need to understand that there s another point of view. 15

21 They re not always wrong. And you need to be able to listen. It can t be you and me shouting at each other, because [when] we re doing that, we re not listening to each other. Another legislator exclaimed, That s what we re supposed to do down here. Just exactly what you described. As one lawmaker observed, I think there is a lot of frustration [and] at least we pay lip service to [the view] that we re too partisan, we don t deliberate. The thing that drives me absolutely crazy is that the deliberative part of the process here [in the capitol] gets truncated. Appealing to the public directly, but in a structured way, could, in the view of one lawmaker, sidestep the special interests that had helped to poison the public sphere: There are days at the Capitol where you can t walk a straight line [without] walking into some corporate or wealthy interest. The average everyday citizen, those who don t have the resources, they quite frankly don t have a lobbyist. And it s so very easy for their interests to be overlooked. It s so very easy for their interests to be put on the back burner, and not addressed. And if an organization like yours could make certain that we can galvanize the interests and the needs for those who don t traditionally have a lobbyist, I think you could help make certain that the right questions are asked of the right people. The contexts in which legislators said politicians might be willing to break through the deterrents to engaging the public are issues that are generally considered politically unwinnable in any case where there are tough decisions to be made, the politics is polarized and partisan, the public has strongly held misconceptions about what s possible, and there are no incentives for legislators to compromise (especially since, in the age of transparency, negotiations that occur behind supposedly closed doors could be used against them in their next campaign). Some legislators pointed to the value of making the public a partner in these tough decisions. Examples of issues where legislators believed deliberation could be useful included the allocation of highway funding, siting of windmills, dealing with budget shortfalls, and tax restructuring. There s a number of issues in our state in particular, where I think [public deliberation] would be useful. [We have] a highway funding crisis. And there s no politically feasible way to fix it right now. [We ve gone] the traditional route of having committee meetings, and inviting the public to have input and you know, they want good roads, but they don t want new taxes to pay for the good roads. There s a desire by large corporations outside of the United States to come in and do windmills off the shores of Lake Michigan. There is a large mass of people along the lake shore, which I don t represent, but I m a county away, who are just going crazy; they don t want windmills out in the water. [A] group is having public hearings, and they ve gotten engaged at the local level trying to find some reasonable discussion some kind of a broader conversation [to get] beyond the hysteria. Let s get down to the facts here and then let s walk through it and find out, other than you might be looking at this big thing out in the water. What does this mean and is this good policy or isn t it? 16

22 If you asked an individual: well do you think the budget should be balanced, they ll say yes. Well, do you think that your taxes should be raised? No, absolutely not. Well, do you think we should fund XYZ? Absolutely. So, it s important to get people, and ask them, well, are you willing to raise taxes to pay for this? I don t like the idea of raising taxes but at the same time, if my constituents understood that that was for a specific purpose that we value just as much or more, I think that can make the difference. So, for people to have all the cards on the table, looking at all the choices, and [for me] to see how they look at that, how they process it, that s good information for me, and not just me, but others of my colleagues So we can say look, we re having an honest conversation here; we know what people want, we know what they value, we know what they re willing to do, so that helps us make our choices now. Instead of making general statements: the people in the state of Michigan feel this way. Well, you didn t talk about the other half. [For] this tax restructuring issue, this would be the perfect kind of tool. [We re] unsuccessfully trying to do a bipartisan, bicameral sit down with the Treasury Department and some of the stakeholders [about] restructuring our tax system. And, I can t tell you how many hours this group met, and how the entire thing fell apart, for political reasons. And everybody privately says we have to do this, but nobody publicly is going to drop [their stance], and the 2010 election has interfered with what s going on. So in the meantime we get paralyzed, and nothing happens. So, if maybe we could take it out of our hands, for a little bit, and take it out of the Chamber of Commerce s hands and have some other group come in, and talk to real people and real businesses, about what they think the impact would be for them if we do A, B, or C. And then give that information to us. As opposed to even having just nonpartisan research groups give us the information. I think that would be a very powerful tool if everybody trusted who you were and [how] you were organized. Even in these cases, however, the legislators also expressed doubt that it would be possible, under any circumstances, to challenge the logic of politics. Most of the respondents declared themselves eager to find ways to cut through partisanship, and to engage constituents with different viewpoints, but felt trapped, or saw fellow legislators as corrupted by the system. They declared that everyone has to act as if s/he is going to be attacked by the other side. In an era of gotcha politics and media sound bites, no one can afford to risk cultivating critics or being caught off guard. Everyone has to cater to the loudest and most extreme voices, and to the people with money to finance campaigns. One legislator observed that even if deliberation could help him make a tough choice, a problem remained: as you make that vote, the other side, your opposition is already framing that vote in an immediate way to just totally destroy it back home with the voters in your district. The legislator most committed to and experienced in the methods of public deliberation was pessimistic about the prospects for getting principled buy-in from fellow legislators, and asserted that the case would have to be made on grounds of likely political advantage. Yet in response to a follow-up question by the interviewer, he agreed that anyone who makes such a case has 17

23 thereby called into question the legitimacy of the proposed process by definition, a public deliberation must be an open-ended and neutral process whose outcome no politician can control. What criteria would legislators use to assess whether and when the methods of public deliberation would be (or have been) helpful? Lawmakers indicated that some generic information about past deliberations could be useful to address skepticism about basic feasibility to show that discussions with these unusual features can actually occur. Most were skeptical that effective deliberative engagement is possible; they doubted that a significant number of people would turn out; that it would be a representative group of ordinary people, not just the usual suspects; that they would come in with an attitude of seriousness and open-mindedness, and a willingness to sincerely consider other perspectives; and that the event would be organized by a genuinely neutral convener in a way that engendered balanced information and discussion. They therefore evinced some interest in seeing evidence concerning the feasibility of the methods and processes of previous public deliberations, with a strong preference for events in their own state, and evidence conveyed by a trusted third party. In their responses to this set of questions, legislators on the whole displayed less interest in securing evaluation information about the impacts of past events than in discussing the criteria they would use to assess the structure and methods of proposed future or past deliberative events. Prompts were used to elicit legislator views on the following considerations: Who organizes the deliberation and how is the event structured? Who participates? What is the conversation like? What is the likely impact of deliberation on participants? How might holding deliberations influence the policymaking process? Who organizes the deliberation and how is it structured? The lawmakers overwhelmingly indicated that it would be important for the organizers, conveners, and moderators of a deliberative event not only to be neutral and balanced, but also to be perceived as being neutral and balanced. The reasoning behind this sentiment is clear: It s important, regardless of party, that it be fair, that it s not an opportunity to play partisan, score some points, or get some bullets to use in the next election, and that sort of thing. Then it becomes less of what you want, and more of a political theater. Several legislators noted that they would want somebody who is not biased. As one stated, I d want to know, who s driving this? Everybody s got a little bit of skin in the game, and they all have a little bit of prejudice, if you will, towards any issue. And so, I want to make sure that whoever is driving it is really trying to be fair, unbiased in the process. That s going to be important. Another suggested, you always wonder, when somebody else is convening this, what if they have their own personal agenda. Echoing that sentiment, another legislator said, I guess I d have to be really convinced of what the purpose or what the goal is of this organization. If they re not truly promoting one agenda or another, if they re truly just finding solutions. And unless I m convinced of that, I wouldn t give them much credence because it s 18

24 just another advocacy group advocating only their point of view. Doubt about the ability of any convener or organizer to be truly fair and balanced was deep and widespread. For example, one legislator remarked, the competition for the public s attention is out there, and it s so diverse, and some of it is so far, in my opinion, from being factual. It s an emotional appeal, and it s on both sides of the political spectrum. Another said, All the policy centers that give us advice, I think there are some that do it better than others, but a lot of them have a philosophical beginning; they start from preconceived ideas as to what is the public good. The Michigan legislator most familiar with processes of public deliberation noted the importance of building neutrality and balance into every role and the structure as a whole: Who s moderating, because I would want somebody not biased. The approach [of a convener for a local event] was we re moderating this, you all push buttons and away you go, and, that worked very well I thought. It allowed it to be anonymous in the group I think that s important because I don t think people are honest 100% in these kinds of meetings. [In the one I helped organize] I had 6 people from my local school district who plopped next to each other. And so as you began the conversation because [this was an issue about which] there was a bit of angst and not quite rage, they were upset about some things. They banded together quite quickly. So again, there s prejudice immediately, based on just that happening. Many of the legislators acknowledged the difficulty of demonstrating neutrality on paper or through abstract criteria. They suggested that the convening organization would have to be one the legislator personally knows and trusts. Others felt it would be important to have the lawmaker or a staff member present at an event, but also acknowledged how that might impact the perceived neutrality of the event. Thus, to demonstrate balance, one respondent suggested it would be important for the representative to display integrity and honesty and to actually advocate something in a way that s not slanted, not twisted towards their point of view. As noted earlier, legislators were concerned about political exposure. One suggested it would be useful if the deliberation which he acknowledged would need to be public were structured to limit the likelihood that legislators (if they are permitted to speak) will get quoted out of context or tainted by the proceedings: The press has to be involved. It s a public meeting. But if there s a way to structure what you re talking about to reduce the opportunities for major gaffes to be committed by the elected official, you re going to make them feel better about participating. Who participates? Respondents also overwhelmingly indicated that participant recruitment was important, with nine suggesting that demographic diversity was critical and ten emphasizing political diversity. As one stated, It is going to be important who gets invited and how they get invited. Another wanted to know, are these people that would be called together because they have an interest in this policy? Or [are they] just assembling together like a giant focus group? If I wanted information for policy or formulating policy, I would want to bring in all the players. I would like to get a balanced approach. 19

25 Several respondents stressed demographic diversity: a cross section of the public, in significant numbers. One respondent was more specific, saying It needs to be a cross section of whatever demographic we re working with. I mean it needs to be a cross section of the state. If I m working on something in my district, I d like a cross section of my district. But obviously as a policy maker for the state, a cross section of the state [is needed, and] you need to make sure that you have all people at the table. Respondents seemed to have more to say on the issue of political diversity, which they considered to be crucial to the legitimacy of the process. As one noted, If we can get every perspective, both sides and, get it aired out, we d have, at the end of the day, a better product. A number of legislators indicated that the absolute size of the group was less important than getting people with different concerns to listen to and engage with each other, and to identify strategies that could conceivably garner broad public support. One lawmaker suggested that public deliberation would be valuable if we had 3 people in a room one was anti taxes of any kind, anti government of any kind, the other person thought that there was not a tax that shouldn t be raised, and [no] problem government shouldn t solve, and a person in the middle. And, can they, based on all the facts and all the information, [based on] a picture of what s actually happening, not just philosophical, but this is what s happening, can they agree on how much money does it take to run government, what do we want government to do, and what we probably need to do that? What is the conversation like? As the comment above suggests, creating a climate where people with marked differences of opinion can take each others views seriously is a very important consideration. One legislator summed up this point by saying, most folks would be concerned that it [the conversation] is neutral, that it is balanced, that you can be open and honest about the way you view the world without being cast in a light that could be questionable to people. Is it really about ideas and not politics? Four respondents indicated that they would like to see evidence that participants in a deliberation engage in a civil conversation across their differences. As one noted, there needs to be the willingness to look for a solution. Another lawmaker suggested that if elected officials were present, it was important not to feed into the answer man dynamic: If you have a senator, or a legislator, or a judge [present], there is this assumption by the crowd around the table that, well they re here to fix it. Well, no, that s not why I m here. I m here to listen to you.... So you want people like me to be behind a curtain, [so] that they [the public] don t know we re here. This legislator was concerned that responsibility to think through the issues remain squarely on the shoulders of the participants. He envisioned a two step process: There might be a point [after the participants] have thought through whatever they re thinking through [when] you bring in somebody like myself and then you maybe have a different conversation after they ve matured through a little bit of a process. What is the likely impact of deliberation on participants? Legislators seemed generally interested in knowing how deliberative events in the past had affected participants. Two wondered whether participation increased trust in government, and one expressed interest in whether participation increased political engagement, noting, There s no question about it you would get more buy-in from legislators if you did that. Another 20

