Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Who is behind this effort?
A. Hear the People is the innovation of California businessman, John Cox. It is powered by a coalition of citizens who share the view that we can only restore our democracy by ending the corrosive impact of the dominating influence of the Four Plagues: wealthy special interests, the political extremes, big media, and negative campaign tactics. The umbrella organization is currently a 501(c)3 education foundation created by John Cox. Hear the People is expanding to encompass a larger operation with support across the spectrum, which will eventually perform additional functions with grassroots and bipartisan funding.
Q. What is the path to victory?
A. Hear the People will succeed by being a bipartisan, grassroots movement with broad political, financial, and community backing across the country. According to the research, the principles of Hear the People appeal to citizens regardless of ideology or demography.
Q. Who will oppose this plan?
A. Any group or individual who benefits from the status quo will be threatened by the big ideas embodied by Hear the People. We can expect to see objections and attacks from rich special interests (corporations and unions); the political extremes on both sides (think AOC and MTG); big media, (we all know who that is …) and those who make their livings from attack ads and other forms of negative campaigning, (political consultants and the distribution channels they use.)
Q. How does this idea differ from proposals such as term limits, redistricting reform, or ranked choice voting?
A. Hear the People has three main advantages over the other major reform ideas. (1) It is truly bipartisan in both perception and reality. Once implemented, it will not afford an advantage to either Blue or Red America; (2) It is designed to directly take on the Four Plagues; (3) because it is fair, transparent, and straightforward it has the best chance to become the law of the land and put democracy back in our democracy.
Q. Won’t Hear the People make our system less democratic by removing the direct election of House members?
A. The current system is not democratic, because of the way the Four Plagues have taken power away from the people and the very low rate at which incumbents are seriously challenged, let alone beaten. Hear the People will rupture the influence of the Four Plagues and connect citizens more tightly to their elected Community Representative, who will be a neighbor responsive to their needs and wishes, rather than current members of Congress, who typically give access mostly to major contributors and powerful interest groups. The new system will be much more reflective of the values of democracy than the status quo.
Q. Will Hear the People make our politics and government more diverse?
A. Yes. By reducing the barriers of entry into running for office, Hear the People will bring in new citizen leaders who, based on age, race, income, and other variables, before now would never consider running for the U.S. House of Representatives or any other elected position. By changing the faces of our public officials, we will enrich our democracy and bring power down to the community level where it belongs.
Q. Is this plan constitutional?
A. Yes. The Constitution grants states the power to determine the manner of electing members of the U.S. House of Representatives, subject to review by state and federal courts. Those courts have sanctioned other changes in methodology, such as ranked choice voting. Hear the People has a legal opinion, from one of the nation’s most respected election law experts, that suggests that it is very reasonable to expect the federal courts to find it is within the Article I power of the states to decide the time, manner and place of congressional elections. Any legal challenges to Hear the People in state or federal court will be aggressively contested.
Q. Won’t this just create more government bureaucracy and spending?
A. No. By moving representation to the true local level and employing technology to increase democratic representation, Hear the People will provide better government at a lower cost. Whether states decide to have the 99 Community Representatives be volunteers or receive a small stipend, their active work will take some of the burden off existing congressional staff, who will also be freed from too much time spent dealing with the Four Plagues. Community Representatives will not be typical “politicians.” They won’t spend their time fundraising or appearing on media because such activities will not be necessary to win and represent a district of only 7,500 people. They will be part-time representatives, who will not need an office or a staff.
Q. Won’t it be difficult to get people to run for Community Representative?
A. No. A Community Representative will have a consequential vote every two years to designate the member of the U.S. House of Representatives from their district. The political parties will likely become recruitment and training organizations, responsible for finding local leaders to run for Community Representative and for training them on the issues and communicating with their constituents.
Q. What happens if a Community Representative goes rogue or gets corrupted, just like current members of Congress sometimes do?
A. Community Representatives can be more easily held accountable than members of the House currently are. Challengers can run against them in the next election within two years without needing much time, money, or name identification to do so.
Q. Won’t it take too long to pass this into law in all 50 states?
A. This indeed is a long-term project – which is why we need to get started right away. Once one or two states pass Hear the People model statutes and see its benefits, other states will have practical and legislative models to follow, and the process will accelerate.
Q. Under Hear the People, will the deep flaws in the current system (gerrymandering, the Four Plagues, human nature, etc.) be eliminated?
A. They won’t be eliminated but will be minimized. Hear the People cannot make these challenges go away completely. The new system will limit the pernicious impact of these blights and allow our government and politics to function much more as they are supposed to and as the Founding Fathers intended. Hear the People does this in the right way – reducing the power of the Four Plagues and increasing the power of individual voters.
Q. Why go to all this effort to try and change to a new system that seems so complicated?
A. Our democracy now only works for the conservators of the Four Plagues. This country has a big problem, and we need the big solution of Hear the People to fix it. The essence of Hear the People – more local representation reflecting community needs – could not be simpler.
Email Us
A program of the Rescue California Education Foundation, Inc.