document_title: President of Ireland

question_text: who has had the shortest reign of the nine irish presidents to date

text: President of Ireland

text: Ordinary duties and functions[edit]

text: The Constitution of Ireland provides for a parliamentary system of government, under which the role of the head of state is largely a ceremonial one. The President is formally one of three parts of the Oireachtas (national parliament), which also comprises Dáil Éireann (the lower house) and Seanad Éireann (the Senate or upper house).

text: Unlike many other parliamentary democracies, the President is not even the nominal chief executive. Rather, executive authority is expressly vested in the Government (cabinet). The Government is obliged, however, to keep the President generally informed on matters of domestic and foreign policy. Most of the functions of the President may be carried out only in accordance with the strict instructions of the Constitution, or the binding 'advice' of the Government. The President does, however, possess certain personal powers that may be exercised at his or her discretion.

text: Constitutional functions[edit]

text: The main functions are prescribed by the Constitution:

text: Other functions specified by statute or otherwise include:

text:
The President is ex officio President of the Irish Red Cross Society.[14]
The President appoints, on the advice of the Government, the Senior Professors and chairman of the council of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies;[15] the governor of the Central Bank of Ireland;[16] the members of the Irish Financial Services Appeals Tribunal;[17] the Ombudsman;[18] and the members of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.[19]
The President appoints one trustee to the Chester Beatty Library. This was specified in Chester Beatty's will and given effect by a 1968 Act of the Oireachtas.[20]
The President is the patron of Gaisce – The President's Award, established by trust deed in 1985.[21]
The President is the patron of Clans of Ireland, including its Order of Merit, since he so agreed in January 2012.[22]
The President confers the title of Saoi on those so elected by the membership of Aosdána.
The President is patron to several charities in Ireland.

text: Special limitations[edit]

text:
The President may not leave the state without the consent of the Government.[23]
Every formal address or message "to the nation" or to either or both Houses of the Oireachtas must have prior approval of the Government.[24] Other than on these two (quite rare) occasions, there is no limitation on the President's right to speak. While earlier presidents were exceptionally cautious in delivering speeches and on almost every occasion submitted them for vetting, Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese made much more use of their right to speak without government approval, with McAleese doing many live television and radio interviews. Nonetheless, by convention Presidents refrain from direct criticism of the Government.

text: Discretionary powers[edit]

text: This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (December 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

text: The President possesses the following powers exercised "in his absolute discretion" according to the English version of the Constitution. The Irish version states that these powers are exercised as a chomhairle féin which is usually translated as "under his own counsel." Lawyers have suggested that a conflict may exist in this case between both versions of the constitution. In the event of a clash between the Irish and English versions of the constitution, the Irish one is given supremacy. While "absolute discretion" appears to leave some freedom for manoeuvre for a president in deciding whether to initiate contact with the opposition, "own counsel" has been interpreted by some lawyers as suggesting that no contact whatsoever can take place. As a result, it is considered controversial for the president to be contacted by the leaders of any political parties in an effort to influence a decision made using the discretionary powers. It is required that, before exercising certain reserve powers, the President consult the Council of State. However, the President is not compelled to act in accordance with the council's advice.

text: Refusal of a Dáil dissolution[edit]

text: The Taoiseach is required to resign if he has "ceased to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Eireann," unless he asks the President to dissolve the Dáil. The President has the right to refuse such a request, in which case the Taoiseach must resign immediately. This power has never been invoked. However, the necessary circumstances existed in 1944, 1982 and 1994. The apparent discrepancy, referred to above, between the Irish and English versions of the Constitution has discouraged Presidents from contemplating the use of the power. On the three occasions when the necessary circumstances existed, presidents have adopted an ultra-strict policy of non-contact with the opposition. The most notable instance of this was in January 1982, when Patrick Hillery instructed an aide, Captain Anthony Barber, to ensure that no telephone calls from the opposition were to be passed on to him. (Nevertheless, three opposition figures, including Fianna Fáil leader Charles Haughey, demanded to be put through to Hillery, with Haughey threatening to end Barber's career if the calls weren't put through. Hillery, as Supreme Commander of the Defence Forces, recorded the threat in Barber's file and recorded that Barber had been acting on his instructions in refusing the call[25]). Even without this consideration, refusing such a request would arguably create a constitutional crisis, as it is considered a fairly strong constitutional convention that the head of state always grants a parliamentary dissolution.

text: Reference of bills to the people[edit]

text: If requested to do so by a petition signed by a majority of the membership of the Seanad, and one-third of the membership of the Dáil, the President may, after consultation with the Council of State, decline to sign into law a bill (other than a bill to amend the constitution) he/she considers to be of great "national importance" until it has been approved by either the people in a referendum or the Dáil reassembling after a general election, held within eighteen months. This power has never been used, and no such petition has been invoked. Of the 60 Senators, 11 are nominated by the Taoiseach, so there is rarely a majority opposed to a government bill.

text: Other[edit]

text: The President may appoint up to seven members of the Council of State, and remove or replace such appointed members. (See list of presidential appointees to the Council of State.) The following powers all require prior consultation with the Council of State, although the President need not take its advice:

text: Selection[edit]

text: The President is directly elected by secret ballot using the Alternative Vote, the single-winner analogue of the Single Transferable Vote.[n 1] Under the Presidential Elections Act, 1993 a candidate's election formally takes place in the form of a 'declaration' by the returning officer.[30] Where more than one candidate is nominated, the election is 'adjourned' so that a ballot can take place, allowing the electors to choose between candidates. A Presidential election is held in time for the winner to take office the day after the end of the incumbent's seven-year term. In the event of premature vacancy, an election must be held within sixty days.[2]

text: Only resident Irish citizens aged eighteen or more may vote; a 1983 bill to extend the right to resident British citizens was ruled unconstitutional.[31]

text: Candidates must be Irish citizens and over 35 years old.[32][33] However, there is a discrepancy between the English- and Irish-language texts of Article 12.4.1°. According to the English text, an eligible candidate "has reached his thirty-fifth year of age", whereas the Irish text has this as "ag a bhfuil cúig bliana tríochad slán" ("has completed his thirty-five years"). Because a person's thirty-fifth year of life begins on his or her thirty-fourth birthday, this means there is a year's difference between the minimum ages as stated in the two texts. Various proposals have been made to amend the Constitution so as to eliminate this discrepancy.[34] At present, however, the Irish version of the subsection prevails in accordance with the rule stated in Article 25.5.4°. The current government has introduced the Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Age of Eligibility for Election to the Office of President) Bill 2015 to reduce the age of candidacy from 35 to 21, which was put to referendum in May 2015,[35][36] but the bill was heavily defeated, with approximately 73% of voters voting against reducing the age of eligibility.

text: Presidents can serve a maximum of two terms, consecutive or otherwise.[3] They must be nominated by one of the following:[3]

text:
At least 20 members of the Oireachtas;[33] (there are 218 members)
At least four county or city councils[33] (there are 31 councils)
Themselves (in the case of incumbent or former presidents who have served one term).[33]

text: Where only one candidate is nominated, he or she is deemed elected without the need for a ballot.[33] For this reason, where there is a consensus among political parties not to have a contest, the President may be 'elected' without the occurrence of an actual ballot. Since the establishment of the office this has occurred on six occasions.

text: The most recent presidential election was held on 27 October 2011.

text: Absence of a President[edit]

text: There is no office of Vice President of Ireland. In the event of a premature vacancy a successor must be elected within sixty days. In a vacancy or where the President is unavailable, the duties and functions of the office are carried out by a Presidential Commission, consisting of the Chief Justice, the Ceann Comhairle (speaker) of the Dáil, and the Cathaoirleach (chairperson) of the Seanad. Routine functions, such as signing uncontentious bills into law, have often been fulfilled by the Presidential Commission when the President is abroad on a state visit. The government's power to prevent the President leaving the state is relevant in aligning the diplomatic and legislative calendars.

text: Technically each president's term of office expires at midnight on the day before the new president's inauguration.[37] Therefore, between midnight and the inauguration the following day the presidential duties and functions are carried out by the Presidential Commission. The constitution also empowers the Council of State, acting by a majority of its members, to "make such provision as to them may seem meet" for the exercise of the duties of the president in any contingency the constitution does not foresee. However, to date, it has never been necessary for the council to take up this role.

text: Vacancies in the presidency have occurred three times: on the death of Erskine Hamilton Childers in 1974, and on the resignations of Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh in 1976 and Mary Robinson in 1997.