26 observed that the deliberative process was likely to promote this kind of engagement: I find as people get more informed, they get more empowered. As they get more empowered, they get more engaged. And as they get more engaged, our communities benefit as a result. The majority wished to see evidence of the educative effects of deliberation, that is, whether participants learned more about the issue under discussion, had a better appreciation for the complexity of issues and the kinds of tradeoffs that were necessary, became more discriminating in interpreting information, and more tolerant of other perspectives. As one legislator said, persuasive evidence of that kind would require elected officials to undergo a paradigm shift in their relationship to the public, perhaps even to the extent of incorporating a deliberative public in the legislative process. Some legislators expressed frustration with what they saw as the public s current lack of understanding. As one remarked, There s all kinds of things going on behind [the scenes and] people don t see that part of it. We don t announce it, we don t put it in the newspaper, because we just do our job. So that s the understanding that I would want them to learn in that process. Another legislator expressed a similar concern: I think that the general public doesn t understand how difficult it is to get legislation written, let alone through. I really don t think folks have appreciation for the process. It s tedious, and it s partisan you ve got 148 people that are putting in bills all the time, [and] really only a few things get through. And we have people that call up all the time because they re ticked off about one thing, and they want us to write a law, and when you try to explain what the system is they don t care. Though hoping for evidence of greater understanding, some respondents did not really believe that the general public could effectively engage with the complexity of issues because of selfinterest and concern with personal agendas. One remarked that he would love to see people moving away from self-interest to what s best for the state and best for the country. But, I don t know how you re going to get away from that. That s human nature. It s always been there, and always will be. Another expressed concern that deliberative processes would be too simplistic. He gave the example of the state budget, saying that deliberation needed to force people to grapple with the decisions we have to make, how [when] you take from one budget how it affects another budget; how every budget s really intertwined. For these and other respondents, it was important that the deliberative event encourage informed discussion and responses from participants. How might holding deliberations influence the policymaking process? Legislators were asked if it would be useful to provide evidence that by demonstrating public willingness to confront and address tough choices and tradeoffs, public deliberations had opened up a broader range of options for legislation. One legislator replied: [That kind of information is] great, and you ll need to have [it] to get the buy-in from the legislators. No question about that. Other legislators observed that it would be valuable to show that if we could get more people engaged in that process [we could] somehow lower the noise level and talk about real issues. Acknowledging that civil discussion is something we all want, at some level, one legislator 21

27 remarked that achieving that objective is challenging because of the self interest thing that gets involved. This respondent continued, We all have very selective hearing. I think you can have this deliberative process, you can go there, you can be part of it, and, you may get two people who leave that room who heard very different things. And that s okay. I think [nonetheless] most people here would be really interested in that. Some thought one significant measure of the value of the process would be whether legislators elsewhere, or ideally on other occasions locally, had participated in deliberations and found them useful. Some of the lawmakers indicated that they would evaluate past and future deliberations on the basis of the ability of organizers to adapt to the structure and rhythms of the legislative process by opportunistically generating information useful to legislators at various stages of the legislative process and making efficient use of legislator and staff time. One respondent said that policy recommendations would only matter if it was a discussion about some important issues [under consideration by the legislature], because if it s just fluff, we re all wasting each other s time. Two others suggested that the timing would matter. Conveners would have to find ways to make public deliberation work for issues that come up suddenly and/or need to be resolved quickly. The utility of such processes would depend on the subject matter and where in that [policymaking] process the issue is. If it s time to present legislation, and this is an opportunity for a legislator to get feedback on how they should actually vote, that s more topical, and there s kind of a sense of urgency to the issue, then that s probably more likely to get them actively involved. Although legislators professed interest in evidence of the past or likely future viability and practical value of public deliberation, they were almost unanimous in expressing the view that invoking practices from outside their own state was of marginal utility, and that direct exposure themselves, or by their staff, or by a trusted local organization or individual, would be by far the most effective strategy. When asked what information about where else these strategies have worked would be relevant, one legislator responded: I think that the fact that it has been tried and tested elsewhere is important. I think again partnering with, or involving an institution on the local level will help counterbalance the joke that the best way to kill a bill in our legislature is when someone asks who else is doing this, say New York and California Dead. They recommended the use of examples from their states or districts, for instance, analyzing the past or potential efficacy of a public deliberation in their state in helping with a politically unwinnable issue or cutting through partisan divides. Interviews pursued by one of the researchers as part of an evaluation of the Michigan Hard Times Hard Choices deliberation indicated that a case study would be especially useful if it were developed with or by a locally trusted partner, that is, a Michigan-based organization or group that legislators have confidence in and perceive as being legitimate. Given a deliberative event that meets these criteria, what information about what occurred at the event would be useful? The emphasis on personal exposure (whether direct or indirect, or through a trusted intermediary) applied not just to the legislators willingness to consider supporting the use of public deliberation, but also to the vector by which a deliberation could exert influence on the policymaking process. The legislators wanted to satisfy themselves that the deliberation met the threshold requirements inventoried above (neutrality, balance, civil and serious conversation, 22

28 willingness to consider the big picture and difficult trade-offs) and to learn from the citizen interaction and the trajectory of the conversation by observing the discussion. As one noted, I m hands on. I would have wanted to be there. I mean that s where I will get the most out of it. This lawmaker went on to say: I want to hear their conversation, their questions. Because I can be in a meeting, and I can go through my issues, and I can ask my questions, but I m always enlightened and I think educated and wiser after I m able to hear different people honestly talk about an issue. For another respondent, this evidence would come from understanding where and how they got to the point that they re getting to, which then would help me understand my district better, which would also guide me and, I think, translate into new issues. Another legislator concurred, saying: There s no substitute for the lawmaker being there. He then addressed the dilemma that emerged clearly from these interviews: how to get a lawmaker to attend when s/he does not yet understand the character or value of public deliberation. This person suggested, The way to get a lawmaker to go anywhere is for them to be invited by someone they know and trust and who will also be there. This view was echoed by others: If you were to organize this through say my local university, and you had someone on the faculty, or even the president of the university, who invites me to participate, then I m going to be there. If it s a professor I ve never heard of, somebody I don t know, that I don t trust [then I m less likely to attend and support the event]. With respect both to learning about public deliberation and assessing and using the conclusions reached in a particular deliberation that they had not attended (or supplementing what they had gleaned from personal observation), legislators wanted to see a range of information, including quantitative data about who attended and what happened, as well as qualitative documentation that could convey the content and character of the discussion. As one Michigan legislator commented wryly: So, when you did this last fall then, what did you do? What did you do with the information that you garnered? Did you send it to us and I didn t know that? [Interviewer: No, you re about to receive the report.] Well, I guess what I would want to do is see, like you said, the richness of the experience. One remarked that it would be useful to have quantitative reports where we could, as legislators, sit around and say, well look, this is what the people are saying. Another suggested, The more of those quantitative reports that you have, the more buy-in you re going to be able to get [from legislators]. Two lawmakers enthusiastically noted that they appreciated the data about participant views before and after the Hard Times Hard Choices deliberative poll in Michigan, which was provided as preparation for the interview. One of these legislators said, I like substantive questions and I also like the comparison. I was fascinated by the one on changes in taxes what should we increase and what should we cut. And the fact that you did give them some choices. You also did the before and after. I think that s helpful. This respondent also noted the value of graphs with demographic data: a graph can say a thousand words. In addition to requesting where it s possible to get data, hard information, several respondents also said they valued qualitative data. One said, I will tell you, the things that change my mind sometimes are those individual stories. I like to think that I make data driven decisions, but 23

29 there s nothing to appeal like an individual story. Another offered a similar response: Everybody s stories, honestly really do affect how I view issues for legislation. It s pretty powerful to hear people s stories. When we get all of these constituent calls and we hear the issues that people are having with insurance, or whatever, I mean it really does change your feeling in terms of the urgency of when things need to get done, and how they need to get done. Clearly, legislators want to hear the stories that emerge during deliberations as participants seek to explain their perspective on the issue. Here, as elsewhere, it is important to clarify what is distinctive about public deliberation: in this case, to characterize the context and point of participants stories, since the legislators often seemed to be thinking of deliberations as a grabbag of personal accounts comparable to constituent meetings of a far less structured kind. To get the attention of a lawmaker who had not been involved from the beginning and did not attend the event, interview subjects suggested that the results be presented via a third-party validator ideally from their own state, or in a face-to-face meeting, with some video clips. (In interviews carried out for the Hard Times Hard Choices evaluation, stakeholders made the further suggestion that lawmakers be briefed by constituents who had participated.) Unsurprisingly, legislators emphasized the importance of making materials clear and succinct. One legislator remarked that she would want a short concise statement (e.g., one paragraph not six pages ) that explained who s doing it and what kind of a process they re using and who to go to with questions. Another said, If it s not something I ve directly been on, I don t have time to read a hundred-page report. I ll read the cover letter, and I feel sorry for whoever had to compile it. Finally, a third respondent said, because of the volume of things like that [reports, DVDs, CDs, website links] that I get, it s unlikely that I m going to spend the time to get the information from websites or other places. FEDERAL-LEVEL FINDINGS What mechanisms do federal legislators currently use for citizen engagement? The staffers for federal legislators identified thirteen different mechanisms used by their office to engage citizens or constituents. Table Five lists every engagement mechanism brought up in the interviews, as well as the number of respondents who mentioned each mechanism. A vast majority of legislators use some version of a Town Hall meeting to engage constituents. As one staffer noted, there is a tradition in Congress of town hall meetings whether that s inviting folks to come to the high school auditorium, or doing electronic town hall meetings where you call folks up, or folks have the opportunity to dial in. With regard to town halls, another respondent suggested two ways in which these processes start: we re reacting to invitations that we get from people or we re actively going out and trying to find events for us to do or create our own events. 24

30 Table Five: Engagement Mechanisms used by Federal Legislators Engagement Mechanism Number of Respondents Tele-Town Halls/Robo Calling (engagement by phone) 11 Town Hall Meetings (face-to-face engagement) 9 Correspondence 6 Community Visits (e.g., meetings with rotaries, businesses) 6 Mail Correspondence (direct or mass mailing) 5 Newsletters 2 Webpage 2 Opinion Surveys/Web polling 2 In-Office Meetings (person-to-person) 2 Capital Tours 2 Twitter/Facebook (other social media) 1 Closed Round Tables 1 General Outreach Celebrations (e.g., recognizing individuals or nonprofits) 1 Eleven interviewees indicated that they used Telephone Town Halls (also referred to as teletown halls or robo-calling). Run through a company called iconstituent, a software system allows members of Congress to conduct live telephone forums with thousands of constituents simultaneously, in what various interview subjects described as being like a live radio show, a large conference call, or a very informal conversation. Of those who mentioned it, the staffers unanimously noted that members of Congress are happy with, very fond of, and raving about the new technology. Among the many reasons staffers noted for this satisfaction is that tele-town halls enable legislators to simultaneously reach out to large numbers of constituents 50 to 100,000 at one time. This ability to engage a wide range of constituencies is particularly useful for people in larger, mostly rural districts. Staffers also noted that tele-town halls are really effective in terms of the legislators being able to get a sense of what s on their [constituents ] mind, talk about the issues, what s in Congress, all the legislative issues that impact their daily lives. In short, tele-town halls enable legislators to reach so many people and talk about so many different topics. Staffers also noted that constituents seem to be satisfied with this new technology as well. As one staffer noted, tele-town halls are very well received. When we re out in the district, [the Representative] hears compliments all the time from people. Another said, Occasionally we get a handful of folks who don t like the call, who would prefer not to be bothered, but the overwhelming response to it seems to be positive. For these and other reasons, tele-town halls have become very common, frequently used tools, particularly during the district work periods. Nine staffers reported using the more traditional face-to-face Town Hall meeting. As one noted, the Senator s staff go around the state and we set up [town hall meetings] either through the local Chamber of Commerce, or just based on our lists of contacts. [Constituents] can come to one location and [the Senator] will give an opening 5-minute statement on what issues we re dealing with in Washington, and then he just opens it up for their questions. 25

