Bill > H0864

Introduced Session

This bill proposes to launch a variety of pilot projects expanding democratic practices in State and local government, including expanding the use of participatory decision-making in existing neighborhood planning assemblies; creating neighborhood planning assemblies in other towns, cities, and villages; creating regional planning assemblies; exploring different processes to increase engagement in town meeting day; exploring the use of sortition (the selection of officials at random from a group) and charrettes (dividing a group into sub-groups to deliberate and then present the sub-group’s idea back to the larger group for further consideration) in public bodies and meetings; requiring paid time off to increase participation in elections; exploring ways to increase democratic engagement as a positive social determinant of health; incentivizing engagement by providing goods that improve social determinants of health; providing grants to public schools to use assemblies to make decisions about H.864 policies and practices within schools; and educating the public on skills for advocacy and community organizing.

AI Summary

Committee Categories

Brian Cina (D)*,  Larry Satcowitz (D), 

Read first time and referred to the Committee on Government Operations and Military Affairs (on 02/27/2024)

Official Document