text: Official residence, salute, style and address[edit]

text: The official residence of the President is Áras an Uachtaráin, located in the Phoenix Park in Dublin. The ninety-two room building formerly served as the 'out-of-season' residence of the Irish Lord Lieutenant and the residence of two of the three Irish Governors-General: Tim Healy and James McNeill. The President is normally referred to as 'President' or 'Uachtarán', rather than 'Mr/Madam President' or similar forms. The style used is normally His Excellency/Her Excellency (Irish: A Shoilse/A Soilse); sometimes people may orally address the President as 'Your Excellency' (Irish: A Shoilse [ə ˈhəʎʃ̪ʲə]), or simply 'President' (Irish: A Uachtaráin [ə ˈuːəxt̪ˠəɾaːn̥] (vocative case)). The Presidential Salute is taken from the National Anthem, "Amhrán na bhFiann". It consists of the first four bars followed by the last five,[38] without lyrics.

text: Inauguration[edit]

text: Under the Constitution, in assuming office the President must subscribe to a formal declaration, made publicly and in the presence of members of both Houses of the Oireachtas, judges of the Supreme Court and the High Court, and other "public personages".[39] The inauguration of the President takes place in St Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle. The declaration is specified in Article 12.8:

text: To date every President has subscribed to the declaration in Irish. In 1993 the United Nations Human Rights Committee expressed concern that, because of its religious language, the declaration amounts to a religious test for office. The Oireachtas Committee in 1998 recommended that the religious references be made optional.

text: Impeachment and removal from office[edit]

text: The President can be removed from office in two ways, neither of which has ever been invoked. The Supreme Court, in a sitting of at least five judges, may find the President "permanently incapacitated",[2] while the Oireachtas may remove the President for "stated misbehaviour".[40] Either house of the Oireachtas may instigate the latter process by passing an impeachment resolution, provided at least thirty members move it and at least two thirds support it. The other house will then either investigate the stated charges or commission a body to do so; following which at least two thirds of members must agree both that the President is guilty and that the charges warrant removal.[40]

text: Security and transport[edit]

text: As head of state of Ireland, the President receives the highest level of protection in the state. Áras an Uachtaráin is protected by armed guards from the Garda Síochána and Defence Forces at all times, and is encircled by security fencing and intrusion detection systems. At all times the President travels with an armed security detail in Ireland and overseas, which is provided by the Special Detective Unit (SDU), an elite wing of the Irish police force. Protection is increased if there is a known threat. The Presidential limousine is a Mercedes-Benz S-Class LWB. The Presidential Limousine is dark navy blue and carries the Presidential standard on the left front wing and the tricolour on the right front wing. When travelling the Presidential limousine is always accompanied by support cars (normally BMW 5 Series, Audi A6 and Volvo S60 driven by trained drivers from the SDU) and several Garda motorcycle outriders from the Garda Traffic Corps which form a protective convoy around the car.

text: The Presidential State Car is a 1947 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith landaulette, which is used only for ceremonial occasions.

text: The President also has the full use of all Irish Air Corps aircraft at his/her disposal if so needed, including helicopters and private jets.

text: History[edit]

text: The office of President was established in 1937, in part as a replacement for the office of Governor-General that existed during the 1922–37 Irish Free State. The seven-year term of office of the President was inspired by that of the presidents of Weimar Germany.[citation needed] At the time the office was established critics warned that the post might lead to the emergence of a dictatorship. However, these fears were not borne out as successive Presidents played a limited, largely apolitical role in national affairs.

text: Head of state from 1937 to 1949[edit]

text: During the period of 1937 to 1949 it was unclear whether the Irish head of state was actually the President of Ireland or George VI, the king of Ireland. This period of confusion ended in 1949 when the state was declared to be a republic. The 1937 constitution did not mention the king; but, nor did it state that the president was head of state, saying rather that the president "shall take precedence over all other persons in the State". The president exercised some powers that could be exercised by heads of state, but, which could also be exercised by governors or governors-general, such as appointing the government and promulgating the law.

text: However, in 1936, George VI had been declared "King of Ireland" and, under the External Relations Act of the same year, it was this king who represented the state in its foreign affairs. Treaties, therefore, were signed in the name of the King of Ireland, who also accredited ambassadors and received the letters of credence of foreign diplomats. This role meant, in any case, that George VI was the Irish head of state in the eyes of foreign nations. The Republic of Ireland Act 1948, which came into force in April 1949, proclaimed a republic and transferred the role of representing the state abroad from the monarch to the president. No change was made to the constitution.

text: Evolving role[edit]

text: After the inaugural presidency of Douglas Hyde, who was an interparty nominee for the office, the nominees of the Fianna Fáil political party won every presidential election until 1990. The party traditionally used the nomination as a reward for its most senior and prominent members, such as party founder and longtime Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and European Commissioner Patrick Hillery. Most of its occupants to that time followed Hyde's precedent-setting conception of the presidency as a conservative, low-key institution that used its ceremonial prestige and few discretionary powers sparingly. In fact, the presidency was such a quiet position that Irish politicians sought to avoid contested presidential elections as often as possible, feeling that the attention such elections would bring to the office was an unnecessary distraction,[41] and office-seekers facing economic austerity would often suggest the elimination of the office as a money-saving measure.[42]

text: Despite the historical meekness of the presidency, however, it has been at the centre of some high-profile controversies. In particular, the fifth President, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, faced a contentious dispute with the government in 1976 over the signing of a bill declaring a state of emergency, which ended in Ó Dálaigh's resignation. His successor, Patrick Hillery, was also involved in a controversy in 1982, when then Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald requested a dissolution of the Dáil Éireann. Hillery was bombarded with phone calls from opposition members urging him to refuse the request, an action that Hillery saw as highly inappropriate interference with the President's constitutional role and resisted the political pressure.

text: The presidency began to be transformed in the 1990s. Hillery's conduct regarding the dissolution affair in 1982 came to light in 1990, imbuing the office with a new sense of dignity and stability. However, it was Hillery's successor, seventh President Mary Robinson, who ultimately revolutionized the presidency. The winner of an upset victory in the highly controversial election of 1990, Robinson was the Labour nominee, the first President to defeat Fianna Fáil in an election and the first female President. Upon election, however, Robinson took steps to de-politicize the office. She also sought to widen the scope of the presidency, developing new economic, political and cultural links between the state and other countries and cultures, especially those of the Irish diaspora. Robinson used the prestige of the office to activist ends, placing emphasis during her presidency on the needs of developing countries, linking the history of the Great Irish Famine to today's nutrition, poverty and policy issues, attempting to create a bridge of partnership between developed and developing countries.[42]

text: Remuneration and expenses[edit]

text: After the 2018 presidential election the official salary or "personal remuneration" of the President will be €249,014.[43] The incumbent, Michael D. Higgins, chooses to receive the same salary although he is entitled to a higher figure of €325,507.[44][43] The President's total "emoluments and allowances" includes an additional €317,434 for expenses.[45] The Office of the President's total budget estimate for 2017 was €3.9 million, of which €2.6 million was for pay and running costs, and the balance for the "President's Bounty" paid to centenarians on their hundredth birthday.[46]

text: The salary was fixed at IR£5000 from 1938 to 1973, since when it has been calculated as 10% greater than that of the Chief Justice.[47] After the post-2008 Irish economic downturn most public-sector workers took significant pay cuts, but the Constitution prohibited a reduction in the salary of the President and the judiciary during their terms of office, in order to prevent such a reduction being used by the government to apply political pressure on them. While a 2011 Constitutional amendment allows judges' pay to be cut, it did not extend to the President, although incumbent Mary McAleese offered to take a voluntary cut in solidarity.[48][44]

text: Issues of controversy[edit]

text: Role of the President in relation to Northern Ireland[edit]

text: The text of the Constitution of Ireland, as originally enacted in 1937, made reference in its controversial Articles 2 and 3 to two geopolitical entities: a thirty-two county 'national territory' (i.e., the island of Ireland), and a twenty-six county 'state' formerly known as the Irish Free State. The implication behind the title 'President of Ireland' was that the President would function as the head of all Ireland. However, this implication was challenged by the Ulster Unionists and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland which was the state internationally acknowledged as having jurisdiction over Northern Ireland. Articles 2 and 3 were substantially amended in consequence of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

text: Ireland in turn challenged the proclamation in the United Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952 as '[Queen] of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. The Irish government refused to attend royal functions as a result; for example, Patrick Hillery declined on Government advice to attend the wedding of the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, to which he had been invited by Queen Elizabeth, just as Seán T. O'Kelly had declined on government advice to attend the 1953 Coronation Garden Party at the British Embassy in Dublin. Britain in turn insisted on referring to the President as 'President of the Republic of Ireland' or 'President of the Irish Republic'.[n 2] Letters of Credence from Queen Elizabeth, on the British government's advice, appointing United Kingdom ambassadors to Ireland were not addressed to the 'President of Ireland' but to the President personally (for example: 'President Hillery').