31 Six staffers indicated that they use correspondence and five noted that they use snail mail to engage constituents. Several of these respondents mentioned the tremendous volume of correspondence that they receive per year (50,000 to 500,000 pieces). One explained how they do targeted mailings we keep them all [correspondence] in a database, and [filed] according to the issue that they re interested in, or that they wrote us about. So whenever we have a major update on that issue, we will send a targeted to all the people in our database who have ever written us about that issue. Six staffers noted that community visits are critical engagement opportunities. For example, one said, one of the most important ways to engage people is just traveling to the state and meeting with people. And on the flipside of that, constituents traveling to D.C. and meeting with the Senator and the staff in the Washington office. Another noted, We have staff designated in our district offices. We have some people who concentrate on casework, and then other people who concentrate on what we call outreach, which means that they re constantly out in the community talking to people. They re assigned specific communities of interest, and then specific geographic areas in our district. So people are always out and about, and we view that as a kind of formal designated way to stay in touch with, you know, people s concerns in our district. In addition to these engagement mechanisms, the staffers also reported using newsletters, websites, opinion surveys and web polling, in-office meetings, capital tours, social media, and roundtables and other outreach celebrations. Aims, benefits, and drawbacks of current engagement mechanisms When asked about the aims of citizen engagement, the responses were similar: engagement enables members of Congress to reach out to constituents and hear their concerns, needs, and positions. It also provides an opportunity for citizens to have voice. Just hearing the concerns of constituents, and understanding how they re approaching issues, and [hearing from] people who are most directly affected by them is the purpose of engagement. Another suggested, You make a more thoughtful, well-based decision if you ve got all the different perspectives at the table. This idea was shared by another interviewee: Obviously, a member of Congress, even one that s served for 30 plus years can never be an expert on every issue. And hearing from people who work on these issues day in and day out, and people who are from the state, and have that unique viewpoint, just understanding how they approach the issues, as opposed to how the member approaches them is why we engage with constituents. Beyond these instrumental aims, respondents asserted that engagement was a requirement of being a Congressional member. As one noted, if members are not doing the outreach then [they are] not doing their job. It s a necessary part of the game. Similarly, another suggested, one could argue intellectually it s probably a good idea [to engage constituents], and morally it s probably a good idea, but it s [also] an absolute survival requirement. When asked about the aims and purposes of engagement, one respondent asserted: I would say at the heart of the job, [members of Congress] are supposed to be reflecting their 26

32 constituencies. Now does it mean they will vote each and every time identical to what their constituents are saying? I don t think that s necessarily a definition or a job description of a member of Congress. This person went on to suggest that it was pertinent for a member of Congress to talk to his or her constituents so that s/he could find out, for example, are tax cuts important to them or are budget cuts important? Is a large defense important, or a small defense? This leads to an important question, to what extent does feedback received from constituents in various engagement mechanisms shape legislation, or at least, shape lawmakers thinking about a particular piece of legislation? When asked this question, responses ranged from Oh, completely, it shapes it enormously to it is only one factor of many in making a decision to participation hinders [the legislator] a lot. At the positive end of the spectrum, staffers noted that engagement helps legislators understand how their constituents think and feel about issues, and that it s better to have the information on the front end than the back end. At the other end of the spectrum, staffers noted that legislators are sometimes prompted to vote in way that constituents will support, regardless of whether they believe that it s the correct way to vote. Staffers also suggested that influence was, in part, a function of the level of policy for which engagement was used. Macro policy issues are large scale and have national or international aspects. In contrast, micro policy issues tend to be germane to local or regional issues, and arise from casework or from issues that constituents bring to a legislator s attention. Examples mentioned include renters rights and protections, school lunch programs, and issues related to appropriations, among others. Most legislative activity is at a micro level, not a macro level. So, a lot of this one doesn t see unless you re in the world of the Congress. Big healthcare reform, and big financial services reform just come along every 50 or 60 years, so, a lot of these things [that come out of engagement] are very micro but are great examples of engagement influencing policymaking either through the administrative process or the legislative process. Generally the things that we get through the telephone town hall or even an inperson town hall... tend to be not huge picture issues. They don t tend to be issues that are going to solve Middle East peace, but they tend to be issues that are germane to either domestic policy, or even they may be more local issues. We tend to get ideas for appropriations funding. We hear about local groups, local initiatives that are under way that need support, need funding. We tend to hear about problems in the community that are maybe of a local or regional nature, but bring to the Congressman s attention that he can look to address on a larger scale. They just tend to be an opportunity for us to get feedback from folks. Staffers readily noted several benefits of engaging constituents. One person nicely summed up the general sentiment: the Senator can t do his job if he s not hearing back from his constituents. It can t just be a one-way street where we re telling them what he s doing; we need to hear from them. It helps [members] represent [constituents] in Washington What we try to do [with participation] is connect the dots. 27

33 Only one Congressional staffer directly noted the benefits of face-to-face engagement. One of the important pieces for representing a rural state like ours is that face-to-face conversations are culturally significant. People feel more comfortable expressing their strong views about certain issues in person. I think it s important to the Senator to understand the viewpoints of his constituents. And, in order to do that, given the cultural implications of representing a rural state, it s important to do those things in person. All eleven respondents who discussed the tele-town hall process were particularly pleased with its benefits, and could not identify any drawbacks to that process. In fact, many believed that tele-town halls were a remedy to several problems with traditional face-to-face town halls. For example, one noted benefit was that tele-town halls are not resource intensive as compared to face-to-face engagements, which can be challenging, especially in large, rural districts. As one staffer noted, for in-person forums, resources are an issue, from flying out to and from districts to Washington, to organizing and logistics. Another concurred: a live town hall where he [the member] goes around the state, takes an enormous amount of logistical planning and scheduling and time the bang for your buck so to speak, is smaller by sending him around the state, than it is by doing one of these telephone town halls where he s in one place, and he s reached 30,000 people in an hour. I mean you just can t get such a huge return on the dollar. Another reported benefit of tele-town halls was their ability to reach out to constituents who otherwise would not be engaged, including those without a lobby to represent them in Washington. The telephone town halls have proven to be one of the most effective ways, we think, of getting to the non far right and far left people who tend to look for opportunities to engage with the member. This gives us the opportunity to be more proactive and go after folks who we can engage, rather than [just those who] choose to engage us. We have, as I imagine most members do, a fairly consistent group of people on both the right and the left who contact us pretty much all the time, and our goal is always to try to get to the sort of great quiet middle folks who never really take the time, or don t even think about going to their elected officials to share their concerns or problems. I really genuinely think we re getting people to engage in the process [through teletown halls] that otherwise would never do so, because it gives them a more comfortable approach to dealing with their member than having to do a face-to-face, or spend the time going out to an event. In part, the ability of tele-town halls to engage otherwise unengaged constituents may be a function of how participants are recruited. There seem to be three methods: 1) the legislator can select specific households for the call; 2) the call can be placed to randomly selected households; or 3) people can sign-up in advance and then call an 800 number to participate. Some staffers also noted that tele-town halls can ameliorate the hostility that legislators 28

34 experience at face-to-face public forums. In part, this is because staffers can control the conversations for the legislator. One element of the tele-town hall process relies on software that enables constituents to get in the queue to ask a question. Constituents press Star-3 and then talk with a staff member who puts their questions into a list visible on a computer screen. Another staffer moderates the participation of constituents. As one explained, I look at my computer screen and I see an entire list of [questions]. Joe Smith wants to ask about the national debt, and Mary Johnson wants to ask about Social Security. I click on these various callers and they re connected live to the Senator, and they can ask a question. And everybody else who s on can listen to the dialogue. Another respondent explained that this interface allows staffers to strategically select among constituents. For example, the interface shows that s Fred from [whatever city]. We don t want to talk to Fred, because we know Fred s question is going to be on immigration and I talked to him last weekend on that, and that s the last thing I want to talk about [now] so Fred is skipped in the queue. In terms of drawbacks, the staffers noted several challenges of using traditional forms of Congressional engagement, such as mailings, s, and the like, including delays, being as responsive as we can be in a timely manner, and keeping our database current. One respondent noted that mass mailings lack a personal community feel. Others noted the challenges of engaging and finding consensus within Congress. For example, one staffer said, Most members of Congress, and most staff, come to that building wanting to figure out what the right thing is to do, and do it to the best of their ability. But you know it s also true that our country s a really diverse place, and so how [one] Congressman defines the right things, and [how another Congressman] defines the right thing might be different than how [a third Congressman] defines the right thing, might be different than how [a fourth] Congressman defines the right thing. So, guess what, their constituents define it differently too. The challenges of engaging politically and demographically diverse constituents in large face-toface formats were also noted. For example, one respondent suggested that it was hard to engage people in the partisan environment in which we find our current political realm in this country. There is just an almost unbelievable amount of misinformation that unfortunately, people seem to digest without question. And, I think one of the biggest challenges in talking about issues in large scale [formats], whether it s town halls, or even online in some sort of a comment and answer format, is so much time and energy needs to be spent dispelling the untruths about this information. It gets to be an exhausting process when a significant amount of time is spent dispelling this information. Similarly, another staffer argued, You talk about citizens work and its value. We don t see the work, we see knee-jerk reactions from people who believe one thing and always will and those who believe something else and always will. This respondent then suggested that the more controlled dialogue in tele-town halls prevented or at least reduced these kneejerk and hostile reactions. 29

35 How do federal legislators understand public deliberation? By and large, Congressional staffers had not heard of public deliberation. All of the respondents asked for a definition almost as soon as the question was asked. Many said they first heard the phrase after reading the project description (see Appendix One). Others said they had heard the words and knew what each meant individually, but did not understand the phrase when applied to public engagement or how members of Congress communicate with constituents. One staffer said he had heard and knew a little bit about public deliberation through the Congressional Management Foundation, but was quick to point out that his colleagues were not at all familiar with the term. Only one interviewee was able to describe deliberation in terms that would resonate with scholars and practitioners. I think it has to do with an issue, [where] constituents deliberate the issue between themselves or with elected representatives, trying to kind of maneuver through what the issue is, trying not to come to a resolution, but coming to an understanding. And, only one other had experienced what most practitioners would consider a real public deliberation project (in this case, the legislator cited a project organized by AmericaSpeaks). However, this person did not realize that that was a public deliberation process, until after the term was defined. (See Box Two for a discussion of responses from legislators with previous knowledge about deliberation.) When prompted to explain what the term public deliberation might mean to them (before the interviewer defined the term), several staffers connected discussion of an issue to traditional engagement mechanisms, noting, for example, that public deliberation was found in either a town hall meeting or a round table, or some sort of public engagement with the community, or a situation where an issue was put out in the open, [where there was] talking about different issues, whether that s in a town hall forum or a tele-town hall. Box Two: Federal Legislators Familiar with Deliberation Two federal staffers were somewhat familiar with public deliberation; however, both also conflated it with traditional engagement mechanisms. Moreover, both were skeptical about its feasibility in the real world. Though he had never seen it in practice, one staffer was generally amenable to public deliberation and able to describe it in reasonably accurate terms. While he saw the potential of deliberation to inform officials, he was concerned that deliberations could be easily hijacked by special interest groups. Thus, he stressed that it would be important for the convener to be either the member or a neutral, non-partisan organization. Another staffer had participated in an AmericaSpeaks event. However, she also suggested that tele-town halls are akin to deliberation but without those handheld devices. Beyond concerns about resources ( those processes are just too expensive for us to do ), this staffer did not believe that deliberation accurately reflected the rough and tumble of policy and politics. In her view, the voting process at deliberative events is not helpful for policymaking because it fails to adequately incorporate political realities. Thus, she wanted evidence people engage in wrangling with the nuances of policy tradeoffs, particularly as it relates to resource allocation. For her, deliberation could only be feasible if people had to consider complexity and political viability. Moreover, deliberative success means that ideas from the deliberation processes [are] demonstrated to be effective, or that prospective resolution to a community dispute is developed. 30

