Unofficial ‘Juries’ Program Renders Verdicts on Politics

The 1992 election campaign showed that many voters prefer to question political candidates directly--and that candidates like it too. But Ned Crosby had the idea as far back as the 1970s.

That’s when the Minneapolis philanthropist and political scholar established his nonpartisan “Citizens Jury” project. The idea was to create “juries” of ordinary Americans to thoroughly examine issues and candidates and write public reports on the findings.

The experiment caught on. Over the years, citizen juries became involved in a growing number of statewide elections and issues. Today, a newly formed Citizens Jury stands poised to carry the concept to a new level: evaluating the ideas of President-elect Bill Clinton.

Crosby, an heir to the General Mills fortune who holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Minnesota, calls his jury concept “a tested practical alternative to the media-driven spectacle of the traditional debate and to the superficiality of the call-in show.”

He believes that the recent presidential campaign revealed a “popular dissatisfaction with the media” that led to candidates taking questions directly from voters and accelerated his citizens jury movement.

Crosby is founder and president of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Jefferson Center, which scientifically selects citizens for each 24-member panel to give it demographic, racial, economic and political balance.

The tentative first effort involved jurors in Minneapolis who studied and discussed issues of the 1976 presidential campaign, focusing on law enforcement and the economy.

In the years since, the center set up more-ambitious panels that questioned public officials and political candidates--mainly in Minnesota--about health care, education, housing, agriculture and water policy.

Four years ago, a nonpartisan citizens jury co-sponsored by Crosby’s center and the League of Women Voters questioned candidates for mayor of St. Paul and reported on their work. Last year, again with League co-sponsorship, the center branched out to the U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, establishing juries in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh that studied issues and heard from Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and his Democratic challenger, Lynn Yeakel.

Focusing on the candidates’ records and their beliefs about education, health care and the economy, the panels rendered verdicts for the most part favorable to Specter, who won the election.

Beginning next week, 24 citizens from across the country will convene in Washington for five days to study economic proposals that Clinton made during his campaign. They will question witnesses, including a Clinton representative and experts who oppose the President-elect’s proposals, such as Robert Kuttner of Boston, a liberal economist, and former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.), a conservative commentator.

Jim Dickenson, a former Washington political reporter who represents the Jefferson Center, said that the intention is “to involve ordinary Americans in substantive policy discussions.”

Jurors, he said, have been selected at random and “the panel has been balanced to be broadly representative of the country in terms of ’92 presidential preference, attitude toward taxes and spending, age, education, gender, geographic locale and race.” They will receive $600 for their work, plus expenses.

Critics say the voters’ panels have limits. Some public policy dilemmas don’t lend themselves to resolution by lay people after a few days of study and jurors can sometimes be swayed too much by the drama of presentations that they hear rather than a candidate’s total record.

If the work of the first Clinton panel is well received by the public, Crosby intends to create subsequent juries to examine the new Administration’s work.