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Could be that a lesser amount of people negotiate on an issue, which then gets voted on by everybody? I agree that the voters would need more time to learn abou

Could be that a lesser amount of people negotiate on an issue, which then gets voted on by everybody? I agree that the voters would need more time to learn about the issues they are voting on, but not everyone needs to be involved preparing an issue for a vote. Switzerland has a lot more democracy than any other western government that I know of. Switzerland is a federation of cantons, each averaging 300k people, each with it's own constitution and parliament, collecting its own taxes, administering its own health care, even entering into certain treaties with other countries, etc. Each canton is subdivided into municipalities, some as small as a few thousand people, that decide more local issues including police, schools, etc. Divide and conquer, so that people can decide things for themselves. The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum, can add and/or delete laws they don't like [0]. So they have representatives but the people have ultimate direct power over them. Higher levels of government are involved only where necessary, for issues involving multiple lower levels of government. Seems to work well for them. Many people seem to believe that government needs to be big to be effective. The opposite may be the case, as Leopold Khor convincingly argues [1], that "bigness" is the cause of many problems. [0] https://wolf-linder.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Swiss-political-system.pdf https://wolf-linder.ch/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Swiss-poli... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaszpQaNwAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaszpQaNwAU

thaumasiotes 5y ago
> The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum, can add and/or delete laws they don't like. This is also true of California; that's not the magic. I'd say identifying bigness as the problem is much more on target.
- mikem170 5y ago
  The document on Switzerland said that at a federal level the ability of the people to remove laws forces representatives to proactively compromise with possibly offended groups of people before passing a law, knowing that enough signatures could force a vote to stricke any given law (I believe that a double majority is required to keep any a federal law, something about a majority of people in a majority of cantons). Similar powers exist at the local levels, also. I would think that this would tend to force issues that are not agreed upon down to a more local level, which doesn't sound like a bad thing. However I do not disagree with you that the scale California often operates at may be too large.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > The document on Switzerland said that at a federal level the ability of the people to remove laws forces representatives to keep this in mind and compromise with possibly offended people before passing a law, knowing that enough signatures could force a referendum requiring a double majority to pass or the law may be stricken by the people (something about a majority of people in a majority of cantons, I'm a little fuzzy on that from memory). I don't understand what you're trying to say. This is also true of California. (Well, not the part about representatives worrying about it, but all that that demonstrates is that the claim you repeat is not true. The ability of the people to remove laws isn't forcing representatives to do anything.)
    - mikem170 5y ago
      I was adding more info about Switzerland's referendums, as compared to California's. Maybe I did not understand your comment on California.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        We have the claim: > The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum, can add and/or delete laws they don't like. I'm saying that this cannot be the magic, because this state of affairs obtains in California, and it does not have the results which are, in Switzerland, ascribed to it. Those results do not come from this; they come from something else.
        mikem170 5y ago
        I agree that my use of the word "magic" there was over-enthusiastic. The preference for local governance in Switzerland is a key factor, as you pointed out.
        mikem170 5y ago
        I did some more digging on Swiss referendums [0]. I thought I'd pass along what I found: - .6% signatures required for a local referendum, 2% at federal level (somewhere else I saw 50k or 100k signatures required federally, some with 100 day time limits) - referendums can occur between parliamentary elections (I read somewhere else that it might be typical that a citizen could vote 3 or 4 times per year) - as per the constitution every tax is subject to a referendum, taxes are (mostly?) collected at the canton/municipality level, given the smaller size of these units people are engaged when their vote is more closely tied to their taxes and services. - 295 referendums launched at the federal level since 1980, 124 gathered enough signatures, 14 passed, many more were withdrawn before a vote, the gathering of enough signatures having had the desired effect on parliament - about 50% of the 124 referendums that got enough signatures had a direct or an indirect effect on parliament, many without ever needing to come to a vote - 9% of laws decided by parliament end up subject to referendum - parliament tends to form majorities on a per issue basis, and tends to design laws to avoid provoking a referendum - there is no federal court to adjudicate the constitutionality of referendums, some referendums pass that cannot be implemented due to this, this was identified as a shortcoming (other shortcomings were the influence of money in politics and keeping the public informed on issues) I'm not sure of the details and effects of California referendums, in comparison. The information above are my notes from the linked youtube unless otherwise indicated. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGAFl90cCqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGAFl90cCqI

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum, can add and/or delete laws they don't like. This is also true of California; that's not the magic. I'd say identifying bigness as the problem is much more on target.

mikem170 5y ago
The document on Switzerland said that at a federal level the ability of the people to remove laws forces representatives to proactively compromise with possibly offended groups of people before passing a law, knowing that enough signatures could force a vote to stricke any given law (I believe that a double majority is required to keep any a federal law, something about a majority of people in a majority of cantons). Similar powers exist at the local levels, also. I would think that this would tend to force issues that are not agreed upon down to a more local level, which doesn't sound like a bad thing. However I do not disagree with you that the scale California often operates at may be too large.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > The document on Switzerland said that at a federal level the ability of the people to remove laws forces representatives to keep this in mind and compromise with possibly offended people before passing a law, knowing that enough signatures could force a referendum requiring a double majority to pass or the law may be stricken by the people (something about a majority of people in a majority of cantons, I'm a little fuzzy on that from memory). I don't understand what you're trying to say. This is also true of California. (Well, not the part about representatives worrying about it, but all that that demonstrates is that the claim you repeat is not true. The ability of the people to remove laws isn't forcing representatives to do anything.)
  - mikem170 5y ago
    I was adding more info about Switzerland's referendums, as compared to California's. Maybe I did not understand your comment on California.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      We have the claim: > The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum, can add and/or delete laws they don't like. I'm saying that this cannot be the magic, because this state of affairs obtains in California, and it does not have the results which are, in Switzerland, ascribed to it. Those results do not come from this; they come from something else.
      - mikem170 5y ago
        I agree that my use of the word "magic" there was over-enthusiastic. The preference for local governance in Switzerland is a key factor, as you pointed out.
      - mikem170 5y ago
        I did some more digging on Swiss referendums [0]. I thought I'd pass along what I found: - .6% signatures required for a local referendum, 2% at federal level (somewhere else I saw 50k or 100k signatures required federally, some with 100 day time limits) - referendums can occur between parliamentary elections (I read somewhere else that it might be typical that a citizen could vote 3 or 4 times per year) - as per the constitution every tax is subject to a referendum, taxes are (mostly?) collected at the canton/municipality level, given the smaller size of these units people are engaged when their vote is more closely tied to their taxes and services. - 295 referendums launched at the federal level since 1980, 124 gathered enough signatures, 14 passed, many more were withdrawn before a vote, the gathering of enough signatures having had the desired effect on parliament - about 50% of the 124 referendums that got enough signatures had a direct or an indirect effect on parliament, many without ever needing to come to a vote - 9% of laws decided by parliament end up subject to referendum - parliament tends to form majorities on a per issue basis, and tends to design laws to avoid provoking a referendum - there is no federal court to adjudicate the constitutionality of referendums, some referendums pass that cannot be implemented due to this, this was identified as a shortcoming (other shortcomings were the influence of money in politics and keeping the public informed on issues) I'm not sure of the details and effects of California referendums, in comparison. The information above are my notes from the linked youtube unless otherwise indicated. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGAFl90cCqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGAFl90cCqI