36 The staffer who had participated in a deliberative process remarked, well, there s public deliberation in a variety of contexts there s lots of public deliberation in legislative bodies in government. And then there s lots of public deliberation that are formally convened by AmericaSpeaks [and] foundations. [There s] convening of public conversations that can happen at both the local level and the federal level. And then there s various kinds of public dispute resolution that s a kind of public deliberation. Interestingly however, this same respondent continued, I would say the tele-town hall forum was kind of like the particular methodology that AmericaSpeaks uses [but] people didn t have those handheld devices those processes are just too expensive for us to do we haven t used that formal methodology largely because we can t pay for it. In addition to suggesting that tele-town halls were akin to the deliberative model used by AmericaSpeaks, this staffer also said, occasionally we ll send out [a survey, or] put a survey on our website or in one of our e-newsletters and ask for participation, but those aren t randomly selected folks. In short, while this person seemed to understand many of the nuances of public deliberation, including issues of participant selection, the respondent also suggested that tele-town halls and surveys were mechanisms for public deliberation. Even after the interviewer defined public deliberation, many did not see how it differed from what they already did to engage citizens. I think it s important to consider any venue in which information is received from the public, whether that s constituents or not [as public deliberation]. I think you could make the case that a phone call into the office [or] receiving a letter, which can then invoke a response from the constituent to that letter is a more likely form of, deliberating about an issue than what was described. The first thing that came to mind when you [said] deliberative processes was the town halls that were held last summer during the healthcare debate, which seems like the most direct way to achieve deliberative discussion, or at least an in person discussion. I picture one of those scenes that you see during the election where [someone] does polling stuff on CNN, and has all these people sitting in chairs in front of him and they say, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? And, you have this back and forth among people. In terms of informing a member of Congress about where the public is on an issue, I ve never seen that to be super helpful. The risks, benefits, and possibilities of using public deliberation for policymaking After describing public deliberation, the researcher asked if such a process would be of value to a member of Congress. Two staffers simply said, No, not really. Besides these two respondents, all of the others saw the potential of public deliberation to be useful in a variety of ways, and particularly in helping to change the character of legislation, in that it would be more reflective of what people think needs to be done for the country. For example, staffers said: 31

37 Deliberation could help reduce the perpetual dissatisfaction with Congress. I feel like it would be more cohesive. Instead of just having two separate sides battling it out, but actually sit down and talk about things. Being able to push legislation through, or work on things with members of Congress, it would help if you have a united front where everyone s voice is heard, and, are talking things out. Direct political engagement [would help with] shortening the whole partisan political process that we re facing right now. It would break down the silo effect. Deliberation could help members understand what is going on in their districts and would be useful in forming a narrative in tracking trend lines of volume in discussion. The majority, though positive about public deliberation, expressed sincere skepticism. One staffer said, Do you think that really happens? I think I m a bad person for you to interview, because I question your whole premise. Another provided a longer, more nuanced response: The ethics side of me says yes, we ought to try it. I d like to think it could be done, but it would have to require some I don t know if I d call it swallowing of pride or something like that. For example, on Social Security, I can appreciate the majority saying, Republicans want to privatize, they want to destroy Social Security. There s obviously a lot of differences on both sides. But the facts are, if we go the way we are going, Social Security, just mathematically, it s doesn t add up. It just doesn t add up. Can everybody agree on that? Now of course everybody s going to say, well, that s your motive to cut it. No, no, no! Let s just talk about the numbers. Do they add up? Can we have a discussion on the, the numbers? The facts are there. It seems like we ve gotten so polarized that we can t even agree that there s a genuine problem. Mr. Obama made a genuine attempt to set up a deficit commission, and even, just as they re having a discussion, you start to see people [in Congress] position for political advantage, [saying] they re going to cut Social Security. [If you went] to a man or woman on the street, would they tell you everything s rosy with their life of Social Security? I think polling data s out there that suggests people believe there is a problem. Beyond that, it is complete disagreement. Complete disagreement. And I just don t know how you do it. I d like to think you could put a bunch of impeccables up there and say let s have a discussion, we really want to have a discussion. And, you know, the devil s in the details. We [members of Congress] are looking for an advantage. But, we need to step back and go, the numbers are showing a trend that s not healthy. We agree on that. So we agree that the numbers are showing this, [let s] have a discussion. I don t know that we can do it. In addition to skepticism about feasibility, whether for logistical or political reasons, respondents also had several reservations about public deliberation. In general, these reservations centered on five related issues, with the ultimate conclusion being that although deliberation might be useful in several ways, it could serve as only one factor of many in making a decision. 32

38 First, staffers were unclear about how such processes could be used by Congressional members. For example, a few suggested that for the processes to be successful, they would have to be done at the district level (i.e., for a single representative s district and constituents, or for a Senator s state), because members of Congress represent specific constituents, not the nation as a whole. The members always respond to how this plays out in their district, or with some community of interest that s relevant to them. Members live in their district, so they always want to find a hook for their district. On a similar note, one said that such a process could be useful, but pointed out that the Senator is one member of a hundred-member senate. A public deliberative process could influence his one vote, but it doesn t mean that all 99 other senators are going to go along with it as well. So I think that kind a process has more influence at more of the local level than it would at a U.S. Congress level. Echoing this idea, another said, In Washington, the way that we do this public deliberative process is more so at the committee level. We get witnesses to testify for 15 minutes and then the Senators can ask some questions about their testimony. That s probably as close to a deliberative process, as it gets. If you want to influence the whole body [of Congress], that s the one way. Moreover, a few staffers suggested that the political and other incentives for members of Congress to use such processes did not exist. In general, think about the reward structure for members of Congress or any politician. It s not a group of people who ve gotten together to come up with all the solutions. It s either the base of their party, it s the squeaky wheel who gets the grease, or if they re a maverick or an independent, it s their own way of seeing things. For example, consider the commission that is supposed to cut the budget deficit everybody thinks it is dead on arrival. Take gerrymandering, and the way the districts are drawn. If you re in a totally Republican or Democrat district, you ll only get grief for varying from the party line. There s so few districts that are let s say half Republic and half Democrat, where you could do a creative straddle, and you would survive politically then. That s the reward structure, survival. In the other districts, you have some members who keep their own council and don t just follow the party line, but when they do, they get grief. With redistricting, members of Congress generally don t have these external forces that force them to hear points of view other than their own, because most of their district agrees with them. And a point in fact, almost reward members for playing to the individual point of view of their increasingly homogenous district. Members are rewarded for playing to the homogenous crowd. And members do what works. They are doing what their constituents ask. Second, respondents were concerned about the willingness of people to participate in such processes. For example, one remarked that the quality of discourse is reflective of how much attention or time the public is willing to put in to understanding an issue. From this person s 33

39 perspective, getting the level of engagement necessary to produce quality discourse was unlikely. Another suggested that public deliberation would be most helpful if characterized as an exchange between the representative and the individual or group of constituents because the people who choose to engage in any of those scenarios don t necessarily formulate a representative sample of the body you re to represent as a whole. Typically the engagement rate isn t high enough to formulate finite conclusions about what the entire populace you re supposed to represent think and feel. Third, respondents were concerned about a process being co-opted or commandeered by organized interests. Moneyed interests are very sophisticated, and [they would] probably hijack the process and make it look like their own. Several were concerned about people creating organized protest, not allowing deliberation to occur, and trying to propose one side without engaging others viewpoints which happens because usually, when people are coming to us, they re coming to us from one side of an issue. Fourth, perhaps the most frequently mentioned concerns revolved around issues of civility in public discourse. Congressional staffers had a lot to say on this issue: The discussion [in public forums] has gotten much more rude. There isn t the kind a cordiality in the discussion there s no deference, there s no respect. People are just not respectful. They re yelling and screaming at each other, and I don t know how you go back to a more civil discourse. I think [public deliberation] is a highly theoretical construct it sounds good in theory, but when you have the divisions in this country as we do, many people are on the opposite ends of controversial issues it s become so politicized, I m not sure how that really works in reality. I think it s fine in theory, [but] put these people together, [and] see what happens the state of debate is so rancorous and not helpful at this point. To attain all of the goals, encompassed in [public deliberation] would be extremely difficult. The challenge in achieving all of those goals comes to the political environment in which partisanship is at an all time high. We have found that it is extremely difficult to get folks that are not very far left or right engaged in a discussion or in the political process unless they are wedded to the process. We have found it very difficult to get the, if you will, average, regular voter engaged in the process and interested.... I think they feel intimidated by those folks on the right or the left when they go to meetings, or when they go to events. And we just find it very hard to engage sort of that huge middle group of people that maybe have something to say, but don t want to be shouted down or embarrassed Civil engagement is difficult at meetings these days because [people] don t show just common courtesy that you learn in kindergarten. While several examples were offered, two major public policy issues were referenced frequently: 34

40 healthcare and immigration. In terms of healthcare, one staffer is worth quoting at length: The healthcare debate is a good example of [the lack of civility]. We had a huge event for the healthcare debate. I could be wrong here, but [I believe] only a handful of people among [them] came to actually learn about the event or become enlightened. Everybody came with their minds already made up. They were pro or con. The pros came to yell down the cons, and the cons came to yell down the pros, and there was really very little positive engagement or interaction or value I think from the event in this sense, because, I don t know that anybody walked away learning anything. Everybody walked away either feeling that their position was or wasn t heard sufficiently, because they really just came to yell down one side or the other. And that s what we re finding at events when we hold public forums. The ones, whatever side they feel is not represented by the, the panel, or the speakers, comes to yell them down. And I think it greatly intimidates the average folks who maybe want to come and listen. And I think people are intimidated to do that, because I think they re frightened away by these loud, unruly, impolite folks who come and don t seem to understand that you can disagree politely, or you can disagree in a civil tone without embarrassing or trying to demean the person that you re disagreeing with. Another reported that this was exactly their experience in 2007 when immigration reform was on the floor of the Senate: Our phones lit up. We were getting so many calls in an hour, that we kept our front office staff and our interns on the phones for half a day, because they couldn t take any more. In about a 4 week period, at the very height of that debate, our office received 27,000 phone calls, and 99.9% of them were not just angry, but furiously angry. They were swearing at us, and calling [the Senator] every name in the book. There were some threatening calls, we had to call the police and turn in a few names It was to the point that no matter what was in that bill, what was debated on the floor, there was no way that our boss could vote for it, because it had become such a light and run, and such a poison pill, that there s no way he could vote for it. Our constituents spoke loudly and clearly, and nothing that even smacked of being less than harsh on the illegals who were here in this country would pass muster with them. All we had to do is vote no, no, no, no, no. The constituent voice is a strong one, and there s strength in numbers. And when a lot of then speak loudly enough, we definitely hear it, and we heed it, and it does influence how he votes, what kind of a legislation he introduces, what letters he signs on to. [In terms of deliberation], if we were to bring all sides together [on the immigration issue], it is so partisan, it would turn into a shouting match and it could get violent I could see it going south really quickly. Finally, respondents suggested that not only was there incivility and a lack of deliberation among the public, but also that Congress was failing as a deliberative institution. The quotes from staffers are informative. Congress people believe, at least on the House of Representatives side, that it s a deliberative body. And, I ll say this, what we re doing as a majority [the Republican 35

41 Party] is absolutely, positively wrong. We re not allowing a debate to occur. They re scared of the possible results of having a debate. It s, I feel, like we re hypocrites. Because from 79 to 89, we said we want to debate, in the 2000s, we don t want to debate. In 2005, I said, this is wrong. And they said, you don t get it. You don t want to debate, because you don t want to have to deal with the 30-second sound bite. And I said, but this is going to have consequences. And what are we doing? We are now reaping the consequences of that which we did to the other side. I think it s wrong. I think, if we have to debate, healthcare, cap and trade, pick your subject, for hundreds of days, I think you re going get a better product than if you try to do it in 3 or 4 hours. I think we re doing a disservice to our country, and a disservice more importantly to our constituencies, when we don t actually have a deliberative process going on. I probably am very idealistic on that, but I just think it s wrong. Let s have a discussion and may the best ideas win. Congress is a reflection of society as a whole. And I don t think public deliberation by and large happens in a civil way. And so I don t think there are enough models of it. And, that s part of the reason why you see [in Congress that] the goal of it is to win, and to get your way, rather than to figure out a solution that everybody could live with. It s not just partisan, it s bringing bills to the floor under restrictive rules that frankly don t allow amendments from Republicans or Democrats. After providing an example about a recent bill, the respondent said, We can t have the conversation because people are afraid to lose. A third staffer suggested that, in part, the Congressional schedule is forcing [problems]. Members are coming in on Tuesday night, leaving probably Thursday or mid-day Friday, and they re going home to their families. The system s broken. So what s happening is, members are coming into town on a Thursday night, doing their votes, they ve already positioned themselves, or they re not really there for the debate, but it s much more of a conflict situation as opposed to a cordial situation. What criteria would legislators use to assess whether and when the methods of public deliberation would be (or have been) helpful? A major goal of this research was to determine what it would take for legislators to see public deliberation processes as useful and worthwhile. However, because respondents were largely unaware of public deliberation, they had difficulty in answering this question without specific prompts. Moreover, conversations turned more on the methods and process of deliberation rather than the outcomes of deliberative events. Before examining responses to specific prompts, it is useful to explore some of the more general issues staffers raised about assessing whether and when public deliberation would be a helpful process. The apparent idealism of public deliberation resonated with some staffers. For example, one declared, If all of the pieces of that definition [of public deliberation] could be met, I would be surprised if there were members of Congress who said that that wasn t useful. Similarly, another stated, At the end of the day, a lot of members and a lot of offices appreciate out-of-thebox thinking, and appreciate new ways of trying to bridge that gap between themselves and their constituents. So I can t imagine a more meaningful way to interact with them. 36

