Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Referendum   Listen
noun
Referendum  n.  (pl. referenda)  
1.
A diplomatic agent's note asking for instructions from his government concerning a particular matter or point.
2.
The right to approve or reject by popular vote a meassure passed upon by a legislature.
3.
The principle or practice of referring measures passed upon by the legislative body to the body of voters, or electorate, for approval or rejection, as in the Swiss cantons (except Freiburg) and in various local governments in the United States, and also in the local option laws, etc.; also, the right to so approve or reject laws, or the vote by which this is done. Referendum is distinguished from the mandate, or instruction of representatives by the people, from direct government by the people, in which they initiate and make the laws by direct action without representation, and from a plebiscite, or popular vote taken on any measure proposed by a person or body having the initiative but not constituting a representative or constituent body.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Referendum" Quotes from Famous Books



... this persistent work was born the Playground Association of America, an organization of men and women, which in the three years of its existence has established more than three hundred playgrounds for children. In Massachusetts they have secured a referendum providing that all cities of over ten thousand inhabitants shall vote upon the question of providing adequate playgrounds. The act provides that every city and town in the Commonwealth which accepts the act shall ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr

... Relation to Contest. Ohio cases. Vagueness of election laws protects corruption. Ignorant vote used by corrupt. Form of ballot often helps corruption. Only 13 states have headless ballots. Form of Suffrage amendment ballots in recent years aided in defeat of measure. Examples. Non-partisan referendum not protected from fraud like party questions. In most states women cannot be watchers at polls. Aliens can vote in eight states. Illiterate can ...
— Woman Suffrage By Federal Constitutional Amendment • Various

... public improvements, or of licensing saloons. Within recent years in a number of states the people have gained direct control over lawmaking in regard to any subject whatever, both in local and state affairs, by means of the "initiative and referendum." The "initiative" is the right of the voters themselves to "initiate," or propose, legislation. This is done by means of a petition signed by a specified number of voters. The legislature may then act upon the proposed law; but if it does not ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn

... where a basic principle is not involved, he is flexible. According as you approve or disapprove of him, he is "capable of development" or "inconsistent." Thus he completely changed front on the question of preparedness from 1914 to 1916. When the question of the initiative and referendum arose in Oregon, his attitude was the reverse of what it had been as professor of politics. When matters of detail are under discussion, he has displayed much willingness for and some skill in compromise, as was abundantly illustrated ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... thing to do. The count shows that sixteen millions voted Republican, and nine millions Democratic. They voted, says Mr. Harvey, for and against the League of Nations, and in support of this claim, he can point to Mr. Wilson's request for a referendum, and to the undeniable fact that the Democratic party and Mr. Cox insisted that the League was the issue. But then, saying that the League was the issue did not make the League the issue, and by counting the votes on election day you do not know the real ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... time it might hope to supplant the sunflower as the floral emblem of Kansas, as typifying a great political principle which originated in that state: The Initiative, when one took a chance and ate a young onion; the Referendum, while one's digestive apparatus wrestled with it; the Recall, if it disagreed with one. Alone, of all the vegetables, stood spinach, with not a single detractor. On this issue the vote in the affirmative practically was by acclamation. I am tin position ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... The Payne-Aldrich tariff, enacted by a party pledged to tariff revision, had been not only an injury but an insult, and if any American Presidential election could ever be interpreted as a popular referendum on any specific policy the election of 1912 meant that the Payne-Aldrich tariff must be revised. At the time of the enactment of that bill Mr. Wilson had written a critical article in The North American Review ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan

... referendum should be made a part of the legislative system of Ohio. Pearson, p. 67: Synopses of ...
— Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Debate Index - Second Edition • Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

... middle west after a drought; was on the coast when they fought free silver; was in the northwest when it campaigned for the referendum; in Wisconsin when they fought cigarettes and in Maine when the original thirsty population tried to upset the prohibition law; but of all places I've been in, and all campaigns I've been through ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... Astor, the Mercantile, and the Columbia College—I found the principal descriptive and historical works on Switzerland. But from all these sources only a slender stock of information with regard to the influence of the Initiative and Referendum on the later political and economic development of Switzerland was to be obtained. So, when, three years ago, with inquiry on this point in mind, I spent some months in Switzerland, about all I had at first on which to base investigations was a collection of commonplace or beclouded ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... suffrage; ballot, ticket; referendum, plebiscite. Associated Words: enfranchise, enfranchisement, disenfranchise, disenfranchisement, suffragist, elect, election electoral, electorate, acclamation, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... brother, Grand-Duke Michael, as his successor. The latter dared not attempt to assume the imperial role. He recognized that the end of autocracy had been reached and declined to accept the throne unless chosen by a popular referendum vote. On March 16th, the day after the abdication of Nicholas II, Michael issued a ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org