So, shall we create one? A huge and magnificent deputy. We really need one—because the current deputies are not only not huge and not the least bit magnificent, they usually don’t want to do anything at all. I’m a deputy, I don’t want to introduce necessary bills, I want a big salary, a government car, and a dacha.
(the first image in Google search results for “deputy”) Our deputy is nothing like that. He is a true representative of the people, introduces bills in the interests of the majority, and has no need for dachas or cars at all. “Who is he?” you cried impatiently. “We’ve never seen deputies like that in our lives.” You haven’t seen one before, but now you will. And not only will you see him—you’ll even take part in creating him. No, of course this does not mean taking a dead deputy and reviving him with electric current or badger blood collected under a full moon. The point is that citizens who unite in a group have the right of legislative initiative. At the federal level this still hasn’t been fully worked out—you can submit an initiative through ROI (the Russian Public Initiative platform), but officials have plenty of ways to drag things out and alter them beyond recognition. At the regional level, however, there are fairly clear procedures (though difficult to carry out in practice). Let’s look at the Charter of Moscow. Article 36. Adoption by the Moscow City Duma of laws, resolutions, and other acts 1. The right of legislative initiative belongs to deputies, commissions of the Moscow City Duma, and factions in the Moscow City Duma, the Mayor of Moscow, the Prosecutor of the city of Moscow, the representative of the Moscow City Duma in the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, representative bodies of local self-government, as well as citizens exercising the right of civic legislative initiative in the manner established by the law of the city of Moscow. The right of legislative initiative in the Moscow City Duma also belongs to the Chair of the Moscow City Court, the Chair of the Moscow Arbitration Court, the Charter Court of the city of Moscow, the Human Rights Commissioner in the city of Moscow, the Moscow City Election Commission on matters within their competence, and, in cases предусмотренных by the laws of the city of Moscow, the Council of Municipal Formations of the city of Moscow. In other words, the possibility of civic legislative initiative is explicitly provided for. Now let’s look at the special Moscow law: “On Civic Legislative Initiative in the City of Moscow.” It’s long, but in short: an initiative group that collects 50,000 signatures in support of a bill is granted the right of legislative initiative. And here everything is much clearer and more straightforward than at the federal level. No “review by an expert group.” 50,000 signatures means legislative initiative. Exactly what we need. We already have initiatives that Moscow needs. We even have several draft laws ready to go: I wrote about them here. I do not doubt for a second that these bills are supported by 99% of Moscow residents. In any case, these bills and initiatives were part of my election platform, so we can definitely say that they are supported by at least 27.24% of city residents, according to the official version of the election results. That should probably be enough for the Moscow City Duma to consider these proposals. In fact, the campaign promise to do everything possible to get these bills onto the agenda of the Moscow City Duma was also part of the election campaign. So that is exactly what we are doing—and at the same time creating this very “People’s Deputy” for everyone: a mechanism through which Muscovites will be able to submit needed bills to the Moscow City Duma. So far, not a single civic legislative initiative has ever been carried through. There are reasons for that: a) political: the Moscow City Duma, where 95% are United Russia members, does not want to consider anything, does not want to see any initiatives, and simply refuses to register initiative groups on formal pretexts; b) (the main reason) organizational: the procedure for implementing civic legislative initiative is written in such a way that it is practically impossible to use. Only members of the initiative group may collect signatures, and the collection period is one month. Ordinary people can gather a group of 50–100 people, after which each person must collect 500–1,000 signatures, complete with passport details and so on. That is an impossible task, as anyone who has ever collected signatures (rather than faked them) knows. Our situation is different. a) politically: a refusal to register the initiative group would not just be a refusal to ordinary citizens, but to citizens representing the interests of every third voter in the last election; Putin has already spoken about the “arrogance of Moscow officials,” and refusing registration would be arrogance on a super-mega scale; Sobyanin has said he will take into account the views of those who voted against him; and the Kremlin riffraff keep saying “the opposition has nothing to offer”—well, here we are offering something, constructively and positively. b) organizationally: “Navalny in Every Home” alone is 32,000 people. Yes, not all of them have permanent Moscow registration, but almost all have relatives and friends. Then there are the databases of RosPil, RosYama, RosZhKH, and so on. We know for sure that there are about 80,000 people in the city who will read this post, each of whom can get us 1–3 properly completed signatures. That is more than enough.
(there he is—handsome, isn’t he?) Conclusion: we need an initiative group of 500–1,000 people, each of whom we can connect with 50–200 people living in nearby buildings who can walk a hundred meters and sign. Even easier if each signature collector tells our system: on Tuesday and Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. I’ll be at the café “Khinkali and Lagman from Rafik.” The system will send a message to people living within a 500-meter radius: come on Tuesday and Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. to the café “Khinkali and Lagman from Rafik”; Rafik and Kolya (or Masha) will be waiting there to take your signature. That way, we plan to collect 60,000 signatures (50,000 plus a margin for invalid ones) in ten days. One person can participate in only one initiative group, and we still can’t say how many people we’ll recruit, so we’ll start with one group and one bill. Which one should we choose? We studied the entire history of refusals to register civic initiatives, and even the laughable objections raised by Platonov, the chairman of the Moscow City Duma, against our bills during the election campaign. It is clear that the pilot bill must: - address a real problem; - matter to broad sections of the public, not just the most politically engaged part of the city; - genuinely improve the situation; - be short, simple, and clear. After weighing everything, for the pilot project we chose a bill on transparency and justification of housing and utility tariffs.