42 Many staffers asserted that legislators would need to be convinced that public deliberation processes were different from, and better than, what they already do to engage constituents. I think if the members could be convinced that it was genuine, and not just one more opportunity for whatever group decides to hijack the meeting to take an hour and a half or two hours of the member s time, and just pummel him on their particular point of view if we could be convinced that it was genuine and not staged, or phony, or hijacked, then I think that that s what makes it valuable. If you could create an environment where that [kind of] public discourse could take place, and where you could give members in the center on both sides of the aisle, some cover for doing it then the potential value of public deliberation increases. I think the best way is to show that it would help them. How does it help them do their job? And we re always looking for ways to, to do the job better. And especially in this electronic information, 24/7 news cycle era, [where] everybody s so busy and so consumed, and so partisan, how do we get past all that? So if you can show that there is a way to get past all that, show how to do it, not just say hey, go hold a meeting and invite all the stakeholders. We ve tried that, we ve done that. But if there s a specific way of making it really successful, [that] would help us. Another indicated that it would be important to relate the deliberation to a member s [work] on a committee and make sure the results relate to some [relevant] issue. Moreover, this respondent said, You just have to think of bread and butter political interests, as well as where they have their own intellectual capital, where they re building the leadership. And some of that s typically on committees [but], most members have some other issue that they work on that has to do with something they care about. She continued by saying, You can t just tell what members are interested in by either looking at their districts or their committees. If you look at their records, you can find out where they re trying to have an impact. One of the key things is breaking through the member s attention with relevant input. That s hard to do. You have to talk to their staff and get guidance know something about the members. Every member is their own franchise. Every member is their own brand, their own small business. You ve got to figure out ways to align with the interest of the member, or the concerns of the member. Finally, one respondent noted that a district-level project, as opposed to a national level project, would be more valuable to the members. To get buy-in for such a process, she suggested that personal relationships were key: I would go to their district director or someone, and make a relationship with them and, let them know this is what you want to do, this what you propose to do, and work it through them, rather than hold this thing and then just come in and try to kind of force it upon them. They would have been engaged in the process from the beginning because it s awkward when after it s all done with, you re just handed this [report]. If the members, and their offices, their staff, their local staff can be engaged with the process, I think it will make it much more valuable to the member, and I think it will be something 37

43 that they would take more seriously, and take it to heart. We get mailed 10 reports a day by some group telling us something. And if we have no knowledge of those groups, no engagement with those groups, no ownership with those groups, most of those [reports] end up in the trash, because none of us have time to read them. If it was a group that I worked with to actually obtain some information that we wanted, as opposed to what someone thought we needed, I think it would be much more valuable and much more useful, and much more productive down the road. The other unprompted responses from staffers were laden with skepticism. For example, one respondent suggested that little could be done to convince members of the value of public deliberation. I understand and appreciate the academic discussion, but the world in which I live, there are few examples that I can point to, if any, off the top of my head, where such a utopian vacuum was established for the deliberation of anything. Another suggested that reforms to the incentive structures of politicians would have to be made. I just don t think that until whatever leader of whatever community whether you re talking about community boards or Congress, and everything in between, until people are rewarded for being more deliberative these processes will not be valued. Echoing this sentiment, another suggested that several moderate candidates lost re-election this year [2010]. They were rejected by constituencies, because they were more moderate. And that s part of the reason that I m so cynical about the premise of this project. I think their constituents are the ones that need to convince them. And right now, the constituents are telling them that [moderation and finding middle ground is not valuable] or maybe they listen to the wrong people. But, if you could make the case that some of the members, the sitting members who have lost in primaries, or some of the members who ran for other offices and lost, if you could make the case that their constituents were, in effect, for lack of a better word, punishing them for not listening well, or for listening to the wrong people then you might be able to put some power behind this argument. A similar note of doubt was expressed by a staffer who said, There are groups on both sides of the aisle that are experts at motivating their constituencies to flood, to basically shut down the phone system to Congress. It happens regularly to members who are in the center, and it does contribute to the lack of stability, because it takes up all the air. And, members in the center come to feel that if they are not responsive to the vocal extremes, that they will lose their seats. I don t know how you get a handle on that, because we ve got that first amendment. The idea that support would need to come from citizens themselves was repeated by three other respondents: Buy-in from the American public that they think it s a good idea. It comes down to whether or not we [members of Congress] believe that people are interested and willing to invest in something. And, right now, it seems to me, people are more driven by ideological rhetoric than they are [by] a deliberative process. It seems like Congress is forced to maintain that path, unfortunately. 38

44 I think they need to see the brute force of a movement that says, hey, we all agree on this one thing; pay attention to us. Because we get press, we have numbers, we write you, we show up at your meetings, we have ideas, and, these are our ideas; deal with us. [The respondent noted that the Tea Party does this, but that] we just don t see that [from] thoughtful people who got together. The people in Washington when they come visit the members, they basically say, this is what we are all about. We want you to vote this way. If people were writing to us, expressing that that was the way to go, writing us personal letters, that would make a big difference. In addition to buy-in and support from the American public, this respondent also argued that acceptance and reporting by the traditional media, as well as news and blogs and political activity would be evidence of broader public support. As noted above, given that the Congressional staffers largely did not understand public deliberation, interview prompts were used to elicit legislator views on the following considerations: Who organizes and how is the event structured? Who participates? What is the conversation like? What is the likely impact of deliberation on participants? How might holding deliberations influence the policymaking process? Who organizes the deliberation and how is it structured? In general, respondents indicated that conveners must be neutral, balanced, and nonpartisan, as must be any moderators, facilitators, and mediators. Most advocates of public deliberation take this for granted as a philosophical necessity; however, for legislators, neutrality is a political necessity. As one staffer suggested, legislators are going to be cautious of the sponsors of an event. If there is an appearance that a sponsor is approaching an issue, or the issue is being considered with an agenda, that s obviously always a concern. This person continued to suggest that perceptions of neutrality needed to be shared by both the legislators and the participants. Only one interviewee suggested that the incumbent should be the one to organize such events, and two respondents noted concerns about academic sponsors, suggesting that such sponsors might be biased. Most believed that organizers and conveners should be a non-partisan third party, such as a think tank or a nonprofit some kind of organizational entity that has reputation in the community. Finally, one skeptic of public deliberation did not believe that neutrality was attainable. No matter their best intentions, the people who design the process and pick the inputs will have, even if only subconscious, influence on the result. In addition to who the organizers and conveners are, a few respondents noted important issues about process design including making sure that: whoever s organizing this has really done their homework and knows who should be at the table; the ground rules of the forum, whatever they might look like, are clear to everyone and are going to be followed; it s clear what the elected official is going to do with the information they gather from it; and the issue is 39

45 presented to the group [so they see] both arguments of the issue, from a liberal and conservative standpoint. Who participates? Three important issues emerged in examining the question of who participates: 1) size; 2) demographic, political, and geographic diversity; and 3) the participation of Congressional officials. First, in terms of size, there seemed to be general confusion about the number of people that could participate in a deliberative event. It is likely that this is, in part, a function of the fact that few staffers had seen anything like what advocates propose, and even after an explanation, could not wrap their heads around what a deliberative process would look like in practice. For example, one respondent suggested, you ve got to achieve that fine balance, that fine line between not enough and way too many. However, when this person further elaborated, it became clear that she did not envision the type of public deliberation for which advocates call. If you re giving everybody equal time, and you ve got 50 people sitting around the table and you re going to give them all 10 minutes, that s a long day. It s [about] trying to achieve that balance where it s not just 3 people in a back room making a decision but it s also not 100 people, and everybody gets to talk, and everybody else has to sit there for 10 hours listening to that, because that s not productive either. Several staffers suggested that more participants is better because: bigger numbers speak more loudly; the more people that show up, the better we are; bigger numbers would be a better result; and more participants shows that people are engaged about the issue. Others suggested that an engagement process is naturally more valuable really if it s smaller, saying for example, you re never going to be able to get 200 or 2,000 to give you their opinions if you were really going to engage in some sort of dialogue, I think a smaller group, and a group maybe where there isn t a live audience. Another staffer suggested that the importance of size really depends on what the claim is. Focus groups produce very interesting results and are typically small so the relevance of size depends on the issue being posed, and then the claims about the validity of the information. Second, demographic diversity and political diversity were seen as being more important than size. Ten respondents agreed that demographic diversity, in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status, was important. Nine respondents agreed that political diversity in terms of party affiliations, general political ideologies, and political views on the specific issue, was important. As one said, Diversity of ideologies, ethnicities, social status that all makes a difference, because otherwise it s like active advice from particular interest groups, and we can get that through our own political parties. Perhaps more interesting is the focus on [limited] geographic diversity. Staffers who worked for a member of the House of Representatives were quick to point out that it was important to make sure the participants were from their member s districts. As one said, I wouldn t even be interested so much to see whether it was a fair representation of different types of political views, I would want make sure it was a fair representation of our district of our people of the kinds of people that we represent. Another noted, They need to be members of the district; I think 40

46 that s very important from my boss s perspective. He really isn t super interested in knowing [what people outside the district think] he s going to be a lot more persuaded if you get somebody who lives in our district who is neutral. Finally, five staffers explicitly noted that members of Congress should be participating in these deliberative events. These interviewees suggested that there was value in the presence of members at such events because there s nothing like experiencing it firsthand; it would allow them to see a coming together, a converging of viewpoints; and there s definitely a peer to peer influence that could be used to spread word about the outcomes of these events. What is the conversation like? Ten staffers indicated that showing that deliberation could produce civil discussions and reduce conflict around a policy issue would be valuable. Most did not have much more to say about this beyond providing an enthusiastic Yes! or Absolutely! One suggested that engagement processes should be viewed in terms of whether the exchange itself is positive. Another quipped, If you pulled that off in [my state around the immigration issue], you should win a Nobel Peace Prize. If that was actually the case, that would be not just helpful to that elected official, it d be helpful to the country. One respondent indicated that this information would be less helpful to members who are not so much concerned about people trying to reduce conflict but would be more interested to know just where people together are coming down on particular issues. What is the likely impact of deliberation on participants? During the interviews, staffers were asked whether knowing about the impacts of deliberation on participants would be valuable to members. Specifically, they were asked about five individuallevel indicators: trust in government, learning, understanding the complexities of the issues, changing opinions, and fostering political engagement or mobility. Eight staffers indicated that it would be useful to know whether participation increased trust in government. Several respondents were sensitive to this issue, in part because trust in government is an emotionally charged issue for legislators and staffers. For example, one remarked, I could be Pollyannaish and say I d sure like people to think of their elected officials in a greater light than they do now. it s very disappointing when you work for an honest and decent member who really works hard for the district, it s really hard to see the level of public distrust and anger towards elected officials. It would be really great if we could ever get back to the point again where people didn t have blind faith in their elected officials, but didn t view them as the enemy, as the bad guys all the time. We do really a lot of good. A second echoed that sentiment, remarking that showing increased trust in government would definitely be valuable because the ratings for Congress right now are in the toilet. And, if you showed them that if they participated in this kind of process and it was done right, that more people would trust government, yeah, I think that would have an impact. Another was skeptical: In some instances we ve seen that something like a town hall can make people trust government less, so if you can show that it can increase trust, then that would be great. Eight staffers indicated that it would be useful to know whether deliberation fostered learning 41

