Direct democracy

Switzerland has a system of direct democracy that has held together a multilingual, multicultural, and multireligion country without any significant disagreements for over 150 years.   Structurally, there are many similarities to the US government but this is not one of them.  In 1848, the Swiss constitution was established,  modeled after the US version with a separation of powers rooted in three branches of government.   There is a Legislative branch, for making laws, an Executive branch, for carrying out the laws, and a Judicial branch, for interpreting the laws.   Taking the similarity one step further, their Parliament (our Congress) has two houses, one in which each canton is equally represented (like our Senate) and one in which the cantonal representation is proportional to population (like our House of  Representatives).   Those are the similarities.  Now the differences.  First, their Executive branch is made up of seven people, not one, and those members are elected by their Parliament, not directly by the people.   Now, you might be say, “I thought that the Swiss had direct democracy.  What’s this about indirect selection of the Executive branch ?”  The explanation has two parts.  First, those seven people, who also function as the cabinet, are selected from parties in proportion to the parties’ representation in the Parliament.  Second, and most important, no matter who’s sitting in those seats, they cannot enact new laws without direct approval of the people.  This happens via referendums which occur four times each year.  I should note that this post is not intended as a primer on Swiss government.  I bring it up only to provide a bit of background for our first personal taste of the system last year.  Naturally, not being citizens we cannot vote.  We can, however, participate in the process by collecting signatures to place an issue on the ballot.  And this is precisely what we did.  The part of Basel in which we live is one of the few remaining green spaces.  We hold it dear, as do all of our neighbors for it is a principal reason why we chose to live in this little corner of paradise.  What caused us to rise up and shake our fists was a proposal by the Basel city council to re-zone our area to allow construction of additional residential housing.  “No!”, we shouted (politely of course) and sprang into action to collect the 2,000 signatures necessary to place the referendum on the ballot.   Lisa and I didn’t collect all 2,000 of course but more than any other Americans.  Our neighbors were very impressed.  Once this was done, the next step was education, specifically of those who could actually vote.  The committee driving the referendum, with the catchy name, “2 x Nein zur Verbauung von Basler Grünflächen” (2 times no to the  obstruction of Basel greenspace) developed the cute little poster below.  I especially liked the little girl fleeing the monstrous excavator with her cervelat (ubiquitous Swiss sausage).   The posters were displayed, the brochures were distributed and the issue was civilly communicated .  In the end,  the forces of evil were driven back by the will of the people.  Our green space was preserved.