text: The naming dispute and consequent avoidance of contact at head of state level has gradually thawed since 1990. President Robinson (1990–97) chose unilaterally to break the taboo by regularly visiting the United Kingdom for public functions, frequently in connection with Anglo-Irish Relations or to visit the Irish emigrant community in Great Britain. In another breaking of precedent, she accepted an invitation to Buckingham Palace by Queen Elizabeth II. Palace accreditation supplied to journalists referred to the "visit of the President of Ireland".[citation needed] Between 1990 and 2010, both Robinson and her successor President McAleese (1997–2011) visited the Palace on numerous occasions, while senior members of the British royal family – The Prince of Wales, The Duke of York, The Earl of Wessex and The Duke of Edinburgh - all visited both Presidents of Ireland at Áras an Uachtaráin. The Presidents also attended functions with The Princess Royal. President Robinson jointly hosted a reception with the Queen at St. James's Palace, London, in 1995, to commemorate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Queen's Colleges in 1845 (the Queen's Colleges are now known as The Queen's University of Belfast, University College, Cork, and National University of Ireland, Galway). These contacts eventually led to a state visit of Queen Elizabeth to Ireland in 2011.

text: Though the President's title implicitly asserted authority in Northern Ireland, in reality the Irish President needed government permission to visit there. (The Constitution of Ireland in Article 3 explicitly stated that "[p]ending the re-integration of the national territory" the authority of the Irish state did not extend to Northern Ireland. Presidents prior to the presidency of Mary Robinson were regularly refused permission by the Irish government to visit Northern Ireland.)

text: However, since the 1990s and in particular since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, the president has regularly visited Northern Ireland. President McAleese, who is herself the first President of Ireland to have been born in Northern Ireland, continued on from President Robinson in this regard. In a sign of the warmth of modern British-Irish relations, she has even been warmly welcomed by most leading unionists. At the funeral for a child murdered by the Real IRA in Omagh she symbolically walked up the main aisle of the church hand-in-hand with the Ulster Unionist Party leader and then First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, MP. But in other instances, Mary McAleese has been criticised for certain comments, such as a reference to the way in which Protestant children in Northern Ireland had been brought up to hate Catholics just as German children had been encouraged to hate Jews under the Nazi regime, on 27 January 2005, following her attendance at the ceremony commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.[49][50] These remarks caused outrage among Northern Ireland's unionist politicians, and McAleese later apologised[51] and conceded that her statement had been unbalanced. Despite the changes to Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution as part of the Good Friday Agreement the title of the office remains the "President of Ireland", as the Irish Constitution stipulates that the state's official name is simply "Ireland", and that the "Republic of" is merely its description, though there is now little dispute that the Presidency only has jurisdiction over the "Republic of" Ireland. However, the President of Ireland is regarded by many northern nationalists as their President[citation needed], and calls have been made for voting rights in Presidential elections to be extended to the whole island.

text: Suggestions for reform[edit]

text: There have been many suggestions for reforming the office of President over the years. In 1996, the Constitutional Review Group recommended that the office of President should remain largely unchanged. However, it suggested that the Constitution should be amended to explicitly declare the President to be head of state (at present that term does not appear in the text), and that consideration be given to the introduction of a constructive vote of no confidence system in the Dáil, along the lines of that in Germany. If this system were introduced then the power of the President to refuse a Dáil dissolution would be largely redundant and could be taken away. The All-party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution's 1998 Report made similar recommendations.

text: In an October 2009 poll, concerning support for various potential candidates in the 2011 presidential election conducted by the Sunday Independent, a "significant number" of people were said to feel that the presidency is a waste of money and should be abolished.[52]

text: List of Presidents of Ireland[edit]

text: The functions of the President were exercised by the Presidential Commission from the coming into force of the Constitution on 29 December 1937 until the election of Douglas Hyde in 1938, and during the vacancies of 1974, 1976, and 1997.

text:
No.
Name
(Birth–Death)
Portrait
Previous service
Term of office
Nominated by
Election

1
Douglas Hyde
(1860–1949)

Senator
(1925, 1938)
25 June 1938
24 June 1945

All-party nomination
1938

2
Seán T. O'Kelly
(1882–1966)

Tánaiste
(1932–1945)
25 June 1945
24 June 1959

Fianna Fáil
1945

Himself[n 3]
1952

3
Éamon de Valera
(1882–1975)

Taoiseach
(1932–1948, 1951–1954, 1957–1959)
25 June 1959
24 June 1973

Fianna Fáil
1959

Fianna Fáil[n 4]
1966

4
Erskine H. Childers
(1905–1974)

Tánaiste
(1969–1973)
25 June 1973
17 November 1974

Fianna Fáil
1973

5
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh[53]
(1911–1978)

Chief Justice of Ireland
(1961–1973)
19 December 1974
22 October 1976

All-party nomination
1974

6
Patrick Hillery
(1923–2008)

European Commissioner for Social Affairs
(1973–1976)
3 December 1976
2 December 1990

Fianna Fáil
1976

Fianna Fáil
1983

7
Mary Robinson
(1944–)

Senator
(1969–1989)
3 December 1990
12 September 1997

Labour Party
1990

Workers' Party

Independent

8
Mary McAleese
(1951–)

Reid Professor of Criminal law, Criminology and
Penology at Trinity College, Dublin
11 November 1997
10 November 2011

Fianna Fáil
1997

Herself
2004

9
Michael D. Higgins
(1941–)

Minister for Arts, Culture and Gaeltacht
(1993–1997)
11 November 2011
Incumbent

Labour Party
2011

text: Former presidents[edit]

text: Currently, there are two living former presidents - Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese. Former presidents who are willing and able to serve are members of the Council of State.[54]

text: Statistics[edit]

text:
Douglas Hyde became president when he was 78; the oldest person to take office.
Éamon de Valera was the oldest president to leave office, aged 90.
Mary McAleese was the youngest president to enter office, aged 46.
Mary Robinson was the youngest president to leave office, aged 53.
Erskine Childers, who died in office, had the shortest presidency of 511 days.
Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, who resigned, served for 674 days.
Four presidents have served for two terms, or fourteen years in total: Seán T. O'Kelly, Éamon De Valera, Patrick Hillery, and Mary McAleese.


document_title: Direct democracy

question_text: example of a government run as a direct democracy

root

text: Direct democracy

text: Overview[edit]

text: In a representative democracy, people vote for representatives who then enact policy initiatives.[1] In direct democracy, people decide on policies without any intermediary. Depending on the particular system in use, direct democracy might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing officials, and conducting trials. Two leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy and deliberative democracy.

tag: p

text: Semi-direct democracies in which representatives administer day-to-day governance, but the citizens remain the sovereign, allow for three forms of popular action: referendum (plebiscite), initiative, and recall. The first two forms—referendums and initiatives—are examples of direct legislation.[2]

text: Compulsory referendum subjects the legislation drafted by political elites to a binding popular vote. This is the most common form of direct legislation. Popular referendum empowers citizens to make a petition that calls existing legislation to a vote by the citizens. Institutions specify the timeframe for a valid petition and the number of signatures required, and may require signatures from diverse communities to protect minority interests.[2] This form of direct democracy effectively grants the voting public a veto on laws adopted by the elected legislature, as is done in Switzerland.[3][4][5][6]

text: Power of initiative allows members of the general public to propose specific statutory measures or constitutional reforms to the government and, as with referendums, the vote may be binding or simply advisory. Initiatives may be direct or indirect: With the direct initiative, a successful proposition is placed directly on the ballot to be subject to vote (as exemplified by California's system).[2] With an indirect initiative, a successful proposition is first presented to the legislature for their consideration; however, if no acceptable action is taken after a designated period of time, the proposition moves to direct popular vote. Such a form of indirect initiative is utilized by Switzerland for constitutional amendments.[2]

text: Power of recall gives the public the power to remove elected officials from office before the end of their term.[7]

text: Many residents, especially of smaller cities but even cities like Encinitas, California, with over 60,000 residents, in passing Prop A in 2013, insist on direct resident voting for some decisions. Such measures agree with anarchists, who have long argued against representative democracy. They argue that direct democracy opposes a strong central authority. That is because decision-making power can reside at only one level. A central authority keeps the people themselves from governing themselves.[8]

text: History[edit]

text: The earliest known direct democracy is said to be the Athenian democracy in the 5th century BC, although it was not an inclusive democracy: women, foreigners, and slaves were excluded from it. The main bodies in the Athenian democracy were the assembly, composed of male citizens; the boulê, composed of 500 citizens; and the law courts, composed of a massive number of jurors chosen by lot, with no judges. There were only about 30,000 male citizens, but several thousand of them were politically active in each year, and many of them quite regularly for years on end. The Athenian democracy was direct not only in the sense that decisions were made by the assembled people, but also in the sense that the people through the assembly, boulê, and law courts controlled the entire political process, and a large proportion of citizens were involved constantly in the public business.[9] Modern democracies, being representative, not direct, do not resemble the Athenian system.

