Comments

Episode-2406- Expert Council Show for 3-22-19 — 4 Comments

  1. With regards to the left / right on red conversation

    Obviously NY is a bad example, so just take this as a fun fact.

    In Suffolk and Nassau counties ( on Long Island ) you can make right on red as long as there is no sign posted.

    As soon as you cross into Queens ( and Brooklyn, Staten Island, Manhattan, Bronx ) there is no right on red permitted at all and there are no signs at all.

    There are also cameras every where and they will send you a ticket in the mail if you do make a right on red.

     

  2. Just a small nit to pick, you said there was no direct democracy on a state level anywhere in the world. There are two Swiss cantons (states) which practise direct democracy, Appenzell-Innerrhoden and Glarus. The rest of Switzerland practices a semi-direct democracy; direct votes on some matters and representative democracy on others.

    • So you are saying in these cantons there are no representatives, zero.

      That every measure is subject to the popular vote? That they have no federal representative and the people vote on all matters to present a Federal level vote?

      Because that would be a pure democracy.

  3. Yes pretty much. They have meetings where every citizen (citizens in the following meaning people entitled to vote) can participate and vote on whatever matters need to be decided. They have an elected administration that prepares the texts for the laws but the decision is made by a vote of the citicens. Every citizen has the right to suggest a new law or change of law. The elected administration then implements those laws.
    Decisions with lower financial impact can be made by the administration (just like people in a company may have the power to spend a limited amount of company money, to buy stamps, pencils, laptops etc.) but anything above a certain level needs to be voted on by all citizens. Taxes are also set by vote of all citizens.
    It probably helps though that we are talking about only ca. 30k citizens in Glarus and 14k in Appenzell-Innerrhoden πŸ™‚ But they are states of the Swiss confederacy. I mean the whole of Switzerland doesn’t have that many citizens…
    I could go into more details and it’s a bit more complicated but I think you get the point. It is a system where decisions are made directly by the citizens but the work of preparing and implementing the decisions is done by representatives.