Should the United States establish a nationwide initiative and referendum process?
On November 3, as well as electing a new president, more than 150 million US citizens across the world will decide on hundreds of local and regional level citizens’ initiatives and referendums.
But as the world’s oldest modern democracy suffers continuing polarization and populism, a growing number are proposing such a remedy at the national level: the adoption of direct democracy, which would allow Americans to vote, by referendum, on the biggest questions dividing the country.
What do you think? Would you be in favour or against such a democratic change in the republic? Why?
We’ll work to answer your questions and comments in the conversation below and take them on board for our future reporting. Log in or register to ask your question further down the page.
From the article Does your vote count? Trump says ‘Let’s see’ – Switzerland says ‘Let’s talk…’
I find some of the comments interesting. I have researched direct democracy in depth and feel the approach Mr. Matsusaka has suggested could work in the United States. Someone must step up and do it though. The problem we experience here is that everyone talks and complains about our government, but nobody does anything about it. I sincerely believe that it's possible to find elected representatives who would introduce and work at passing an act calling for a national referendum election.
It seems to me that the United States political scene of (polarization, dangerous populism, paranoia, violence) would benefit tremendously from using the referendum process more often and more consistently. I am 73 years old and have been unaware of the benefits of using referendums to "fine tune" the perceived / real flaws in our system. By fine tune I mean that many of us do not feel effectively / adequately represented in our two party system b/c it seems we "have to" take the "good with the bad". An eye-opener for me was the referendum in Kansas, US re: rewriting their state constitution to dramatically restrict abortion after Roe was overturned. The people of Kansas said "no", and Kansas is the reddest most conservative state in which I have spent time.
Why is less known about the referendum option and process? Is it b/c the minority wants to impose its will upon the majority? Or is it b/c referendums make life more difficult for politicians? Or is it both - and more?
How does one find out about referendums in their state?
The time has absolutely come for federal referendums when 90% of Americans are for some form of background checks and 50% of their elected representatives are against it and fully able to block it.
Who are the Swiss to give an opinion on this? It is like who are the EU country to tell us how we need to behave?
Rather than you asking us, why doesn't the US government ask its citizens?
Aren't they the ones who should decide what system of government they have?
How about a Swiss referendum on no longer discriminating against foreigners for 3 generations and never considering them Swiss citizens in their life times?
No. Clearly they are too many who are too selfish to consider legislation that would benefit greater society. Plus they would have to reform their election finance laws and move maximum election spending to a fraction of what it is now. Like maybe 1/10,000th of what is currently spent.
Saying that politicians are not in it for the money is like saying weapons companies are in it for world peace and pharma companies are in it for cures and no deasease. Let's be honest here please. It is obvious.
I hope they will and that they will vote to make all of Europe a US territory with no voting rights, like NAOKO658 suggested. That will make our lives so much easier: no more politicians and elections.
What will Switzerland do if the referendum makes Switzerland a US territory like Puerto Rico ? If they vote they might decide to take over Switzerland.
No, as it can't work.
You will never have people in California forcing a law change in Texas, as they are separate countries just like the people in Geneva will never vote to change the laws in Zurich or the people in Spain voting to change the laws in Germany. These are separate countries and have their our processes and voting system.
Perhaps the USA should first of all implement a trusted, efficient voting system.
Then consider abolishing the two party (well, one party) system and use a proportional representation system.
The above points would provide a solid foundation for further democratisation including direct democracy.
In my view it is an advantage not to have a country-wide uniformed election system, but one which is based on parallel self governed entities as under the current county administrations. Having said that some more common basic rules should be implemented and hopefully a new administration in Washington will re-instate the functioning of the Federal Election Commission for this purpose. Under the current administration the FEC vacancies were not replaced and the commission had not enough members even to meet...
This is not valid in any country in the world. Might be an interesting Utopia though.
This is none of our business and I wonder why the other more important topics on our daily news are no longer open for comments.
Instead the short list of topics here are very limited and they do not address the quickness of comments of the current hot topics.