text: Also relevant to the history of direct democracy is the history of Ancient Rome, specifically the Roman Republic, beginning around 509 BC.[10] Rome displayed many aspects of democracy, both direct and indirect, from the era of Roman monarchy all the way to the collapse of the Roman Empire. Indeed, the Senate, formed in the first days of the city, lasted through the Kingdom, Republic, and Empire, and even continued after the decline of Western Rome; and its structure and regulations continue to influence legislative bodies worldwide. As to direct democracy, the ancient Roman Republic had a system of citizen lawmaking, or citizen formulation and passage of law, and a citizen veto of legislature-made law. Many historians mark the end of the Republic with the passage of a law named the Lex Titia, 27 November 43 BC, which eliminated many oversight provisions.[10]

text: Modern-era citizen lawmaking began in the towns of Switzerland in the 13th century. In 1847, the Swiss added the "statute referendum" to their national constitution. They soon discovered that merely having the power to veto Parliament's laws was not enough. In 1891, they added the "constitutional amendment initiative". Swiss politics since 1891 have given the world a valuable experience base with the national-level constitutional amendment initiative.[11] In the past 120 years, more than 240 initiatives have been put to referendums. The populace has been conservative, approving only about 10% of these initiatives; in addition, they have often opted for a version of the initiative rewritten by government. (See Direct democracy in Switzerland below.)[3][4][5][6]

text: Some of the issues surrounding the related notion of a direct democracy using the Internet and other communications technologies are dealt with in e-democracy and below under the term electronic direct democracy. More concisely, the concept of open source governance applies principles of the free software movement to the governance of people, allowing the entire populace to participate in government directly, as much or as little as they please.[12]

text: Examples[edit]

text: Ancient Athens[edit]

text: Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 500 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model, none were as powerful, stable, or well-documented as that of Athens. In the direct democracy of Athens, the citizens did not nominate representatives to vote on legislation and executive bills on their behalf (as in the United States) but instead voted as individuals. The public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire of the comic poets in the theatres.[13]

text: Solon (594 BC), Cleisthenes (508–507 BCE), and Ephialtes (462 BC) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institution, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes' constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.

text: The greatest and longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles; after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolution towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts are of this 4th-century modification rather than of the Periclean system. It was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but the extent to which they were a real democracy is debatable.[14]

text: Switzerland[edit]

text: The pure form of direct democracy exists only in the Swiss cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden and Glarus.[15] The Swiss Confederation is a semi-direct democracy (representative democracy with strong instruments of direct democracy).[15] The nature of direct democracy in Switzerland is fundamentally complemented by its federal governmental structures (in German also called the Subsidiaritätsprinzip).[3][4][5][6]

text: Most western countries have representative systems.[15] Switzerland is a rare example of a country with instruments of direct democracy (at the levels of the municipalities, cantons, and federal state). Citizens have more power than in a representative democracy. On any political level citizens can propose changes to the constitution (popular initiative), or ask for an optional referendum to be held on any law voted by the federal, cantonal parliament and/or municipal legislative body.[16]

text: The list for mandatory or optional referendums on each political level are generally much longer in Switzerland than in any other country; for example any amendment to the constitution must automatically be voted on by the Swiss electorate and cantons, on cantonal/communal levels often any financial decision of a certain substantial amount decreed by legislative and/or executive bodies as well.[16]

text: Swiss citizens vote regularly on any kind of issue on every political level, such as financial approvals of a school house or the building of a new street, or the change of the policy regarding sexual work, or on constitutional changes, or on the foreign policy of Switzerland, four times a year.[17] Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, on 103 federal questions besides many more cantonal and municipal questions.[18] During the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums.[15]

text: In Switzerland, simple majorities are sufficient at the municipal and cantonal level, but at the federal level double majorities are required on constitutional issues.[11]

text: A double majority requires approval by a majority of individuals voting, and also by a majority of cantons. Thus, in Switzerland a citizen-proposed amendment to the federal constitution (i.e. popular initiative) cannot be passed at the federal level if a majority of the people approve but a majority of the cantons disapprove.[11] For referendums or propositions in general terms (like the principle of a general revision of the Constitution), a majority of those voting is sufficient (Swiss Constitution, 2005).

text: In 1890, when the provisions for Swiss national citizen lawmaking were being debated by civil society and government, the Swiss adopted the idea of double majorities from the United States Congress, in which House votes were to represent the people and Senate votes were to represent the states.[11] According to its supporters, this "legitimacy-rich" approach to national citizen lawmaking has been very successful. Kris Kobach claims that Switzerland has had tandem successes both socially and economically which are matched by only a few other nations. Kobach states at the end of his book, "Too often, observers deem Switzerland an oddity among political systems. It is more appropriate to regard it as a pioneer." Finally, the Swiss political system, including its direct democratic devices in a multi-level governance context, becomes increasingly interesting for scholars of European Union integration.[19]

text: Paris Commune[edit]

text: In 1871 after the establishment of the Paris Commune, the Parisians established a decentralized direct system of government with appointed organizers to make sense of the largely spontaneous uprising. While it still refused women the right to vote, they were heavily involved in the consensus before votes took place. Everything from the military to when meetings took place was democratized, and such decentralization and aforementioned democratization led many members of the First Internationale to regard the Paris Commune as a stateless society.

text: Due to the short lifespan of the Commune, only one citywide election was held and the structures necessary to facilitate future organized elections on large scales was largely nonexistent. However, the influence of direct democratization in the Paris Commune is not to be understated.

text: United States[edit]

text: In the New England region of the United States, towns in areas such as Vermont decide local affairs through the direct democratic process of the town meeting.[20] This is the oldest form of direct democracy in the United States, and predates the founding of the country by at least a century.

text: Direct democracy was not what the framers of the United States Constitution envisioned for the nation. They saw a danger in tyranny of the majority. As a result, they advocated a representative democracy in the form of a constitutional republic over a direct democracy. For example, James Madison, in Federalist No. 10, advocates a constitutional republic over direct democracy precisely to protect the individual from the will of the majority. He says,

text: Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

text: As many people believe the united states is a democracy, this is not true for the reason that we elect representatives to make decisions for us. This is from Aragya Goyal. Thanks. [A] pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.[21]

text: John Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, said: "Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state – it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage." Alexander Hamilton said, "That a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be a perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure, deformity."[22]

text: Despite the framers' intentions at the beginning of the republic, ballot measures and their corresponding referendums have been widely used at the state and sub-state level. There is much state and federal case law, from the early 1900s to the 1990s, that protects the people's right to each of these direct democracy governance components (Magleby, 1984, and Zimmerman, 1999). The first United States Supreme Court ruling in favor of the citizen lawmaking was in Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118 in 1912 (Zimmerman, December 1999). President Theodore Roosevelt, in his "Charter of Democracy" speech to the 1912 Ohio constitutional convention, stated: "I believe in the Initiative and Referendum, which should be used not to destroy representative government, but to correct it whenever it becomes misrepresentative."[23]

text: In various states, referendums through which the people rule include:

