Citizens Assembly Addresses COVID-19 Recovery

Together with nonprofit Healthy Democracy, NPCC’s Oregon’s Kitchen Table convened a first-ever Oregon Citizen Assembly to consider and propose a series of reforms to strengthen democracy in the state. A citizens assembly is a randomly selected and demographically balanced body of citizens (anywhere from twelve to several hundred) who come together to deliberate on a given issue and provide a set of recommendations, options, or a collective decision to the convening body. The assembly models a type of participatory democracy growing around the globe in recent years.

The first Oregon Citizens Assembly, a group of forty Oregonians came together for seven weekly virtual meetings this summer. Panelists were randomly selected from across Oregon to reflect a microcosm of the state by age, gender, race/ethnicity, geographic location, political party registration, educational attainment, and voter frequency.

The group weighed in on what could be some of the state’s most important policy considerations in a generation as the state recovers from COVID-19. Their report includes core principles and policy recommendations related to COVID-19 recovery. The principles and recommendations were written by the assembly’s citizen panelists, after reviewing written testimony, hearing from a variety of expert witnesses, and reviewing responses from an Oregon's Kitchen Table survey that provided a sense of what other Oregonians across the state are thinking about.

Watch a video of the Oregon Citizen Assembly deliberations.

Recordings of public sessions of the Oregon Citizens Assembly are available at the Healthy Democracy Website

Watch a virtual press conference where Oregon Citizen Assembly panelists present their recommendations to Oregon State Senator Jeff Golden.