We spend a lot of time scolding Americans for failing at their civic duty. Everyone should be speaking at town halls, voting in every election, and setting daily reminders to call their elected representatives. This isn’t bad advice, of course, but it may not persuade someone who has ever considered going to a town hall where the outcome seemed preordained, voted for a candidate who seemed merely the least bad or received a canned email reply from a government official. We need more innovative civic advice than “do more of what isn’t working.”
Right now, Snohomish County is showing us what the next era of civic innovation looks like with the Snohomish County Civic Assembly. The assembly brings together a randomly selected, demographically representative group of residents to advise the county council on government use of artificial intelligence. Over three weekends in May and June, the group discussed shared values, heard from subject matter experts and deliberated on different policy approaches. This past weekend, the assembly continued refining its proposals and finalized a set of recommendations for the county council, the culmination of roughly 40 hours of work.