text:
Referrals by the legislature to the people of "proposed constitutional amendments" (constitutionally used in 49 states, excepting only Delaware – Initiative & Referendum Institute, 2004).
Referrals by the legislature to the people of "proposed statute laws" (constitutionally used in all 50 states – Initiative & Referendum Institute, 2004).
Constitutional amendment initiative is a constitutionally-defined petition process of "proposed a constitutional law", which, if successful, results in its provisions being written directly into the state's constitution. Since the constitutional law cannot be altered by state legislatures, this direct democracy component gives the people an automatic superiority and sovereignty, over representative government (Magelby, 1984). It is utilized at the state level in nineteen states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota (Cronin, 1989). Among these states, there are three main types of the constitutional amendment initiative, with different degrees of involvement of the state legislature distinguishing between the types (Zimmerman, December 1999).
Statute law initiative is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated petition process of "proposed statute law", which, if successful, results in law being written directly into the state's statutes. The statute initiative is used at the state level in twenty-one states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming (Cronin, 1989). Note that, in Utah, there is no constitutional provision for citizen lawmaking. All of Utah's I&R law is in the state statutes (Zimmerman, December 1999). In most states, there is no special protection for citizen-made statutes; the legislature can begin to amend them immediately.
Statute law referendum is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated petition process of the "proposed veto of all or part of a legislature-made law", which, if successful, repeals the standing law. It is used at the state level in twenty-four states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming (Cronin, 1989).
The recall is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated, petition process, which, if successful, removes an elected official from office by "recalling" the official's election. In most state and sub-state jurisdictions having this governance component, voting for the ballot that determines the recall includes voting for one of a slate of candidates to be the next office holder, if the recall is successful. It is utilized at the state level in nineteen states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2011, Recall Of State Officials).

tag: ul

text: A total of 24 American states had constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated direct democracy governance components as of 1999 (Zimmerman, December 1999).

text: Rojava[edit]

text: The Rojava cantons are governed through a combination of district and civil councils. District councils consist of 300 members as well as two elected co-presidents- one man and one woman. District councils decide and carry out administrative and economic duties such as garbage collection, land distribution and cooperative enterprises.[24] Civil councils exist to promote social and political rights in the community.

text: Democratic reform trilemma[edit]

text: Democratic theorists have identified a trilemma due to the presence of three desirable characteristics of an ideal system of direct democracy, which are challenging to deliver all at once. These three characteristics are participation – widespread participation in the decision making process by the people affected; deliberation – a rational discussion where all major points of view are weighted according to evidence; and equality – all members of the population on whose behalf decisions are taken have an equal chance of having their views taken into account. Empirical evidence from dozens of studies suggests deliberation leads to better decision making.[8][25][26] The most popularly disputed form of direct popular participation is the referendum on constitutional matters.[27]

text: For the system to respect the principle of political equality, either everyone needs to be involved or there needs to be a representative random sample of people chosen to take part in the discussion. In the definition used by scholars such as James Fishkin, deliberative democracy is a form of direct democracy which satisfies the requirement for deliberation and equality but does not make provision to involve everyone who wants to be included in the discussion. Participatory democracy, by Fishkin's definition, allows inclusive participation and deliberation, but at a cost of sacrificing equality, because if widespread participation is allowed, sufficient resources rarely will be available to compensate people who sacrifice their time to participate in the deliberation. Therefore, participants tend to be those with a strong interest in the issue to be decided and often will not therefore be representative of the overall population.[28] Fishkin instead argues that random sampling should be used to select a small, but still representative, number of people from the general public.[7][8]

text: Fishkin concedes it is possible to imagine a system that transcends the trilemma, but it would require very radical reforms if such a system were to be integrated into mainstream politics.

text: Electronic direct democracy[edit]

text: Electronic direct democracy (EDD), also known as direct digital democracy (DDD),[29] is a form of direct democracy which utilizes telecommunications to facilitate public participation. Electronic direct democracy is sometimes referred to by other names, such as open-source governance and collaborative governance.[30]

text: EDD requires electronic voting or some way to register votes on issues electronically. As in any direct democracy, in an EDD, citizens would have the right to vote on legislation, author new legislation, and recall representatives (if any representatives are preserved).

text: Technology for supporting ED. has been researched and developed at the Florida Institute of Technology,[31] where the technology is used with student organizations. Numerous other software development projects are underway,[32] along with many supporting and related projects.[33] Several of these projects are now collaborating on a cross-platform architecture, under the umbrella of the Metagovernment project.[34]

text: EDD as a system is not fully implemented in a political government anywhere in the world, although several initiatives are currently forming. Ross Perot was a prominent advocate of EDD when he advocated "electronic town halls" during his 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns in the United States. Switzerland, already partially governed by direct democracy, is making progress towards such a system.[35] Senator Online, an Australian political party running for the Senate in the 2007 federal elections, proposed to institute an EDD system so that Australians can decide which way the senators vote on each and every bill.[36] In 2016 Senator Online ran candidates in the Australian Federal Elections under the AEC registered Party Name - Online Direct Democracy Party. ODDP The Party remains active in politics via Australian public Social Media forums ODDP Facebook ODDP Twitter.

text: A similar initiative was formed in 2002 in Sweden where the party Aktivdemokrati, running for the Swedish parliament, offers its members the power to decide the actions of the party over all or some areas of decision, or alternatively to use a proxy with immediate recall for one or several areas. Since early 2011, EDD parties are working together on the Participedia wiki E2D

text: The first mainstream direct democracy party to be registered with any country's electoral commission [checked against each country's register] is the UK's People's Administration Direct Democracy party.[37] The People's Administration have developed and published the complete architecture for a legitimate reform to EDD [including the required Parliamentary reform process].[38] Established by musicians and political activists, the People's Administration advocates using the web and telephone to enable the majority electorate to create, propose, and vote upon all policy implementation. The People's Administration's blueprint has been published in various forms since 1998 and the People's Administration is the first direct democracy party registered in a vote-able format anywhere in the world—making transition possible through evolution via election with legitimate majority support, instead of potentially through revolution via violence.

text: Flux (political party) is a political movement which aims to replace the world's elected legislatures with a new electronic system known as issue-based direct democracy (IBDD). Flux originated in and is most active in Australia, but it is also active internationally, with a group existing in Brazil.[39]

text: Mi-Vote MiVote is another political entity developed in Australia by Adam Jacoby. The online website hosts regular votes on matters of Australian legislative interest utilising block chain technology supplied by technological offshoot - Horizon State Horizon State

text: At a global level, a major initiative is being pushed forward by Democracy Earth Foundation DEF with their implementation of The Social Smart Contract Whitepaper V1, built on Ethereum Blockchain and being distributed under the title of Sovereign Sovereign Code This is an Open Source Initiative aiming to bring Direct Liquid Democracy to every community, through direct community participation in Block chain Processing, Data Allowance and Attention. Like all BC based technologies they will create "Tokens" which contribute toward a continual drip that underwrites a Universal Basic Income of voting rights for users. Democracy Earth Foundation is 501 (c) 3 non-profit registered with offices in San Francisco — Paris — New York and establishing Ambassadors worldwide.

text: Relation to other movements[edit]

text: Anarchists have advocated forms of direct democracy as an alternative to the centralized state and capitalism; however, others (such as individualist anarchists) have criticized direct democracy and democracy in general for ignoring the rights of the minority, and instead have advocated a form of consensus decision-making. Libertarian Marxists, however, fully support direct democracy in the form of the proletarian republic and see majority rule and citizen participation as virtues. The Young Communist League USA in particular refers to representative democracy as "bourgeois democracy", implying that they see direct democracy as "true democracy".[40]

text: In schools[edit]

text: Democratic schools modeled on Summerhill School resolve conflicts and make school policy decisions through full school meetings in which the votes of students and staff are weighted equally.[41]

text: Contemporary movements[edit]

text: Some notable contemporary movements working for direct democracy via direct democratic praxis include:[42]