47 among the participants. One suggested that this should be viewed in several ways: the participants becoming educated about an issue, the members gaining information about the perspective of constituents, and informing constituents about the member s perspective on issue. Similarly, respondents indicated that it would be useful to know whether participants changed their opinions as a result of deliberation. Information about participants changing their minds is kind of interesting because I really feel like if people sit down and, and talk about these things in that kind of group, I think it just really opens a lot of doors sometimes, instead of just having a set partisan this is how it s gonna be kind of thing. Another agreed. Yes, it would matter [to show] folks are able to be engaged and be thoughtful about these different issues, and look at all sides, before they make a decision. I mean hey, that would be really great. Interestingly, one staffer remarked, I don t know that a change of viewpoint is required for participation. I think it would be useful, yes but from a member s point of view, changing a viewpoint would not always be the outcome of engaging constituents. Nine staffers indicated showing that participants better understood the complexity of the issue would be valuable, with many answering emphatically, Absolutely! If there is a large group of people who see more of the complexity, and, one of the favored terms up here is thread the needle [which means draw the line in the right place ], in terms of coming up with thoughtful, viable suggestions, members would pay attention to that. She continued, People make fun of politicians, they say that they were colored in plaid. Well, there s a reason for that. The minute you, you represent a gambit of political viewpoints, and, you ve got to balance them in a way that you don t go way out on a limb, and have other people feel that you don t value, you don t understand their view on any given issue. That s extremely helpful, because so many times we have people come in to tell [the Senator] why he should vote yes or no on a bill, and they have never ever considered the other side of this issue. And it s usually not just one side usually there s ten sides to an issue. And so, if they ve ever considered that there s more than just their opinion about it yeah, that d be extremely helpful. That would be great! I m not wanting to sound too elitist, but I do think that the majority of folks out there, don t understand anywhere near the level of complexity. It s not simply a matter of bringing troops home from Afghanistan, there s a lot more behind it. There s a lot of things that will happen or not happen if that goes on; it s not simply a matter of bring them home and it s all going to be great in the world ; there s going to be repercussions from that. So yeah, definitely I think that there would be value in folks having a broader understanding of the issues, rather than the few sound bites they get from TV and radio. Finally, eight staffers indicated that it would be useful to know whether deliberation increased political engagement. Most interviewees did not have much more to add beyond ardently saying, Yes! Definitely! or Absolutely!, although a few did indicate at least some recognition of 42

48 broader civic goals. For example, one said, It would matter to us if the results showed that people were more likely to participate as voters. Another extended that to include whether people were likely to get involved [and] volunteer. A third suggested that it would definitely give more weight to people who participate. And we d be excited, because it would probably draw in more people to political activity. A fourth suggested, Yeah, I think that it shows you the engagement level. And... we want more people. How might holding deliberations influence the policymaking process? Subjects were asked whether it would be useful to show that deliberation produced a better policy decision. Several suggested that additional data points are always useful [and] more information is better than less. A potentially more informed recommendation or discourse would be valuable. In general, however, answers to this question suggest that what constitutes a better policy decision is highly nuanced and variable. For some, a better decision was perceived as being a function of the process. For example, one staffer said, I don t think you get to say people are right or wrong, because a lot of it s very subjective as you know. So, I think at the end of the day, what makes the best decision is that the individual or individuals, have really looked at everything, looked at all angles, looked at all perspectives, then arrived at their decision, without having sort of pre-biases, or just not being as open minded initially. For others, a better decision produced new options. For example, one person said, if participants can come together and come up with a new policy proposal, or, a new way of tackling the problem that would draw forth from both the conservative and a liberal side, then yeah, I think that would be helpful. However, another suggested that The answer just depends on what s in front of Congress at the time. It s easier to deal with ideas that we already understand and are dealing with. If you re trying to present something that s brand new, hadn t been thought of before, you ll find members that just want to jump on that and try to become the leader if it s a popular idea or one that they perceive as taking off. So, it depends on what the idea is. Similarly, political viability and attainability were important elements in a better policy recommendation. For example, one staffer said, it would be important that the recommendation is politically attainable, and comes with a broad consensus. It s difficult to convince a legislator that they should devote time to trying to attain something that they view is unattainable. Likewise, another said, If I see end results of the policy discussion that completely disregarded politics, that wouldn t be particularly credible to me. In contrast to these respondents, several others argued that it would not be valuable to look at the policy recommendations emerging from deliberation. One suggested that this was particularly the case with the deliberations that focused on really broad policy topics. She perceived those as not being particularly helpful because from where I sit inside the legislative policy world [those broad deliberation topics do not] necessarily inform the policy debate, because, typically the conversations don t adequately incorporate political realities. Ironically, experience in the field suggests that topics are often easier to organize for public deliberation, especially in terms of generating political diversity among participants. 43

49 Two other staffers indicated that policy recommendations would not impact partisan legislators. It s pretty hard if you re a Republican or Democrat and you have these feelings of the way things should be, and [participants] have a consensus, and it s totally opposite of what your beliefs are. I think it could maybe change the minds of some government officials, but I don t know. I mean, it s very partisan, and I think presenting these options to government officials and senators and things like that are wonderful, [but] I don t know in the long run that they would change their mind. I just don t know. Another simply stated, Now you re into the realm of informing and/or influencing Congress, for which there is a multibillion dollar industry. Finally, one person argued that making a recommendation should not be the focus of a public deliberation process because to one degree or another, in a legislative context, you re sort of subcontracting the job of the representative to begin with. Congress is supposed to be a representative and deliberative body with a diverse group of individuals who are more informed about the issues. I personally am averse to designing systems that subcontract the work of Congress, [work] that Congress should be doing anyway. Given a deliberative event that meets these criteria, what information about what occurred at the event would be useful? Staffers were asked what information from a deliberative event would be useful, and what the best ways were to communicate the evaluation results to legislators. Almost invariably, they indicated that members would appreciate and want to see both quantitative and qualitative information, because it makes it [the results] more weighty. Members tend to like both big picture percentages about things that are happening and the interest, as well as anecdotal stories, or individual stories about how this, that, or the other thing impacted individuals. Despite the fact that anecdotal stories are good, respondents indicated that members are very fixated on numbers. As one respondent noted, we are poll driven. We love to see the percentage stuff. We eat that stuff up. Another person gave a more nuanced answer: The answer to that question depends upon the member. One of the things that we ve seen come out of the Communicating with Congress project [conducted by the Congressional Management Foundation] is that offices differ on their interpretation of quantitative versus qualitative information. Qualitative information is useful when personalizing an issue, and illustrating the gravity of the effects that policies that aren t working can have on people. However, for people, who are looking at the impact of an issue, you can t do that based upon qualitative information alone. Both pieces of information are essential, because they are viewed differently, and they re used differently. In terms of how best to convey information to legislators, staffers had several suggestions. Table Six lists the various suggestions, as well as the number of times each was mentioned. 44

50 Table Six: Best Ways to Convey Information to Federal Legislators Category Number of Respondents Through Staff/Personal Relationships on Hill 7 Written Report (hardcopy or online) 7 Find Spokesperson/Have Advocacy Groups Bring Message 3 Video 2 Presentations 2 Online Documents 2 Attend Caucus/Weekly Conference 1 Seven staffers indicated that the best way to convey evaluation information was through Congressional staffers and/or by developing personal relationships with people on the Hill. As one said, Finding compelling people to come up and try to meet with staff and show off what you re doing. It s the personal connections that really have a lot of leverage up here. Another person said, It s really important to get it to the member directly but the first line of communication should be with the Chief of Staff. At least from how our office works, and how my boss is, if we have the initial meeting and we re able to meet in person and go through the findings, and then have a second meeting, a follow-up meeting, I think that would be really great. Seven staffers suggested that evaluators provide a written report, available in hardcopy or online. Even though we get millions of reports, and they look like phone books people still appreciate a comprehensive report that then outlines [the project and results]. Have the report, where they can get into the details and the nitty-gritty, but then have a white paper [executive summary] or 1 pager, or 2 pager maximum, of all the key findings. Three staffers suggested using advocacy groups or spokespersons to present results to legislators. Two interview subjects observed that videos could be useful because they provide the strongest way to portray qualitative information. If a person stands up and tells an impassioned story about how this piece of policy affected a family member, including that in a written report, whether it s online or in hard copy, won t have the effect that it would seeing and hearing that person. Another noted that both Republicans and Democrats have caucuses or conferences every week. And if you could somehow talk to the members, and highlight what others have done in their own party, I think that s the best way to do it. Two staffers were particularly careful to note that there are multiple ways to convey information to legislators, and that the multiple ways should be used. For example, one said, a written report is probably best, but also noted that there s so many things to read up here, that that s a little problem. The chance for the best number of eyeballs is to have it be from a credible organization [with] a reputation of being really solid in terms of the information that s behind it. Something on your website that people can easily access. And, it could also be helpful to give briefings up here, to introduce the topic, so that it would circulate that way. Another commented: 45

51 One of the ironies of the information age is that there s more information around and available, [but] it s harder to get it into the brains of policy decision-makers because there s so much common battle ground. One should have to go at decision-makers in a variety of ways. For example, with members of Congress you d want to present information to their staff. You d want to try to convince other advocacy groups that have contact with the members to carry this message. You d want to try to get a spokesperson or somebody who could come in and summarize the results. So for example, [at] the weekly House caucus meetings, the Speaker brings in major speaker to talk about research results, or polling results. The caucuses have annual retreats where the Speaker presents information about trends and demographics and new ideas of policy issues, and what s going on with the economy, [and] various things like that. [You need] variety of that at the highest level. Members [are going to want to see] something that s concise, something credible, and, has a mix of the best quantitative representation of the results, and some qualitative indicators as well. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The purpose of this research was to explore what state and federal legislators know about public deliberation, and how they do or might value such processes. The researchers sought to lay the groundwork for the field and supporters of public deliberation to address the last of the four questions posed by the Kettering Foundation: how might the gap between the public and elected officials be bridged? The results of this study might lead one to conclude that given legislators dearth of knowledge about and understanding of deliberation, the time may not yet be ripe to move toward collaborative implementation, that more persuasion is necessary. However, this is not the conclusion we wish to offer. Instead, we believe that only through implementation of public deliberation, where legislators are given a chance to observe or participate, and where evaluation work is done by a neutral third party, will they come to be persuaded that such processes are valuable, useful, and perhaps even necessary. Based on our findings, we offer four broad recommendations for the democracy and civic reform community at large. These recommendations are designed to help motivate elected officials to use public deliberation as a governance tool. Suggestions for future research are provided in Appendix Four. Recommendation One: Invite lawmakers to witness public deliberation educate them through involvement. As noted several times in this study, most state and federal legislators did not know what deliberation was. Even after having the approach explained, they did not understand how it differed from what they already do to engage citizens. This finding suggests that hearing about deliberation does little good; description is not enough, lawmakers need to participate in, or at least observe, a deliberative process to understand it. Participation should not be limited to a familiar format (e.g., being on a panel as part of a plenary session), but must include exposure to what is most distinctive about public deliberation, namely discussion among ordinary citizens. 46

52 This recommendation may spark controversy in the field, as some practitioners and scholars (as well as some of the lawmakers interviewed in this study) assert that the presence of public officials can distort the discussion, either because officials get on a soapbox or because they become the focus of questions, comments, or attack by the rest of the group. While it is true that the presence of such officials can make things more difficult for the facilitator(s), several elements of best practice suggest methods to overcome or at least ameliorate these challenges. For example, in the small groups, legislators can be told they are there to listen, not speak, at least for the initial rounds of the discussion. In plenaries, they can be asked solely to respond to participant questions. Panels should include legislators with different perspectives and affiliations. Moreover, other experience suggests that the presence of public officials, at any rate as observers, can be beneficial in several ways, for example by 1) contributing to participants feelings of efficacy and perceptions of the real-world value of deliberation; 2) informing officials about the needs, concerns, and interests of ordinary citizens; and, 3) when appropriate, providing expert input and assessments of political viability. The findings of this research indicate further benefits to having officials present. In addition to learning about what public deliberation is, such observation and/or participation may alleviate some concerns about the risks lawmakers associate not only with public deliberation, but also with more traditional participation mechanisms: the challenges of engaging demographically and political diverse constituents, and the fear of hostile and uninformed citizens prone to knee-jerk reactions. Observing public deliberation in action may convince lawmakers that public deliberation can engage diverse publics, suggest ways to break through partisan politics, and create an atmosphere where engagement is productive, civil, and informative. Exposure to a genuinely neutral and inclusive process sponsored by an independent group, and attended by a range of legislators, may prompt lawmakers to reflect on how public deliberation about some issues under some circumstances can make political sense. To this end, it may make most sense to start with major issues that are perceived as politically unwinnable, or more micro issues that affect different parts of their constituency in different ways, and where progress will require compromise that individual legislators may be unwilling to initiate on their own. The dilemma this recommendation poses for the field is that until lawmakers understand the distinctive value of public deliberation, they are unlikely to be motivated to spend the time required to learn from what public deliberation has to offer. Legislators, particularly if invited by a trusted person or group, will be drawn to a public event that assembles a large and diverse group of their constituents, regardless of whether they understand its philosophic and procedural nuances. As practitioners can attest, however, legislators are unlikely to devote an hour and a half, much less an entire day, to sitting quietly in a discussion group, unless someone they trust attests to the distinctive value of doing so; they tend to seek out what they regard as more efficient opportunities to communicate with and hear from their constituents: for example, town hall style presentations to the deliberation participants with a question and answer session. Invitation to participate in unfamiliar ways, by a known and trusted person or group, is the key intermediate step. Once legislators are involved in public deliberation, they may feel more comfortable deploying the results on a particular issue, and better able to experiment with the value of invoking the views of a deliberative public. 47

