The Impact of Direct Democracy on Society - Universität St.Gallen

– 71 –respect to the extraordinary fiscal referendum did a change occur concerning the number <strong>of</strong>members necessary to call in such an institution (art. 39 bis, 1 lit. b CC). This amendmentbecame necessary because the size <strong>of</strong> the cantonal parliament had been reduced from 170 to120 seats 68 .<strong>The</strong> canton Uri is one <strong>of</strong> the rare cases in which the index value for the optional fiscalreferendum remained the same for the period between 1997 and 2001, although a partialrevision with respect to the requirements did take place. From 1997 to 1998, the number <strong>of</strong>signatures requested was raised from 300 to 450 (see T/S 1999, p. 359), applicable to alloptional referenda. This revision, however, neither changed the results <strong>of</strong> evaluation <strong>of</strong> theabsolute quantity <strong>of</strong> signatures nor that <strong>of</strong> the relative number <strong>of</strong> signatures, because bothnumbers (still) fall into the identical categories before and after the change.In the canton Obwalden the electorate voted successfully for a supersession <strong>of</strong> theLandsgemeinde status on the 8th <strong>of</strong> June, 1997. An optional fiscal referendum was introducedwith a signature requirement <strong>of</strong> 100 voters to be collected within 30 days, and a financialthreshold <strong>of</strong> 500,000 Swiss Francs for nonrecurring expenses was set. In 1998, this thresholdwas then again doubled to 1,000,000 Swiss Francs; the identical development occurred forrecurring expenses. Hence, the index for the optional fiscal referendum was negativelyaffected in both 1998 and 1999. <strong>The</strong> overall index <strong>of</strong> fiscal referendum therefore reflects the(lower) value <strong>of</strong> the optional fiscal referendum as no mandatory referendum has existed since1998.<strong>The</strong> optional fiscal referendum was also revised in the canton <strong>of</strong> Tessin on the 14th <strong>of</strong>December, 1997, which became effective with the new constitution on the 1st <strong>of</strong> January,1998. <strong>The</strong> number <strong>of</strong> signatures necessary for such a referendum was kept at 7,000, but thetime allotted for their collection increased from 30 to 45 days (see also T/S 1999, p. 340). <strong>The</strong>financial threshold was also augmented to 1,000,000 Swiss Francs from the original 200,000Swiss Francs (see also T/S 1999, p. 341). This development meant an increase in the value forthe fiscal referendum from 1997 onwards.68 Personal communication with Mr. H. BACHMANN, Rechtsdienst <strong>of</strong> Luzern (21/01/2004).