Talk:Administrative divisions of Rhode Island

United States: Rhode Island High‑importance

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County government in the United States[edit]

Yankee advice wanted! Although Rhode Island doesn't have counties in the usual sense, your insights may be helpful... To defuse the edit war that has started at Category:County government in the United States, I'd appreciate some additional input on the topic of whether U.S. counties are (1) a level of local government or (2) an arm of state government. Discussion thus far is on my User talk page at User_talk:Orlady#County_government, but we could move it to a content-oriented talk page if desired. --Orlady (talk) 00:29, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hello RI. I have no idea why Orlady is bothering you, as this issue has absolutely no impact on any Rhode Island articles. It appears that this person intends to carry on 50 discussions on the matter, HOWEVER, if you are interested...I am the other side of the edit war. My claim is that although county officials may be elected or appointed locally (i.e. not statewide), the actual county government itself is an arm of the state government. This is consistent with the powers they exercise (elections, law enforcement, etc.). If we could have some academically informed input, I would appreciate it, because the general impression and intuition that people have is that county government is "local government," but to those who actually study political science formally, the difference is known. The compromise that I propose is the persons should be categorized under "local politicians" while the offices should be categorized under "state government." Greg Bard (talk) 00:43, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have posted this issue to WikiProject United States, and WikiProject Politics. Please take your input to one or the other so I don't have to have 50 discussions. Greg Bard (talk) 01:27, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Gregbard started discussion of this matter at User_talk:Orlady#County_government. Please don't start a whole new discussion at some WikiProject page. If there is a desire to move the discussion, let's copy the pre-existing discussion to the new location. --Orlady (talk) 02:28, 18 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]