An Overview of The CRCL Initiative:

Connecting the Will of the People to the Law of the Land

(a program of The Democracy, Straight-Up! Project)

The Problem

We start from the premise that American democracy works. Sort of. We don’t think it is about to collapse.

But we see it as unacceptably dysfunctional. Too often, what the voters want, and what their elected representatives do, is at variance. Serious problems go unaddressed. There is, in fact, waste and corruption. Violent outbursts from the population are a sign that something is not right and needs to be fixed. But that ‘something’ is not ‘something wrong with the people.’ In the legacy system, most people exist in a condition of structured political subordination. Their participation is limited, their influence indirect, and their ability to connect effort with outcome is weak.

Under these conditions, what appears as irrational or antisocial political behavior—tribalism, outrage, disengagement—is not a failure of character, but a predictable response to powerlessness.

Straight-Up Democracy changes the social conditions under which people make decisions. By placing every voter directly inside the legislative process, it restores agency, aligns effort with outcome, and creates a system in which people recognize themselves as participants rather than subjects.

This shift does not guarantee an immediate payoff in terms of better legislative decisions—but it creates the conditions under which better behavior is rewarded. And better behavior leads to a better society where people, inevitably, make better decisions.

The Solutions We Reject

Fix the People

The dysfunction in our democracy is not due to the people. Efforts to get people to come together and iron out their differences are noble, but utterly misplaced. Efforts to educate voters and instill civic virtues are elitist and patronizing and, what is worse, unnecessary.

Fix the Representatives

The dysfunction in our democracy cannot be addressed by improving the quality of representation within the confines of the current system. Ranked choice voting, sortition, referendums and initiatives, and other efforts to improve or circumvent representation miss the mark because they don’t address the fundamental source of the problem.

We see both of these solutions as symptomatic of the dysfunction and not, strictly speaking, curative.

The Solution We Embrace: Fix The Big Disconnect

Addressing the Biggest Fixable Problems

Not every problem we currently face is fixable. Human beings will disagree—sometimes bitterly—as to what their self-government should look like. But disagreement is not the problem. The problem is The Big Disconnect.

Economist John Matsusaka of USC gives a good analysis of The Big Disconnect in his book, “Let the People Rule.” To summarize, voters see their own government as an alien force, manipulating their rights and freedoms—and spending their money—in ways that are beyond their control. They imagine that various sinister conspiracies are at work pulling the strings of power.

This creates division, but not the honest divisions that arise from conflicting values and beliefs. What is created is the opportunity—for those in the position to do so—to weaponize disagreement to consolidate political, social, and economic power.

The Big Disconnect produces “The Campaign Problem.”

Political campaigns, shaped by influential donors and partisan agendas, exploit this disconnect for personal gain, thereby distorting the true voice of the people. Thus, our solution functions without needing political candidate campaigns.

Direct Democracy: DSUp Style

The only way to do this, we will argue, is to put the voters in charge of lawmaking. They must be able to vote on every bill. Furthermore, we believe that the voters should have the power of law-making now, without placing any conditions on its being granted, or combining it with patronizing efforts to educate them or ‘fix’ them. Solutions like ranked choice voting and sortition, while sensible, must emanate from a decision-making process that is already completely controlled by the voters. Efforts directed at campaign finance reform, redistricting, term limits, etc., will become unnecessary. Voter education, transparency, reducing corruption, improving the quality of leadership, will come about as a natural consequence of the new system.

Two Opponents Block the Way

There are two major social forces thwarting the implementation of direct legislation.

Experts Overcome by Fear

There is an irrational fear, combined with a state of learned helplessness, that affects most Americans and distorts their thinking on the topic of voter control of lawmaking. This affects experts, academics, pundits and thought leaders of all stripes as well.

Control-Driven Reformers

The second obstacle is well-intentioned reformers and democracy proponents who aspire to empower voters, yet inadvertently seek to manipulate this empowerment to fit their ideologies. Even ostensibly impartial efforts tend to exhibit a distinct bias.

The Democracy, Straight-Up Project must take on both of these forces while implementing a system of direct democracy in America.

The CRCL Initiative: Direct Democracy Made Practical

CRCL stands for Connected Representation (plus) Connected Legislation. This is the concept that makes direct democracy practical and doable.

By the way, we propose no changes to existing law or amendments to the constitution. This means we don’t need to ‘get permission’ from the legacy legislature. We can just replace it with something better.

That something is a Directly-connected Legislature. Imagine every voter in a US congressional district, should they choose to participate, has a seat in a law-making, able to make federal law. Imagine this body is large enough to put forward a candidate in the general election for their district’s House Seat–and win. Imagine that this representative–along with their team–then works conscientiously with those voters, providing guidance and assistance as they, the voters, decide how to vote on a given bill. Finally, imagine such a House Rep votes faithfully with the will of the majority, bill by bill, as each one comes up for a vote on the floor of The House.

Imagine, as an integral part of a nationwide system of such DcL’s, committees unlike those we see in the legacy legislature–large, diverse, and drawn from the base voters, not the delegates or representatives. Committees that engage in drafting legislation and conducting vigilant oversight of every function of our self-government.

“My Freedom, My Vote!”

Half-measures that try to patch up the cracks in a faltering system are uninspiring. Patronizing efforts to increase civic engagement don’t land with the voters. What we offer is a potent rallying cry that the voters can gather behind.

‘My Freedom, My Vote’ means that every individual is the owner of their own liberty. If they must accept limits on that liberty in order to live in a society, then they must have a direct say in the form those limitations take. That means for each law, they must have a direct vote, and not be forced to surrender it to someone else beyond their reach and beyond their control. This is the right to direct legislation, a right that has been senselessly denied. It is long-past the time that the voters reclaim that which is rightfully theirs: their personal power, which connects their will to what becomes law.