Sortition as a supplement to representative democracy — is Ireland showing the way?

Ireland's Citizens' Assemblies on abortion and same-sex marriage are the most-studied modern examples of sortition working in practice. Both produced recommendations that were (a) politically impossible for elected politicians to initiate and (b) endorsed by clear popular majorities in subsequent referenda. The mechanism matters: random selection produces a group that isn't self-selected for political interest, isn't beholden to donors, and has to actually learn about the topic rather than performing pre-formed positions. Deliberation with expert testimony changed minds in ways that political campaigns reliably don't. The question isn't whether sortition can replace elections — it probably can't — but whether it should be a standing institution that handles specific kinds of questions that electoral politics handles badly.