Why was it sensible for Americans to transubstantiate a…

““Why was it sensible for Americans to transubstantiate a convention into the virtual embodiment of the People? After all, as with an ordinary legislative assembly, a convention assembly may improve the ultimate quality of public deliberation, see, e.g., THE FEDERALIST No. 55, at 342 (J. Madison), but only by excluding most citizens, thereby raising fiduciary/agency problems. An answer based on organization theory/incentive analysis might focus on how a ratification convention is structured differently from an ordinary legislature in ways that enhance monitoring and improve public accountability. First, the People select convention delegates in a special election. Second, delegates are generally convened to consider a single issue (ratification). Third and related, the basic choice set is binary (yes-no), reducing agenda manipulation problems and decreasing the monitoring problems that exist in an ordinary legislature with virtually infinite possibilities of side deals and vote trading. Fourth, conventions immediately disband and disperse among the People, reducing the problem of legislators entrenching themselves and developing their own institutional perspectives. Finally, a convention enhances a sense of public-spiritedness and individual moral responsibility among both voters and delegates. Calling a "convention" signals to all concerned that the polity is entering a high-stakes moment when basic ground rules will be hammered out. Interestingly, criminal juries (deciding the single issue of individual guilt or innocence) possess many more convention attributes than do ordinary legislatures.””

— Akhil Reed Amar