text:
Abahlali baseMjondolo – South African shack dwellers' movement
Aktivdemokrati – political party for e-democracy Sweden
Autonomous Action – a Russian libertarian communist and anarchist movement
Change 2011 – a Finnish political party
¡Democracia Real YA! – Real Democracy NOW! Movement started from Spain.
Democracy International eV
Demoex – direct democracy party and experiment in Sweden
Direct Democracy Ireland
Direct Democracy Party of New Zealand
Direct Democracy (Poland) – Polish political party promoting direct democracy, established 2012
Direktdemokraterna; an alliance of three direct democratically oriented parties in Sweden, which received approx. 3000 votes in the 2014 election.
Electronic Democracy Party  – Turkish political party promoting e-democracy
Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy
The Federal Democratic Party of Uganda – advocates for direct democracy. Simon Peter Kabala-Kasirye, the party's founder, advises that the Federal States of Uganda each should practice pure democracy and forward their deliberations to the central government which has no powers to alter the result of the deliberations (e.g., Buganda Kingdom Federal State has values that Karamoja Federal State may not agree with, and vice versa, but neither can alter the result of the deliberations in either state).
Inclusive Democracy – Takis Fotopoulos' Inclusive Democracy Project that also publishes the Journal of Inclusive Democracy
Internet Party – registered party in Spain proposing a liquid democracy system.
Land Party – a ruralist direct democracy party in Galicia, Spain.
The Metagovernment project – a global umbrella group supporting development and implementation of Internet-based governance software[43]
myDirectDemocracy project – Global and Local groups developing a New Human Right and Freedom – Direct Democracy
The National Initiative for Democracy – United States movement led by former US Senator Mike Gravel to allow national ballot initiatives
Occupy Movement and Occupy Wall Street
Party for Accountability, Competency and Transparency – an electronic direct democracy party (pending registration) in Canada
Partido de la Red – party in Argentina that promotes a balance between direct and representative democracy. Many of the founders are now developing "Sovereign" - The Democracy Earth Platform
The Party of Internet Democracy – a direct democracy party in Hungary
People's Administration Direct Democracy Party
Pirate Party
Flux (political party) – an electronic direct democracy party in Australia utilising block-chain technology.
Online Direct Democracy Party - formerly - Senator On-Line – an electronic direct democracy party in Australia ODDP
Thrive New Zealand – New Zealand-based political party promoting direct democracy utilising an on-line tool called RealVoice.
Direct Democracy Romania – the first Romanian political party promoting direct democracy, established in 2015


document_title: Big Hero 6: The Series

question_text: who does fred's voice in big hero 6

question_tokens: who does fred 's voice in big hero 6

text: Big Hero 6: The Series

text: Plot[edit]

text: The series follows the events of the feature film Big Hero 6 and continues the adventures of 14-year-old tech genius Hiro Hamada and the compassionate, cutting-edge robot Baymax created by his late brother Tadashi. Along with his friends Wasabi, Honey Lemon, Go Go and Fred, they form the superhero team Big Hero 6 and embark on high-tech adventures as they protect their city from an array of scientifically enhanced villains. Hiro also faces academic challenges and social trials as the new prodigy at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology (SFIT).

text: Voice cast[edit]

text: Returning characters[edit]

text:
Ryan Potter as Hiro Hamada,[4] a 14-year-old robotics prodigy whose brother Tadashi Hamada was killed in an explosion at the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology (SFIT) and member of Big Hero 6.
Scott Adsit as Baymax,[4] an inflatable robot originally built by Tadashi as a medical assistant, but reprogrammed by Hiro to also use martial arts and member of Big Hero 6.
Jamie Chung as GoGo Tomago,[5] a tough, athletic student at SFIT who specializes in electromagnetics and member of Big Hero 6.
Genesis Rodriguez as Honey Lemon,[4] a student at SFIT and chemistry enthusiast and member of Big Hero 6
Khary Payton as Wasabi,[4] a smart, slightly neurotic at SFIT student who specializes in lasers and member of Big Hero 6.
Brooks Wheelan as Fred,[4] a comic book fan who is also team mascot at SFIT and member of Big Hero 6.
Maya Rudolph as Aunt Cass,[4] Hiro's aunt and guardian.
David Shaughnessy as Heathcliff,[4] Fred's family butler.
Alan Tudyk as Alistair Krei,[4] a pioneer entrepreneur and CEO of Krei Tech.
Paul Briggs as Mr. Yama, a notorious gangster working under Obake and Hiro's arch-nemesis.[6]
Stan Lee as Frederick Frederickson III,[4] Fred's Dad and a former superhero.
Daniel Henney as Tadashi Hamada, Hiro’s older brother who built Baymax and was killed by Professor Callaghan who started a fire and let him die. He appears as a recording in "Baymax Returns".[6]

text: New characters[edit]

text:
Jenifer Lewis as Professor Granville,[4] the new head of the robotics program at SFIT.
Andrew Scott as Obake,[4] a mysterious villain.
Andy Richter as Globby[4]
Diedrich Bader as Bluff Dunder,[4] a news reporter for San Fransokyo.
Susan Sullivan as Fred's Mom[4]
Sean Giambrone as Richardson Mole,[4] an eleven year old fanboy and Fred's arch-rival.
John Ross Bowie as Mel[4]
Haley Tju as Karmi,[4] a classmate at SFIT who is jealous of Hiro, but is in love with his alter ego.

text: Development and production[edit]

text: In March 2016, Disney announced that a Big Hero 6 television series was in development and will premiere on Disney XD in 2017. The series takes place immediately after the events of the film and is created by Kim Possible's Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, and executive produced by McCorkle, Schooley and Nick Filippi.[2] Talking to Leonard Maltin for the podcast Maltin on Movies, Scott Adsit suggested an early 2018 release date.[7]

text: In March 2016, it was revealed that Jamie Chung will reprise her role as GoGo[5] and that following November, it was revealed that most of the cast members from the film would reprise their roles, including Ryan Potter, Genesis Rodriguez, Scott Adsit, Alan Tudyk, and Maya Rudolph.[4] Khary Payton replaced Damon Wayans Jr. as Wasabi and Brooks Wheelan replaced T. J. Miller as Fred.[4] On January 6, 2017, Disney XD released an official teaser trailer for the series.[1]

text: The first season will consist of 21 half-hours.[8]

text: On March 14, 2017, it was renewed for a second season, ahead of the series premiere.[9]

text: Episodes[edit]

text:
No.
Title [10]
Directed by
Written by
Original air date
U.S. viewers
(millions)

1
"Baymax Returns"
Stephen Heneveld, Ben Juwono
Written by : Sharon Flynn, Paiman Kalayen
Storyboard by : Trey Buongiorno, Christopher Copeland, Monica Davila, Michael Fong, Stephanie Stine, David Vantuyle, Young ki Yoon
November 20, 2017 (2017-11-20)
1.11 (Disney Channel)[11]
0.40 (Disney XD)[11]

Shortly following the defeat of Callaghan and Hiro's first day at San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, Hiro discovers Baymax's personality chip and proceeds to rebuild his skeleton. Meanwhile, Fred tries to convince the reluctant group to return to crime fighting as the superhero team Big Hero 6. Elsewhere, Yama is hired by the mysterious Obake to steal an unusual paperweight from Professor Granville, the new dean at SFIT and Hiro's professor. Hiro rushes the rebuilding process and the skeleton escapes and is captured by Yama and his crew. Yama pressures Hiro to retrieve the paperweight in exchange for the skeleton. With Fred's help they get it, but Yama double crosses them. Wasabi, Gogo and Honey Lemon arrive and save them and make off with the skeleton and paperweight, but meanwhile Yama managed to create duplicates of the skeleton and sends them out to attack the city. They also steal the paperweight which is revealed to have powerful magnetic energy that affects electric appliances including a train carrying Aunt Cass. The Big Hero 6 stop the train and Hiro tosses the paperweight into the sky where it safely explodes. The next day, Granville gives Hiro Tadashi's old lab and he joins his friends in becoming the Big Hero 6. Meanwhile the villain Obake contemplates his next move.

2
"Fred's Bro-Tillion"
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBD

When super-villain Baron Von Steamer crashes Fred's Bro-Tillion, Big Hero 6 springs into action.

3
"Big Roommates"
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBD

A purse thief gets more than he bargained for when he steals Honey Lemon's chem-lab purse and it turns him into a monster.

4
"Issue 188"
TBA
TBA
[note 1]
TBD

Professor Granville sets Hiro up with Karmi, a student studying biology. Karmi despises Hiro for replacing her as the youngest student to join SFIT, yet ironically, she has a crush on Hiro's alter ego which she somehow cannot seem to recognize. Meanwhile, the Big Hero 6 take on Barb and Juniper, known collectively as the electricity and pop music powered High Voltage. In order to help, Fred has to visit his arch-nemesis, Richardson Mole who has in his possession issue 188 of Captain Fancy. In the end, Fred's mission turned out to be in regards to Hiro's identity not being noticed and the team take out High Voltage easily. Hiro realizes that Granville set him up with Karmi to help her become more social, she in turn gains some respect for Hiro, but still slightly looks down on him.

5
"Food Fight"
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBD

When Aunt Cass stumbles into an underground cooking competition, she thrives and becomes addicted to the excitement.

