Putting in concrete form the suggestions for obtaining more effective popular action through the amending process, we may say:

(1) Measures of fundamental importance-measures of a real constitutional character-should, as at present, in every case be subject to a popular vote. Upon such measures the people should pass, and upon them they may be presumed to have a real opinion. The compulsory referendum should be retained for all such constitutional proposals.

(2) Upon matters of detail the legislature should be permitted to act by an increased majority, subject however to a popular vote should a sufficient number of the electors petition for such action.38 Upon matters of small importance the optional referendum is a sufficient check on legislative action, and the less frequent votes upon trivial matters will enable the electors to express a more intelligent judgment upon measures of real importance. Matters of purely local importance, which bear little or no relation to the policy of the state as a whole, should, of course, not be decided either by the legislature or by a state referendum. A number of questions submitted to the people of California, Louisiana, Missouri, and South Carolina during the past ten years might much better have been left to the particular cities or local districts directly concerned.

and an interesting question would be raised as to the attitude of the courts toward such legislation, but as has already been suggested, the courts have already largely broken down the distinction between state constitutions and state statutes.

38 The distinction between important and relatively unimportant constitutional questions could in most cases be made without great difficulty. The compulsory popular vote might well be made the usual method of altering constitutions, and there could then be an enumeration of specific constitutional provisions which might be changed without a popular vote unless such vote was petitioned for.

(3) Popular control over the proposal of amendments should be extended. Legislatures are not always responsive to the desires of the people in this respect, and it should be possible to initiate proposed amendments by popular petition. The popular initiative has already been introduced in several states, and its extension with respect to constitutional questions is desirable. The popular initiative is open to many objections, both theoretical and practical, but the people should have power independently of the legislature, to force changes in their constitutions when such changes are desired. Perhaps the greatest value which the initiative will have is not in the direct results which may come from its use, but in its influence in causing legislatures to act upon matters upon which action is desired by the people.

(4) The plan of distributing the text of measures to each voter should be employed in preference to that of publication in newspapers. The separate ballot for constitutional questions also has advantages in that it separates the voting upon measures rather distinctly from that upon candidates. These things however are but machinery, and are of little value unless the questions submitted to the people are of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the voters.

The suggestions made above do not involve a decrease in popular influence upon constitutional changes. They do involve an attempt to concentrate attention upon fewer and more important measures, so that the popular vote may represent a real judgment and not merely an unintelligent and haphazard action.

APPENDIX

POPULAR VOTES UPON CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTIONS, 1899-1908

The votes upon amendments given in the following list have been obtained by correspondence with state officials or taken from official state publications. The list of amendments proposed has been checked with the annual lists given in the bulletins of the New York State Library, and with the statutes of the several states, and is probably complete for the period covered. Acknowledgment is made to the secretaries of state who have been kind enough to send information. Of the four hundred and seventy-two questions listed below, the popular vote has been obtained upon all but twenty-two. It has been impossible to obtain the popular votes upon three amendments submitted in Colorado in 1904 and 1906, and upon two proposals voted on in Kentucky in 1905 and 1907. The secretary of state of Georgia declined to furnish information regarding ten amendments submitted in that state, and the votes are not available in print; in Tennessee only the affirmative vote is returned, as no proposal is adopted unless the affirmative vote is more than one-half of the whole vote cast, so that upon the seven Tennessee proposals complete information is not available.

The total state vote used for comparison with the vote upon amendments is, where possible, the vote cast for the highest state officer chosen at the election when the proposed amendment is submitted; where no state officer is chosen at such an election the vote for President of the United States or for members of the national house of representatives is sometimes used; where the amendments were submitted at special elections the vote used for comparison has been that at the nearest general election (in most cases that at the nearest preced

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ing election). With the varying vote at different elections this necessary shifting of the basis of comparison vitiates the results to a certain extent, but mainly on the side of enlarging rather than diminishing the proportion of votes on constitutional questions; it was first planned to indicate for each item in this table the precise total vote (whether for governor, president, etc.) used as a basis for comparison, but this was found not to be feasible. The total votes used have been taken from official reports where possible, but in some cases from the World Almanac, although votes taken from unofficial sources have been examined in the effort to assure accuracy. The term "not adopted" is used in the table below with reference to proposals which received a majority of the votes cast upon their adoption or rejection, but which were not carried because of constitutional requirements of a larger vote. See pp. 185-188.

county or state...

1 Did not receive constitutional majority, although majority of votes cast on question.