Qualified pools of candidates

Some citizens may not have the qualifications to serve on a particular Federal Council. Therefore, a qualification process unique to each Federal Council pool would be needed. Keep in mind that Federal Councils would be administrators over government departments and organizations, not rulers.

For some reason, people generally assume that our current political leaders are qualified to serve; probably because we are indoctrinated with an image of honest politicians dedicated to public service. History and political science courses paint past politicians in a favorable light as they solved historic problems described from a non-political, reasonable perspective.

In reality, there are currently no meaningful qualifications required by the Constitution to be a member of the legislature, to be appointed to a cabinet or executive leadership position, or even to be the President of the United States. We vote for them and assume they are qualified based on their political party and ideology. However, there is no reason to believe that elected politicians are qualified to serve.

Top government leaders are powerful career politicians dedicated to their political parties who demand the same from everyone under them. We are told some candidates are qualified because they served in a state government, in the Legislature, or in a cabinet position. Those qualifications would certainly be good for identifying career politicians who are loyal to their party, but not for a public official serving the people. If anything, a long term of political service might be a disqualifier for a government by the people, of the people, for the people.

The same is true of the 9,000 positions in government that are filled by political appointment by the President. The primary selection qualifications are having a relationship with the President's political party who creates the list for the President and being a registered voter of the same party.

Qualifications should be required

Imagine going to a surgeon for an operation or a building contractor to build a house. You would certainly ask them about their qualifications. You would want to know that they were capable of meeting your needs. Imagine hiring someone to be the President of the United States. When asked about their qualifications, they responded with, "Well, I'm over 35 and I'm a citizen so according to the Constitution I'm qualified. And I'm very popular!" Would you be reassured?

In reality, the current qualifications to be the President or a member of the Legislature are qualifications by the political parties, not the Constitution. They require the candidate to have the most potential to win the election and to be loyal to them. Wealthy elite and special interests fund the political parties and the candidates based on those criterion.

Qualifications for each Federal Council

The result of our new selection process must be public officials with the abilities to manage their organization to serve their citizen customers. Some qualifications might be standard for all Federal Councils. Some would vary depending on the type of Federal Council. An analysis of the qualifications required for each Federal Council would be needed. The analysis would consider any special knowledge or experience required to make the necessary administrative decisions or to manage the operations under the specific council. Qualifications would be the minimum required to serve in that role, not the ideal qualifications such as those in a job listing.

In the business world, hiring qualifications listed in a job posting tend to be a nebulous wish list that is copied from another posted position or off the Internet. They are often not understood by the person making the hiring decision and not met. Conversely, any qualifications for a Federal Council must be absolutely necessary for the role and have the ability to be measured and validated. Just entering the qualifications on the application or listing a corresponding college degree or previous job title would not be sufficient validation.

The important task of determining these qualifications would be performed initially by an independent team of professionals. They would determine not only the minimum qualifications required for each candidate pool, but also how those qualifications would be measured in a consistent manner. For example, for some councils there might be a standardized written test to ensure a minimum reasoning ability, emotional maturity, psychological normalcy and understanding of certain concepts. For critical councils, an interview might be required. A high-level council might require a minimum number of years of relevant work experience.

The list of minimum qualifications for each pool could be amended by the people through the Citizen Governance Website for a Federal Council as needed.

Educational requirement

A certain amount or type of education or work experience might be necessary for a particular council. However, instead of requiring a college degree, the applicant may have to pass a test on basic concepts. If specific experience were required, validation would prove that the applicant performed the required work as opposed to just having a certain job title on their resume. This might be accomplished by an interview discussing how the previous decisions were made and the work was performed, possibly followed up with phone calls to references. Such testing and interviews would be performed by qualified personnel from an independent department and would be monitored for consistency and equality.

Educational training provided for those who wish to serve

Curriculums could be created by colleges and even high schools in some cases to prepare applicants to qualify for Federal Councils who would otherwise find it difficult to meet the requirements. Scholarships or free online training could be provided as needed to ensure every group had an equal opportunity to apply to a pool.

I propose that anyone selected for a Federal Council would receive and be required to pass government training on the concepts and tools of making decisions, planning, and managing operations. This would ensure a basic skillset in decision making regardless of a person's academic accomplishments, age, or experience. Perhaps some parts of the training could be specialized for Federal Councils over different areas. Through such training, Federal Councils could rely on new members to have an understanding of and the ability to use basic management and decision tools.