Its official title is: ON THE APPLICATION OF CERTAIN METHODS FOR VERIFYING THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE ESTABLISHMENT, CHANGE, OR APPLICATION OF PRICES (TARIFFS) FOR UTILITY SERVICES Utility tariffs in Moscow are unjustifiably high and constantly rising. Those of us who have tried to figure out where these numbers even come from know that no justification can be found. Everywhere it’s “closed information.” For some reason, on the basis of this “closed information”—such as unpublished monopoly investment programs—they keep squeezing money out of us. And then that money goes, for example, as sponsorship support to United Russia. The bill in brief, if you don’t feel like reading it: Now 1) All decisions approving tariffs are made by the Moscow Regional Energy Commission (REC); that is where the justification for tariffs is assessed. How objective and impartial REC employees are in carrying out such assessments is unknown. The justification for tariffs could be checked by independent organizations through tariff reviews (audits), but at present the REC does not use that option. 2) All decisions approving tariffs are made in a semi-closed process. Moscow residents are left with nothing but the dry lines of the meeting minutes. What actually happens there—whether the tariff is discussed or everyone simply votes “as required”—is, again, unknown. 3) If right now you write to the Moscow Government and ask: why am I paying this much for electricity now when two years ago I paid that much, they will answer: two years ago under REC Resolution No. X, and now under REC Resolution No. Y. A standard brush-off. Will be 1) For approving tariffs of large companies (those providing utility services to more than 10% of Muscovites), an independent audit (expert review) of the companies’ production and investment programs—the basis of the tariff—will be mandatory. The results of such audits will be open for analysis by any of us. 2) All meetings on tariff approval for large companies will become open and public. Moscow residents and media representatives will have the right to attend. Deputies of the Moscow City Duma will have the right to an advisory vote at such meetings. 3) In response to citizens’ complaints about utility charges, the relevant authority will be required to conduct an inspection. The complainant will have the right to be present during the inspection, give explanations, submit motions, and so on. We would like to include much more, but that creates the risk of conflicts with federal legislation and, in that case, United Russia would refuse to register our initiative group with cheerful snickering. So for now we will limit ourselves to this, but we are sure that even independent and public auditing of housing and utility tariffs alone would have enormous significance: we would finally understand what we are paying for, and it would become much harder to jack up tariffs and steal through unjustified expenses. Now let’s move to practice. Our part is the infrastructure for building the “People’s Deputy,” and for that we created this thing: http://deputat.fbk.info But it cannot be launched without a collective effort. We need help: 1. People for the initiative group, who will become the heart of the project and collect signatures. Please join us—we need you. But remember that three criteria matter: a) permanent registration in Moscow; b) reliability. Once you join the initiative group, we will not be able to replace you with anyone else. Someone else would have to do your work for you; c) free time this Sunday, October 6, in the second half of the day. We will be holding the initiative group meeting required by law. We will уточнить the exact time and place by sending each registered participant a letter (SMS). 2. People who will provide a signature. Permanent registration in Moscow is also required. You just need to fill out the online form here, if you have not previously registered in one of our projects. If you have registered before, you can still fill out the form—it will help us find you faster. 3. People who will promote and publicize all this on the internet. You don’t even have to be a Muscovite for this. Just help us spread the word about all project-related news. 60,000 people will give signatures, but at least two million need to know that such an initiative exists. If everything goes well in Moscow, we will try to expand this to those regions where civic initiative exists. Go here. Fill out the form:
Become part of the “People’s Deputy” and take part in lawmaking without intermediaries. Once again, the basic principle is simple: you become members of the initiative group, and we connect you with people who want to sign and live in neighboring buildings. One important thing: with this campaign we will start fixing an unfortunate shortcoming in how we worked with volunteers during the mayoral election—we will track activist activity and keep something like a “karma” score. What happened was that we had some super-extraordinary people who worked brilliantly and moved mountains, and we never properly recorded their achievements. It is obvious that an activist’s standing should be directly proportional to their practical work. From now on we will track everyone’s activity and then promote them, listen to them, and hand out laurels based on their real contribution. So get involved and don’t be lazy—good laws will not submit themselves to the Moscow City Duma or pass on their own. Let’s build the “People’s Deputy” together and, after the bill on auditing housing and utility tariffs, submit other important bills developed by the Anti-Corruption Foundation. A lot needs fixing, and we have plenty to offer. Let’s make sure they hear us.
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