Note 633 — INDEX

Footnote 633: On the operation of the optional referendum see Lowell, Governments and Parties, II., 252-261. "From 1874 till 1908 the Federal Assembly passed 261 bills and resolutions which could constitutionally be subjected to the referendum. Thirty of these 261 were actually voted on by the people, who ratified eleven and rejected nineteen of them. The effect of the federal optional legislative referendum was, then, to hold up a little more than seven per cent of the statutory output of the Federal Assembly." W. E. Rappard, in American Political Science Review, Aug., 1912, 357. On the most recent exercise of the federal referendum (the adoption, February 4, 1912, of a national Accident and Sickness Insurance bill) see M. Turmann, Le référendum suisse du 4 février—la loi fédérale sur l'assurance-maladie et l'assurance accident, in Le Correspondant, Feb. 10, 1912. This particular referendum was called for by 75,000 voters. The measure submitted was approved by a vote of 287,566 to 241,416, on a poll of 63.04 per cent of the registered electorate.(Back)