6
"Muirahara Woods"
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBD

Hiro, Fred, and Baymax follow GoGo into the mysterious Muirahara Woods where they get lost and everything electronic strangely fails including Baymax.

7
"Failure Mode"
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBD

Hiro becomes demoralized when his latest school project fails spectacularly; the team must take on the incompetent villain, Globby.

tag: table

text: Broadcast[edit]

text: Baymax Returns premiered on Disney XD channels in Canada on November 20, 2017 and in the UK and Ireland on November 30, 2017.[12][13]

text: Awards and nominations[edit]

text:
Year
Award
Category
Nominee(s)
Result
Ref.

2018
Annie Award
Outstanding Achievement for Production Design in an Animated Television / Broadcast Production
Mark Taihei, Ben Plouffe, Chris Whittier, Sylvia Filcak, Amy Chen
Pending

text: Notes[edit]

text: Jump up ^ This episode was first released on Disney XD UK's YouTube account on February 16, 2018.

tag: ol


document_title: Ohio River

question_text: where does the mississippi river and ohio river meet

text: Ohio River

text: Gallery[edit]

text:
The Allegheny River, left, and Monongahela River join to form the Ohio River at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the largest metropolitan area on the river.

Built between 1849 and 1851, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge was the first bridge across the river.

Louisville, Kentucky, The deepest point of the Ohio River is a scour hole just below Cannelton locks and dam (river mile 720.7). The widest point of the river is at the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers.

A barge hauls coal in the Louisville and Portland Canal, the only artificial portion of the Ohio River.

The Tall Stacks festival celebrates the riverboats of Cincinnati, Ohio, every three or four years.

text: Etymology[edit]

text: The name "Ohio" comes from the Seneca language (an Iroquoian language), Ohi:yo' (roughly pronounced oh-hee-yoh, with the vowel in "hee" held longer), a proper name derived from ohiːyoːh ("good river"), therefore literally translating to "Good River".[5][7] "Great river" and "large creek" have also been given as translations.[8][9]

text: Native Americans, including the Lenni Lenape and Iroquois, considered the Ohio and Allegheny rivers as the same, as is suggested by a New York State road sign on Interstate 86 that refers to the Allegheny River also as Ohi:yo';[10] the Geographic Names Information System lists O-hee-yo and O-hi-o as variant names for the Allegheny.[11]

text: An earlier Miami-Illinois language name was also applied to the Ohio River, Mosopeleacipi ("river of the Mosopelea" tribe). Shortened in the Shawnee language to pelewa thiipi, spelewathiipi or peleewa thiipiiki, the name evolved through variant forms such as "Polesipi", "Peleson", "Pele Sipi" and "Pere Sipi", and eventually stabilized to the variant spellings "Pelisipi", "Pelisippi" and "Pellissippi". Originally applied just to the Ohio River, the "Pelisipi" name later was variously applied back and forth between the Ohio River and the Clinch River in Virginia and Tennessee.[12][13] In his original draft of the Land Ordinance of 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed a new state called "Pelisipia", to the south of the Ohio River, which would have included parts of present-day Eastern Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia.[12]

text: Geography and hydrography[edit]

text: The Ohio River  is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From there, it flows northwest through Allegheny and Beaver counties, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia–Ohio–Pennsylvania triple-state line (near East Liverpool, Ohio; Chester, West Virginia; and Ohioville, Pennsylvania). From there, it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia.

text: The river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. The course forms the northern borders of West Virginia and Kentucky; and the southern borders of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, until it joins the Mississippi River at the city of Cairo, Illinois.

text: Major tributaries of the river, indicated by the location of the mouths, include:

text:
Allegheny River – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Monongahela River – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Saw Mill Run – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Chartiers Creek – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Montour Run – Coraopolis, Pennsylvania
Beaver River – Rochester, Pennsylvania
Breezewood Creek – Beaver, Pennsylvania
Raccoon Creek – Center Township
Little Beaver Creek – East Liverpool, Ohio
Wheeling Creek – Wheeling, West Virginia
Middle Island Creek – St. Marys, West Virginia
Little Muskingum River – Ohio
Duck Creek – Marietta, Ohio
Muskingum River – Marietta, Ohio
Little Kanawha River – Parkersburg, West Virginia
Hocking River – Hockingport, Ohio
Kanawha River – Point Pleasant, West Virginia
Guyandotte River – Huntington, West Virginia
Big Sandy River – Kentucky-West Virginia border
Little Sandy River – Greenup, Kentucky
Little Scioto River – Sciotoville, Ohio
Scioto River – Portsmouth, Ohio
Kinniconick Creek – Vanceburg, Kentucky
Little Miami River – Cincinnati, Ohio
Licking River – Newport-Covington, Kentucky
Mill Creek – Cincinnati, Ohio
Great Miami River – Ohio-Indiana border
Kentucky River – Carrollton, Kentucky
Salt River – West Point, Kentucky
Green River – near Henderson, Kentucky
Wabash River – Indiana-Illinois-Kentucky border
Saline River – Illinois
Cumberland River – Smithland, Kentucky
Tennessee River – Paducah, Kentucky
Cache River – Illinois

text: Drainage basin[edit]

text: The Ohio's drainage basin covers 189,422 square miles (490,600 km2), encompassing the easternmost regions of the Mississippi Basin. The Ohio drains parts of 15 states in four regions.

text:
Northeast
New York: a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny.
Pennsylvania: a corridor from the southwestern corner to north central border.
Mid-Atlantic/Upper South
Maryland: a small corridor along the Youghiogheny River on the western border.
West Virginia: all but the Eastern Panhandle.
Kentucky: all but a small part in the extreme west drained directly by the Mississippi.
Tennessee: all but a small part in the extreme west drained directly by the Mississippi, and a very small area in the southeastern corner which is drained by the Conasauga River.
Virginia: most of southwest Virginia.
North Carolina: the western quarter.
Midwest
Ohio: the southern two-thirds
Indiana: all but the northern area.
Illinois: the southeast quarter.
Deep South
Georgia: the far northwest corner.
Alabama: the northern portion.
Mississippi: the northeast corner.
South Carolina: less than 1 square mile in the northwest.

text: Geology[edit]

text: From a geological standpoint, the Ohio River is young. The river formed on a piecemeal basis beginning between 2.5 and 3 million years ago. The earliest ice ages occurred at this time and dammed portions of north-flowing rivers. The Teays River was the largest of these rivers. The modern Ohio River flows within segments of the ancient Teays. The ancient rivers were rearranged or consumed by glaciers and lakes.

text: Upper Ohio River[edit]

text: The upper Ohio River formed when one of the glacial lakes overflowed into a south-flowing tributary of the Teays River. Prior to that event, the north-flowing Steubenville River (no longer in existence) ended between New Martinsville and Paden City, West Virginia. The south-flowing Marietta River (no longer in existence) ended between the present-day cities. The overflowing lake carved through the separating hill and connected the rivers. The floodwaters enlarged the small Marietta valley to a size more typical of a large river. The new large river subsequently drained glacial lakes and melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age. The valley grew during and following the ice age. Many small rivers were altered or abandoned after the upper Ohio River formed. Valleys of some abandoned rivers can still be seen on satellite and aerial images of the hills of Ohio and West Virginia between Marietta, Ohio, and Huntington, West Virginia. As testimony to the major changes that occurred, such valleys are found on hilltops.[clarification needed]

text: Middle Ohio River[edit]

text: The middle Ohio River formed in a manner similar to formation of the upper Ohio River. A north-flowing river was temporarily dammed southwest of present-day Louisville, creating a large lake until the dam burst. A new route was carved to the Mississippi. Eventually the upper and middle sections combined to form what is essentially the modern Ohio River.

text: History[edit]

text: Pre-Columbian inhabitants of eastern North America considered the Ohio part of a single river continuing on through the lower Mississippi. The combined Allegheny-Ohio river is 1,310 miles (2,110 km) long and carries the largest volume of water of any tributary of the Mississippi. The Indians and early explorers and settlers of the region also often considered the Allegheny to be part of the Ohio. The forks (the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at what is now Pittsburgh) was considered a strategic military location.

text: French fur traders operated in the area, and France built forts along the Allegheny River. In 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, led an expedition of French traders who became the first Europeans to see the river. He traveled from Canada and entered the headwaters of the Ohio, traveling as far as the Falls of Ohio at present-day Louisville before turning back. He returned to explore the river again in other expeditions. An Italian cartographer traveling with him created the first map of the Ohio River. La Salle claimed the Ohio Valley for France.