Psychological qualifications

The qualifications analysis could also consider general qualifications such as mental stability. Some psychology tests are discriminatory. However, some personality traits should prohibit a person from holding a Federal Council position. As certain personality disorders such as psychopaths and narcissists lie without conscience, they should be disqualified through testing. [4] It would not be appropriate to allow a person with a serious mental illness or cognitive handicap to be in a leadership position if they were not properly medicated or if their medication was mentally debilitating. Testing would ensure that those with a mental impairment such as dementia would not serve.

What about people who were regulating a psychotic mental illness through medication? Would periodic testing be required to ensure council members took required antipsychotic prescriptions? Or, would such a mental illness disqualify them? Should there be periodic testing for illegal drugs that could alter a person's ability to perform their job? Such questions must be answered as part of the design of the qualification process. In all cases, the failsafe is the ability of the other council members to remove a member by unanimous vote.

Mental aptitude

Everyone has different skills and abilities, including intellectual abilities. Having a high IQ does not make someone a better decision maker. Other aptitudes such as empathy, maturity, experience, wisdom, and creativity are just as important. A Federal Council should have a mix of abilities to give it a combined advantage in collective intelligence over individuals. However, we must be practical. We are talking about qualifications to head critical departments of our government where important decisions are made. An appropriate minimum level of mental aptitude should be required for each Federal Council position.

To be blunt, while we may love a person dearly and while they may be just as important as the rest of us, we would not want someone with a mental disability on a Federal Council. What would define a "mental disability" for these purposes? I would propose a minimum ability to read and write in English and to perform basic math. For example, to review a budget, they would need to understand the numbers involved.

Background checks

While many job candidates and even some renter applicants must pass a background check, it is not required for politicians! According to Sterling, a background check company, the act of being elected is deemed sufficient validation for security clearances. [5] Regardless, background checks would be reasonable for Federal Councils as it is for most employment.

Qualifications exist for many government employees now

To envision why qualifying tests are important, consider the requirements to apply for a job in law enforcement. You must complete drug screening, take a psychological exam, and complete a polygraph test. You can be disqualified if you have any felony or serious misdemeanor convictions, a bad credit history, a history of domestic violence, unreported past crimes, gang affiliations, or false or incomplete information on your application. Some federal jobs requiring a security clearance entail a lengthy background investigation that interviews everyone you have known or for whom you have worked.

Some of these qualifications would be reasonable for some Federal Council jobs as well, even though they are not required for those elected now. Background tests and pre-employment tests are commonplace for business positions at practically every level. Pre-employment tests include job-related capabilities and character traits.

For some councils, it might be necessary to require the declaration and investigation of relationships between the applicant, the applicant's immediate family, and foreign governments, militaries, or corporations to avoid conflicts of interest. Any erroneous or withheld information could be grounds for removing the person from the Federal Council and even criminal action.

Applications to Federal Councils

An application to a Federal Council would be valid for a given period, such as 2 years. At the end of that period, the applicant would need to resubmit an updated application to remain in the pool. Applicants would be notified when selected and given a short period to confirm their interest and to update their application. The update process should be simple and online. The application process itself should not be a barrier to service.

Application and validation costs

Validating costs would be paid for by the federal government. There would be no fee to apply or for the validation effort. The parts of the application that could be validated automatically would be validated by the system during the online application process. This could include online testing and the completion of all required fields on forms. For example, to apply for a pool it could be required that the person be registered as a citizen voter in the Citizen Governance Website system, ensuring that the applicant is an actual person and a citizen.

Any validation activity requiring staff time would be performed only when the person was selected to reduce validation costs. Essentially, the federal government costs for election administration would be replaced with the costs of Federal Council screening for those selected for a council.

Technology required to manage the process

The technology needed to provide random selection from qualified pools of candidates would not be difficult to develop. It would include each of the following. 

1. Software to maintain the list of Federal Council members and the list of applicants in their pools.

2. An online system to allow people to apply for one or more Federal Council pools and to enter or change their applicant information. This software system could include online testing as well.

3. Software to make the random selections.

Software to maintain the names and associated information in the candidate pools for each of the Federal Councils must be secure. Many secure software systems exist that illustrate the feasibility such as systems for driver's licenses, bank accounts, and IRS databases.

The fairness of the selection algorithm would be a primary technical concern. Obtaining a perfectly unpredictable random number for our selection software is possible through a hardware random number generator or a special randomizing service. A fair algorithm called LEXIMIN is free and has been used for selection of citizen councils 40 times around the world. [6]