53 Recommendation Two: Build the capacity of the field to respond to the interests, needs, and concerns of lawmakers, as well as the characteristics of the political and legislative process. For public deliberation to become a regular feature in the work of government, the field must build its capacity to address several issues central to the realities of modern lawmakers as expressed in these interviews. First, legislators face several basic challenges from the outset of any engagement endeavor: legislators represent thousands to tens of millions of people with diverse views and concerns; 4 these constituents are usually spread out across a large geographic area (literally ranging from one county to several counties to an entire state); and legislators time is necessarily split between home and the capitol. Second, legislators already work hard to engage constituents all legislators dedicate significant personal and staff time to answering phone calls, letters, and s; writing newsletters and making media appearances; maintaining a website and social media presence; holding office hours and in-office meetings; attending and hosting meetings, roundtables, and celebratory events with local groups and organizations; and doing case work and helping individual constituents, among other activities. Thus, lawmakers already see simple public engagement that requires only office work as being resource intensive, and face-to-face public engagement, such as public meetings and traditional town hall forums, as highly resource intensive. Public deliberation is perceived as being beyond the means of lawmakers because of the additional financial, time, human, and other resources needed for travel, planning, logistics, and implementation. Third, not only do legislators contemplate the costs associated with face-to-face public engagement, they also perceive high risks, stemming from, for example, partisan politics, uninformed and angry publics, political gaming, and negative press coverage, among other issues. These realities have, in large part, prompted the Congressional shift toward using tele-town halls for engagement, which are seen as having a lot of bang for the buck because they simultaneously engage large numbers of people across a large geographic area in what lawmakers call meaningful conversation, but what deliberative advocates would call controlled two-way information sharing. These considerations lead to two broad conclusions. First, organizers of public deliberation must respond to the challenges of scale (i.e., large numbers of representative participants from across relevant geographic jurisdictions) and schedule (i.e., the home and capitol travel plans of lawmakers and their staff). Second, the field of public deliberation must respond to the perceived challenges of resources and risk. Together, these conclusions mean that rather than seek to persuade lawmakers themselves to organize deliberative events, advocates of public deliberation should continue to pursue independent convenings, and to address the complex normative and procedural requirements of public deliberation in ways that are likely to gain and keep the trust of lawmakers. In these efforts, it will be critical to demonstrate neutrality and balance, operate 4 At the state level, the number of constituents per house district ranges from slightly more than 3,000 in New Hampshire to almost 425,000 in California; the number of constituents per senate district ranges from about 13,000 in North Dakota to almost 850,000 in California (see: At the federal level, the average number of constituents for Representatives is almost 650,000, ranging from about 495,000 in the Wyoming At-large district to just over 905,000 in the Montana At-large district (see U.S. Senators represent everyone in their state; state populations range from about 563,000 in Wyoming to almost 38 million in California (see: 48

54 through trusted intermediaries, make efficient use of the legislators time, staff, and other resources, and reduce the perceived and real risks for legislators. These conclusions also suggest at least four opportunities for the field of public deliberation. 1. Rather than organizing events around the convener s or the field s interests, sponsors of public deliberation need to respond to the interests and priorities of legislators. To increase both the perceived legitimacy of public deliberations and their potential impacts, conveners and organizers should contemplate ways to gain the acceptance and buy-in of legislators. The interview data suggest at least three considerations important to gaining legislators support. First, conveners should involve, or at the very least inform, legislators and their staff members about the event early in the planning stages. Second, conveners and organizations should consider collaborating with one or more local partners (or individuals) who are trusted and respected by both the community and the relevant legislator(s). Third, organizers should take into account whether and how the focus of the event aligns with a legislator s personal and political interests and concerns. Those interviewed in this study generally expressed a preference for micro as opposed to macro policy issues, and policy issues that relate to problems within the legislator s district or state. The logic behind this is simple: legislators see themselves as representing constituents from a particular geographic area and not the nation as a whole. There are powerful political reasons, as well as legitimate constitutional considerations, for legislators to focus their attention on events and issues in the areas they represent. 2. The field needs to have a robust network of neutral, balanced, experienced, locally trusted, and non-partisan organizations who can partner with legislators on issues as they arise to plan, coordinate, implement, and evaluate public deliberation events. While many deliberation organizations exist, they are either not well known to legislators, or are not perceived as being impartial. Although national conveners of public deliberation like AmericaSpeaks and MacNeil/Lehrer Productions By the People have partnered with local groups for particular events, the lawmakers interviewed for this study, and particularly the state lawmakers, confirmed that a trusted local convener, or at least partner, is much more likely than a national organization to secure their sustained attention and engagement and to legitimize the process and participant conclusions in their eyes. To be both trusted by particular officials and also perceived as neutral is not an easy combination. Which organizations are appropriate for what kinds of deliberations cannot be specified outside a particular context and relationships. Moreover, the local partner needs to bring substantive skills to the table, and have the staying power to give any particular deliberation legs. The state or local group(s) must also have or develop the capacity to organize, implement, document, and convey the results from public deliberation processes quickly and efficiently and in response to issues as they arise on the ground, over time. Among other things, they will need to be responsive to the structures and rhythms of the legislative process. One implication of what the interview subjects told us is that the persuasive task would recur for different contexts, issues, and occasions, but once a number of state or federal legislators had found the process useful over a period of time, it would get easier to attract the attention of other lawmakers within their legislative body. Though this may not be the experience of 49

55 public deliberation practitioners to date, such diffusion of public engagement practice is evident in the use of tele-town halls. As one Congressional staffer noted, The first few members who used [tele-town halls] were kind of like a guinea pig. All the other Senators would go to them and say, have you done this? You know, cause they were all a little wary of it. Word of mouth among the elected officials is like gold. They talk to each other all the time about the things they try, and what works and what doesn t. Once Congressional legislators heard positive reviews of the tele-town hall process, they were more likely to try it themselves. The same may hold true for public deliberation. 3. To be influential as a governance tool, public deliberation processes and their results need to be given legs, through consistent, opportunistic, and locally-driven follow-up there needs to be a focus on sustainable engagement. Many of the policymakers interviewed for this study asserted that for public deliberation to be valuable, it would need to help mobilize large numbers of supporters and/or voters in the district and generate a critical mass that crossed the partisan aisle and was capable of giving an issue sustained attention. That is, public deliberation must not only be politically logical and viable, it must also influence the electorate in addition to the elected. Thus, legislators generally expressed little interest in one-off events. This has three important implications. First, the commitment to sustained follow-up and ongoing engagement may need to include re-energizing participants, and refocusing results to speak to emerging policy developments and priorities. Second, this strategy may also mean activating participants to take action after deliberation has occurred. Thus, organizers may have to consider making the development of next steps a key factor in the deliberations, and conveners may wish to consider having participants discuss and organize to implement those next steps. Many deliberation organizers have had the experience of confronting the question posed by participants at the end of a day of engagement: so now what? However, since public deliberations do not seek to promote consensus, and many do not even solicit a vote on trade-offs or policy options, pursuing a mobilization strategy is a delicate matter. Moreover, a mobilization role even if it only attempts to empower the individuals, not a particular outcome may itself cast doubt on the organizers impartiality. Practitioners have long recognized the significance, and experienced the difficulty, of sustaining momentum and facilitating impact after a deliberation. Finally, implementing this strategy requires resources for post-event activities that are not often forthcoming from funders. It is therefore especially important to emphasize the significance of this factor to lawmakers. 4. The structure of public deliberations should be explicitly designed to address, in advance, the issues that lawmakers see as affecting the legitimacy and utility of deliberation. The interview findings suggest three particularly important issues. First, the organizers, conveners, and moderators of the event, as well as any informational materials used during the event, should be demonstrably neutral, balanced, and non-partisan. Second, participant recruitment should be carried out in a way that produces demographic, political, ideological, and geographic diversity. Finally, the various elements of the deliberation should be structured so as to promote informed, civil, constructive, serious, open-minded, and productive discussion. While academics and practitioners consider these to be givens, it will be important for the field to develop indicators and methodologies for demonstrating the organizer s ability to meet these criteria to legislators early in the planning stages for 50

56 deliberative events. Some preliminary suggestions about measures are identified in the next recommendation. Recommendation Three: Build documentation and evaluation into the design of public deliberation processes, and communicate the results to legislators promptly after deliberation. As noted above, respondents did not understand public deliberation or its potential value, and emphasized the need to satisfy themselves of the legitimacy and utility of the approach, ideally through exposure in a local context. Thus, when asked about evaluation criteria they either focused almost exclusively on issues related to the methods and process of public deliberation or expressed indiscriminate interest in almost every kind of outcome indicator. When asked what they would want to know about what actually occurred at a deliberation in their district and on an issue of concern to them including for example who attended, the content of the discussions, and what participants ended up thinking about the issue under discussion the legislators again tended to focus on what they themselves could observe if they were present. However, many legislators also thought some kinds of documentation and evaluation of events after they have occurred could be helpful. In addition to observing and participating in deliberative events, legislators need information that can help convince them of the instrumental value of public deliberation. To influence the attitudes toward public deliberation of a particular policymaker, retrospective evaluation information should be drawn from events in her district or on his issue or ideally both! We recommend that these considerations shape the education campaign discussed below, as well as the efforts of the intermediaries to create and sustain impact. Funders and organizers should therefore give more attention and resources to ensuring that full, rich, and clear documentation of the event, as well as evaluation of effects are built into all deliberative events. The evaluation of process, methods, impacts, and outcomes is important. Some of these measures mirror the criteria (listed above) that organizers of prospective events will be expected to address. Key evaluation measures include whether: 1. The organizers, conveners, and moderators of the event, as well as any informational materials used during the event, are demonstrably neutral, balanced, and non-partisan. Many legislators were skeptical that this could be demonstrated through empirical data, and rather would have to be validated by a trusted intermediary or by personal observation. In this context, recruitment methods may also be relevant: a demonstrably impersonal method like random invitation can address suspicions of stacking. 2. Participant recruitment is done in a way that produces demographic, political, ideological, and geographic diversity. Clarity about the methods used is important. Simple descriptive statistics about the characteristics of the participants can be obtained from surveys, compared to available evidence about the make-up of the relevant pool, and conveyed clearly in charts and graphs. 3. The various elements of the deliberation are structured so as to promote informed, civil, constructive, serious, open-minded, and productive discussion. To generate such information, academics and researchers may advocate the use of conversation analysis; however, for the purposes of legislators, it may be sufficient to simply provide survey data showing, for example, the percentage of participants who had positive perceptions of the discussions, or short video clips of civil discussion about contentious issues. 51

