Constitutional Convention (Ireland)

Ireland's first experiment, and a hybrid worth understanding before praising the later assemblies. The Convention on the Constitution, which ran from 2013 to 2014, seated 66 randomly selected citizens alongside 33 politicians from the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly, under an independent chair. Of its eight assigned topics, marriage equality had the biggest consequence: the government accepted the recommendation, and the May 2015 referendum passed with 62.1 percent. The government also accepted its call to remove the offense of blasphemy from the Constitution. Whether mixing politicians in helped legislators own the result, or diluted the citizens' voice, is still argued over.