Please bring back the comments on EACH article. Anyway the number of news articles has been drastically reduced already.
What is your excuse for "muting" the readers?
I am sure that for you "This is none of our business and I wonder why the other more important topics on our daily news are no longer open for comments.“ I wonder if, instead, according to my three replies on this conversation, this conversation might become the most important topic on our daily news.
To do so, I propose a Plebiscit, where workers all over the world would be able to decide on selecting the emergence of The Wealth of Globalization, based on the next two tweets thread as opposed to The Wealth of Nations, based on both the Public Private Partnerships and the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
Why just the US? Everywhere should have the Swiss system. In the UK, the people cannot do anything until there is an election, years after the current Government gets elected. Boris can do what he wants.
Yes: "Why just the US? Everywhere should have the Swiss system."
but: the Swiss model is limited to The Wealth of Nations scope that's beyond its useful life.
and: based on my two other comments on this conversation we have the opportunity to increase the systems architecting scope of the Swiss model to The Wealth of Globalization.
National referenda would be good, but first we should go back to the Articles of Confederation, with a small federal government, leaving most of the power in the states. In addition, proportional representation would be an improvement.
Really, though, I think the US must crash and burn before it turns around. I hope to be living in Switzerland when it does.
Respectfully classifying your interesting comment as based on pragmatic a priori thought, this is meant to be pragmaticist a posteriori behavior system, that's in accordance with my first comment. I suggest that Switzerland might have been early on interpreted as one (maybe the only) example of a systemic system (under the effect of anti-entropic processes).
As we move to The Wealth of Globalization, with a Declaration of Global Interdependence on the Cybernetic Age, to replace The Wealth of Nations, that can be said to have emerged with the Declaration of Independence by the USA on the Contemporary Age, but that has changed direction to become less and less democratic. as an antisystemic system, should we go back to the Articles of Confederation?
Having said that, maybe "the US must crash and burn before it turns around," would not be necessary, if we recall that other countries started their process of independence by following the USA. The example of the European Coal and Steel Community might be emulated by a few countries of Latin America to become the first interdependent regional bloc, to be followed by current independent regional blocs.
In fact the 2020 elections with it's record high turnout and a counting process properly conducted and far from the "steal the vote"-claims done by some forces, offers some encouraging prospects forward: One way to progress could be starting citizens initiatives in the various states to establish federal referendums. But you are more than correct to say, that the US electoral system as almost all others in the world is far from perfect. Plenty of work ahead!
These are pragmaticist (not pragmatic) underlying assumptions narrative for the future of what's happening in America and the world in order to end their pragmatic multilateral story. Years ago, under The Wealth of Nations, Switzerland learned that having just one national representative democracy identity was a big problem. That’s how Switzerland embraced their municipal identity via direct democracy.
Today I propose we have two more identities under The Wealth of Globalization: global and tribal identities [to still be approximated by the municipal identity] to increase the system architecting scope of Switzerland’s understanding. Given those underlying assumptions, I reply bk's tweet by saying:
Hi Bruno,
Please embrace [retweet see below] #DearDemocracy as a step to the #GlobalState for #USA, like for #Chile, as an interdependent bloc beyond #Multilateralism.
CC: @MaryAnastasiaOG @WSJ @jorgeheinel @LuisBoston77 @katinamichael @MaraJosRamrez13 @emmyzen @mmjblair.
This is what the retweet says:
Translation of [Spanish retweet not repeated below]: United in #GlobalDebout identity, the new normal claims support for #Chile's constitutional change. Should #RepDom [Dominican Republic] subordinate the necessary municipal identity diversity to @marcapaisrd's [Dominican Republic’s county brand] axis of national identity to continue in old normal?
Thank you @Jose. I understand your contribution in the way that your welcome a multi-level democratic governance structure which offers local communities a lot of self-determination. At the same time all existing and emerging political levels should democratize in a sense that participatory and direct democratic features are complementing the indirect ones - as eg the European Citizens Initiative tool introduced in 2012.
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