57 4. Deliberation helps create a better public and better citizens, for example, participants learn about the issue under discussion, acquire a better understanding of the complexity of the issue(s) and the implications of different policy choices, increase their trust in government, develop a greater sense of political efficacy, and become more politically engaged. Measuring changes in some civic dispositions (for example, knowledge, trust in government, and political efficacy) can be done with before and after surveys. However, assessing whether there long-term, sustainable changes in these indicators, as well as in indicators of political engagement, necessitates longitudinal research, and may even require additional methodologies beyond self-report surveys. 5. Policy recommendations that result from a deliberation are informed by a broader range of perspectives, generate new options or ideas, and are politically viable and attainable. Measurement of policy recommendations and change is particularly challenging, as the field has not yet discovered an efficient and sound way of evaluating policy impacts. Part of the problem is that policy change is generally slow and incremental, and subject to innumerable intervening events, thus making the demonstration of causality next to impossible. However, there is hope, because at least for the federal interviewees, evidence that deliberation produced a better policy decision could be provided by showing that all perspectives were considered, new options or ideas were generated, and that the recommendations were politically viable and attainable. State legislators thought case studies could be helpful although as noted earlier, they would need to be drawn from the legislator s own state, and developed by a trusted and knowledgeable local source (for example, the state university). Measures of these kinds are easier to implement than those that academics favor. Both qualitative and quantitative data are important, though in written documents, clearly presented numbers were seen to have more potential impact than stories. Potentially useful data include, for example: Charts comparing those who attended versus residents of the area as a whole (or a control or comparison group) on a range of diversity indicators including ideological affiliation, to show that participants were a cross-section; Attitudes of participants after deliberation as compared to recent opinion polls or views ascribed to the public by special interests (or, if available, as compared to the views of a control or comparison group); Data about the opinions and preferences of the participants before and after deliberation. Lawmakers also suggested that in-person presentations should be used to draw attention to a written document. Regardless of its form, documentation of a deliberation and evidence of impact needs to be communicated promptly, through multiple channels, and in a clear and concise manner that speaks to the priorities and concerns of the policymaker. As noted earlier, evidence of the value of one local deliberation can be used to strengthen the prospects and impact of the next. 52

58 Recommendation Four: Develop and implement a comprehensive and concrete education campaign organized around specific deliberations and aimed at politicians, policymakers, the press, and the public. Despite the strength of and growing numbers in the deliberative democracy wing of the democracy reform and civic engagement community, it is abundantly clear that lawmakers are unaware not only of what the field is doing, but also of what the field is and hopes to accomplish. Taking account of the need to ground any educational effort in personal exposure to the process and to make it pertinent to specific circumstances and priorities, we recommend that the field develop and implement multi-pronged and locally-driven educational campaigns as part and parcel of the design of district-level deliberations. Several legislators interviewed for this study remarked that they would be more likely to see public deliberation as valuable if there were a demand for such opportunities from the general public and if such activities were widely and sympathetically covered by both the traditional and new media. Accordingly, the educational campaigns organized around particular deliberations should be designed for several audiences, including the relevant public, the media, civil society organizations, and a range of elected officials and policymakers. For each of these audiences, vividness and concreteness will increase the likely success of such efforts. Factors to be taken into consideration include: 1. Tailoring the content of the campaign to the needs of each of the different audiences (i.e., politicians, other policymakers, the press, and the public). The research reported here identified several issues that will be important in the education of politicians. For example, and most obviously, lawmakers need information about the processes, values, goals, and potential outcomes of public deliberation, and formulation in terms that make sense locally. Distribution by a locally trusted intermediary will increase the likely success of educational efforts. Perhaps less obvious is the fact that such information must be cast in terms of the logic of politics, that is, within a framework that suggests under what circumstances and for what purposes deliberation can be a politically rational and viable governance tool. This is, of course, the main challenge of educating lawmakers; our other recommendations speak to this issue, though more research may be necessary. Additional research is also needed to determine what other policymakers (e.g., executive branch officials), the press, and the public know about public deliberation and how they view its potential risks and benefits. 2. Communicating through a variety of channels and media. An effective education campaign will need to have multiple prongs and strategies that are easily utilized by a variety of individuals, groups, and organizations, and that help to build coalitions of advocates that bridge partisan divides and span sectors. Some possibilities include: the development of a speakers bureaus where people are trained and provided with the materials to give presentations at a variety of important events such as legislative conferences and caucuses, advocacy group meetings, professional and academic conferences; the creation of a press kit that organizers of deliberative events can use to help generate and sustain media coverage; the use of public service announcements or other commercial strategies aimed at making the concepts of public deliberation commonplace in community discourse; the development of tools that assist participants in a deliberation to articulate and advocate for the benefits of the method; and deployment of the field s public intellectuals and, perhaps more importantly, 53

59 leading citizens and officials who have experienced the benefits of deliberation for themselves to discuss the approach in local, regional, and national media outlets. Research about similar educational strategies in other fields and for other issues may help inform the development of a public deliberation education campaign. 3. Engaging the field s academics in the development of particular components of this educational strategy. Every state and metropolitan region in the country can draw on institutions of higher education with relevant expertise. These institutions may be particularly helpful in assuming the role of high-capacity bridging organizations in the field. Service learning, engaged learning, civic education, practicums, and other similar teaching philosophies and practices are taking center stage at many colleges and universities across the country. Professors across the nation and in disciplines as varied as communications, political science, public administration, planning, public relations, and psychology, among others, are interested in one or another aspect of citizen engagement. These faculty are often looking for real-world opportunities for students to engage in community-based learning. When coordinated by the faculty member and institution in consultation with the deliberation organizer, teams of students can help develop components of a systematic educational campaign. The next phase of the SOND initiative that spawned the present study will constitute the first test of a tailored and concrete educational effort that takes seriously the concerns and priorities of lawmakers as expressed in this report. The SOND workgroup plans to use these findings as the framework for presenting data from several major deliberative initiatives conducted in 2010, supplemented by generic information about public deliberation assembled by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and others over the years. The resulting presentations will be shared with key stakeholders, including groups representing elected officials at the state and national levels, interested funders, and the public deliberation community at large. The reactions to those presentations will further inform the field s ongoing effort to make public deliberation useful for democracy. 54

60 APPENDIX ONE: DESCRIPTION OF THE BRIDGING THE GAP PROJECTS BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN PUBLIC DELIBERATION AND PUBLIC OFFICIALS: What do policymakers want and need to know about public deliberation? Are deliberation initiatives capturing what policymakers need to know? A lack of trust and meaningful communication clouds the relationship between public officials and their constituents. Citizens seem perpetually dissatisfied with Congress, their state legislatures, and other elected representatives, and those representatives seem equally unhappy with the attitudes their constituents have about government. Overcoming this divide seems particularly daunting at the federal and state levels, where the problem of scale makes it difficult to envision how policymakers can interact meaningfully with the thousands (or in some cases, millions) of people they are trying to represent. At least part of the problem may be that while legislators often receive input from lobbyists and activist groups, they rarely get the opportunity to hear from diverse, deliberative groups of ordinary citizens. Bridging the Gap Between Public Deliberation and Public Officials, a research project coordinated by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and supported by the Kettering Foundation, is exploring the potential of large-scale deliberative projects for bridging this divide. The idea for Bridging the Gap emerged from conversations among the participants in Strengthening Our Nation's Democracy, a series of meetings held in 2009 and 2010 to create a comprehensive agenda for democracy reform in the United States. The study will compile and compare substantive evaluations on several major deliberative initiatives conducted in the past year, including: Our Budget, Our Economy, organized by AmericaSpeaks, which convened 3,500 Americans across nearly 60 sites in a national discussion about the nation s long-term fiscal challenges. Evaluations are being conducted to understand how the process impacted individual participants, the media, and policy makers. By the People, a civic engagement project launched by MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, organized Hard Times, Hard Choices, engaging a diverse, representative sample of 315 Michigan citizens in a face-to-face statewide Deliberative Poll around critical issues related to the state s economy, the fraying safety net and other issues affecting Michigan s future leading up to the 2010 election. The weekend-long Deliberative Poll was the focus of a MacNeil/Lehrer Productions documentary report distributed to Michigan PBS stations and offered to PBS stations across the country in early The Citizens Initiative Review, a new process launched for the first time in Oregon in It will use a deliberative process to provide voters with clear, useful, and trustworthy evaluations of statewide ballot measures. The Review brings together a stratified random sample of voters to hear directly from initiative advocates, critics, and experts. On the fifth day of its deliberations, the citizens write a one-page statement detailing their key findings; this will appear as a prominent new page in the official Oregon Voters Pamphlet. 55

61 To help us understand the lessons and opportunities that emerge from these examples, and to explore other possibilities for innovation, researchers Cynthia Farrar (Yale University) and Tina Nabatchi (Syracuse University) are conducting interviews with state and federal policymakers about deliberation and public input. These interviews delve into questions such as: 1. How might the gap between the public and elected officials be bridged? 2. What kinds of information arising from public deliberation on a significant public issue might be of interest to elected officials and other policymakers? 3. What findings from public deliberation might lead elected officials and policymakers to see these as useful to the work of policymaking? 4. What are the key obstacles to elected officials ability to recognize and utilize citizen work arising from public deliberation? By exploring the perceptions and questions of state and federal policymakers, and by examining how the OBOE, Michigan, and Oregon initiatives did and did not impact policy decisions, Bridging the Gap will add greatly to the analysis of public deliberation. Specifically, the research will identify what policy makers want and need to know about public deliberation and examine whether, and to what degree, deliberative initiatives capture such data and achieve expected results. The report will suggest new possibilities for innovation by public officials and practitioners, and new directions for scholarly research. 56

62 APPENDIX TWO: LIST OF STATE-LEVEL INTERVIEW SUBJECTS Legislators from Michigan 1. State Senator Patty Birkholz, 24 th District (R) 2. State Senator Mark Jansen, 28 th District (R) 3. State Senator Tupac Hunter, 5 th District (D) 4. State Senator Gilda Jacobs, 14 th District (D) 5. State Representative Gary McDowell, 107 th District (D) 6. State Representative Steven Lindberg, 109 th District (D) 7. State Representative Ed Clemente, 14 th District (R) Legislators from Other States 1. State Senator Les Ihara, Majority Policy Leader, Hawaii State Senate (D) 2. Tom Wright, House Majority Staff and Senior Staff Person for the Speaker of the Alaska General Assembly (R) 3. State Representative Robbie Wills, former Speaker of the House (term limited, defeated in race for Congress 2010), Arkansas House of Representatives (D) 4. State Representative Billy Mitchell, Georgia House of Representatives (D) 57

63 APPENDIX THREE: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 1. What do you currently do to engage citizens? What are the benefits, drawbacks, risks, challenges of these approaches? 2. Have you heard about public deliberation? What does that term mean to you? Have you seen public deliberation used? (For those unfamiliar with the concept, researchers explained public deliberation as a special kind of citizen participation, where a diverse group of citizens come together to engage in a process of civil discussion, in which all participants have adequate speaking opportunities and listen attentively to others concerns and arguments. They have a chance to inform themselves about an issue by being exposed to arguments/facts presented from different perspectives. They weigh alternative solutions to a problem, and the likely consequences of those alternatives and consider trade-offs in choosing one alternative over another. Public deliberation was also distinguished from more common approaches to citizen participation, such as town halls, opinion polls, and public hearings, by noting that public deliberation was not just a single constituent or group of constituents engaging with a legislator or vice versa, but rather a diverse group of citizens engaging with each other.) 3. What evaluation information would be useful to convince you of the value of public deliberation? Prompts with examples were provided when necessary, including: a. Information about organizers/conveners; b. Information about participant recruitment; c. Information about its impact on participants; d. Information about its impact on the conflict or controversy? Information about whether there were civil discussions? e. Information about policy recommendations? 4. Would you prefer qualitative or quantitative information? Why? 5. What are the best way(s) to get evaluation information to your office? 58

64 APPENDIX FOUR: SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH We believe it critical that the field of public deliberation writ large continue to support research on critical questions and issues. The findings presented in this report suggest several important areas where additional research could be useful. These include but are not limited to: 1. Interviewing more legislators at the federal and state levels to increase the sample size and generalizability of these findings, as well as to gain additional information about how to improve political incentives for and perceptions about the political viability of public deliberation; 2. Replicating the study with different audiences, for example local elected officials, administrators at all levels of government, media representatives, and the public at large; 3. Examining more closely the methods, process, and outcomes of tele-town hall forums and other robo-calling activities; 4. Developing and testing indicators and methodologies for evaluating and documenting public deliberation that speak specifically to the concerns of lawmakers; 5. Studying the ways to best incorporate evaluation and documentation indicators and methodologies into the designs of deliberative events, and conveying to lawmakers the deliberative findings; 6. Exploring the relative efficacy of using deliberation in legislative, administrative, and civil society arenas; 7. Investigating the methods and means by which the capacity of deliberative organizations can be increased; and, 8. Examining the efficacy of various outreach and educational strategies for conveying information to elected officials and others. 59