text: In 1749, Great Britain established the Ohio Company to settle and trade in the area. Exploration of the territory and trade with the Indians in the region near the Forks by British colonials from Pennsylvania and Virginia – both of which claimed the territory – led to conflict with the French. In 1763, following the Seven Years' War, France ceded the area to Britain.[14]

text: The 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix opened Kentucky to colonial settlement and established the Ohio River as a southern boundary for American Indian territory.[15] In 1774, the Quebec Act restored the land east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River to Quebec, in effect making the Ohio the southern boundary of Canada. This appeased the Canadien British subjects but angered the Thirteen Colonies. Lord Dunmore's War south of the Ohio river also contributed to giving the land north to Quebec to stop further encroachment of the British colonials on native land. During the American Revolution, in 1776 the British military engineer John Montrésor created a map of the river showing the strategic location of Fort Pitt, including specific navigational information about the Ohio River's rapids and tributaries in that area.[16] However, the Treaty of Paris (1783) gave the entire Ohio Valley to the United States.

text: The economic connection of the Ohio Country to the East was significantly increased in 1818 when the National Road being built westward from Cumberland, Maryland reached Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), providing an easier overland connection from the Potomac River to the Ohio River.[17]

text: Louisville was founded at the only major natural navigational barrier on the river, the Falls of the Ohio. The Falls were a series of rapids where the river dropped 26 feet (7.9 m) in a stretch of about 2 miles (3.2 km). In this area, the river flowed over hard, fossil-rich beds of limestone. The first locks on the river – the Louisville and Portland Canal – were built to circumnavigate the falls between 1825 and 1830. Fears that Louisville's transshipment industry would collapse proved ill-founded: the increasing size of steamships and barges on the river meant that the outdated locks could only service the smallest vessels until well after the Civil War. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers improvements were expanded again in the 1960s, forming the present-day McAlpine Locks and Dam.

text: Because the Ohio River flowed westward, it became a convenient means of westward movement by pioneers traveling from western Pennsylvania. After reaching the mouth of the Ohio, settlers would travel north on the Mississippi River to St. Louis, Missouri. There, some continued on up the Missouri River, some up the Mississippi, and some further west over land routes. In the early 19th century, river pirates such as Samuel Mason, operating out of Cave-In-Rock, Illinois, waylaid travelers on their way down the river. They killed travelers, stealing their goods and scuttling their boats. The folktales about Mike Fink recall the keelboats used for commerce in the early days of European settlement. The Ohio River boatmen were the inspiration for performer Dan Emmett, who in 1843 wrote the song "The Boatman's Dance".

text: Trading boats and ships traveled south on the Mississippi to New Orleans, and sometimes beyond to the Gulf of Mexico and other ports in the Americas and Europe. This provided a much-needed export route for goods from the west, since the trek east over the Appalachian Mountains was long and arduous. The need for access to the port of New Orleans by settlers in the Ohio Valley led to the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

text: Because the river is the southern border of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, it was part of the border between free states and slave states in the years before the American Civil War. The expression "sold down the river" originated as a lament of Upper South slaves, especially from Kentucky, who were shipped via the Ohio and Mississippi to cotton and sugar plantations in the Deep South.[18][19]  Before and during the Civil War, the Ohio River was called the "River Jordan" by slaves crossing it to escape to freedom in the North via the Underground Railroad.[20] More escaping slaves, estimated in the thousands, made their perilous journey north to freedom across the Ohio River than anywhere else across the north-south frontier. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, the bestselling novel that fueled abolitionist work, was the best known of the anti-slavery novels that portrayed such escapes across the Ohio. The times have been expressed by 20th-century novelists as well, such as the Nobel Prize-winning Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved was adapted as a film of the same name. She also composed the libretto for the opera Margaret Garner (2005), based on the life and trial of an enslaved woman who escaped with her family across the river.

text: The Ohio River is considered to separate Midwestern Great Lakes states from the Upper South states, which were historically border states in the Civil War.

text: The colonial charter for Virginia defined its territory as extending to the north shore of the Ohio, so that the riverbed was "owned" by Virginia. Where the river serves as a boundary between states today, Congress designated the entire river to belong to the states on the east and south, i.e., West Virginia and Kentucky at the time of admission to the Union, that were divided from Virginia. Thus Wheeling Island, the largest inhabited island in the Ohio River, belongs to West Virginia, although it is closer to the Ohio shore than to the West Virginia shore. Kentucky brought suit against Indiana in the early 1980s because of the building of the Marble Hill nuclear power plant in Indiana, which would have discharged its waste water into the river.

text: The U.S. Supreme Court held that Kentucky's jurisdiction (and, implicitly, that of West Virginia) extended only to the low-water mark of 1793 (important because the river has been extensively dammed for navigation, so that the present river bank is north of the old low-water mark.)  Similarly, in the 1990s, Kentucky challenged Illinois' right to collect taxes on a riverboat casino docked in Metropolis, citing its own control of the entire river. A private casino riverboat that docked in Evansville, Indiana, on the Ohio River opened about the same time. Although such boats cruised on the Ohio River in an oval pattern up and down, the state of Kentucky soon protested. Other states had to limit their cruises to going forwards, then reversing and going backwards on the Indiana shore only. Both Illinois and Indiana have long since changed their laws to allow riverboat casinos to be permanently docked, with Illinois changing in 1999 and Indiana in 2002.

text: In the early 1980s, the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area was established at Clarksville, Indiana.

text:
The confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers is at Cairo, Illinois.

Carl D. Perkins Bridge in Portsmouth, Ohio with Ohio River and Scioto River tributary on right.

Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, West Virginia which collapsed into the Ohio River on December 15, 1967, killing 46 persons.

Mouth of the Ohio, as it feeds into the Mississippi.

Cave-in-rock, view on the Ohio (circa 1832, Cave-In-Rock, Illinois): aquatint by Karl Bodmer from the book Maximilian, Prince of Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America, during the years 1832–1834

text: Pollution[edit]

text: The Ohio River as a whole is ranked as the most polluted river in the US based on 2009 and 2010 data although the more industrial and regional Ohio tributary, Monongahela River, ranked behind 16 other American rivers for pollution at number 17.[21]

text: The Ohio River was polluted with hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA by DuPont chemical company, from an outflow pipe, for several decades beginning in the 1950s.[22]

text: River depth[edit]

text: The Ohio River is a naturally shallow river that was artificially deepened by a series of dams. The natural depth of the river varied from about 3 to 20 feet (0.91 to 6.10 m). The dams raise the water level and have turned the river largely into a series of reservoirs, eliminating shallow stretches and allowing for commercial navigation. From its origin to Cincinnati, the average depth is approximately 15 feet (5 m). The largest immediate drop in water level is below the McAlpine Locks and Dam at the Falls of the Ohio at Louisville, Kentucky, where flood stage is reached when the water reaches 23 feet (7 m) on the lower gauge. However, the river's deepest point is 168 feet (51 m) on the western side of Louisville, Kentucky. From Louisville, the river loses depth very gradually until its confluence with the Mississippi at Cairo, Illinois, where it has an approximate depth of 19 feet (6 m).

text: Water levels for the Ohio River from Smithland Lock and Dam upstream to Pittsburgh are predicted daily by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Ohio River Forecast Center.[23] The water depth predictions are relative to each local flood plain based upon predicted rainfall in the Ohio River basin in five reports as follows:

text:
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Hannibal Locks and Dam, Ohio (including the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers)
Willow Island Locks and Dam, Ohio, to Greenup Lock and Dam, Kentucky (including the Kanawha River)
Portsmouth, Ohio, to Markland Locks and Dam, Kentucky
McAlpine Locks and Dam, Kentucky, to Cannelton Locks and Dam, Indiana
Newburgh Lock and Dam, Indiana, to Golconda, Illinois

text: The water levels for the Ohio River from Smithland Lock and Dam to Cairo, Illinois, are predicted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center.[24]

text: Smithland Lock and Dam, Illinois, to Cairo, Illinois

text: Metropolitan areas[edit]

text:
Metro Area

Population

Pittsburgh

2.4 million

Cincinnati

2.2 million

Louisville

1.5 million

Huntington-Ashland

365,419

Evansville

358,000

Parkersburg

160,000

Wheeling

145,000

Weirton-Steubenville

132,000

Owensboro

112,000