A constitutional referendum was held in Italy on 4 December 2016.^[1] Voters were asked whether they approved a constitutional law that amends the Italian Constitution to reform the composition and powers of the Parliament of Italy,^[2] as well as the division of powers between the State, the regions, and administrative entities.

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2016 Italian constitutional referendum

4 December 2016
Do you approve the text of the Constitutional Law concerning 'Provisions for overcoming equal bicameralism, reducing the number of Members of Parliament, limiting the operating costs of the institutions, the suppression of the CNEL and the revision of Title V of Part II of the Constitution' approved by Parliament and published in the Official Gazette no. 88 of 15 April 2016?
Results
Choice Votes  % Yes 13,431,087 40.88% No 19,421,025 59.12% Valid votes 32,852,112 98.82% Invalid or blank votes 392,146 1.18% Total votes 33,244,258 100.00% Registered voters/turnout 50,773,284 65.48%
Result by province   Majority Yes vote   Majority No vote

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The bill, put forward by the then Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi, and his centre-left Democratic Party, was first introduced by the government in the Senate on 8 April 2014. After several amendments were made to the proposed law by both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the bill received its first approval on 13 October 2015 (Senate) and 11 January 2016 (Chamber), and, eventually, its second and final approval on 20 January 2016 (Senate) and 12 April 2016 (Chamber).^[3]

In accordance with Article 138 of the Constitution, a referendum was called after the formal request of more than one fifth of the members of both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies,^[4] since the constitutional law had not been approved by a qualified majority of two-thirds in each house of parliament in the second vote.^[5] 59.11% of voters voted against the constitutional reform, meaning it did not come into effect.^[6] This was the third constitutional referendum in the history of the Italian Republic; the other two were in 2001 (in which the amending law was approved) and in 2006 (in which it was rejected).

Had the voters approved the constitutional law, it would have achieved the most extensive constitutional reform in Italy since the end of the monarchy, not only influencing the organization of the Parliament, but also improving, according to its proponents, on the poor government stability of the country. Opposition parties and well-known jurists (such as Gustavo Zagrebelsky^[7] and Stefano Rodotà^[8]) harshly criticised the bill, claiming that it was poorly written and would have made the government too powerful.^[9][10]

Following the clear victory of the "No" vote, Renzi tendered his resignation as Prime Minister.^[11] Paolo Gentiloni was selected as his replacement on 11 December.^[12]

The Italian Parliament is described as a perfectly symmetric bicameral legislature, in that it has a lower house (the Chamber of Deputies) and an upper house (the Senate of the Republic) with the following characteristics:

• The two houses are elected simultaneously and for the same five-year term.
• The Government must have each house's confidence, and is responsible to both of them.
• All legislation must be passed in the same text by both houses: whenever a bill is amended by either house, it must be sent to the other one in a process known as the navetta parlamentare (parliamentary shuttle).

The first concrete attempts at reforming the Senate took place in the 1980s, when the first bicameral committee for constitutional reform headed by Aldo Bozzi was created (1983).^[13] A second bicameral committee (headed by Ciriaco De Mita, later replaced by Nilde Iotti) operated in 1992–1994,^[14] followed in 1997 by the third committee headed by the leader of the Left Democrats, Massimo D'Alema.^[15] These attempts were unsuccessful.

A reform bill proposed by Silvio Berlusconi's government was finally approved by the parliament in 2005.^[16] This proposal, which would also have considerably strengthened the powers of the prime minister, at the same time weakening the role of the President,^[17] was ultimately rejected in the 2006 referendum.

In 2011, with the financial crisis ensuing and Berlusconi forced to resign from the position of Prime Minister,^[18] the Parliament reprised discussions on constitutional reforms at the urging of president Giorgio Napolitano.^[19] However, strong disagreements between the two main parties (the People of Freedom and the Democratic Party) prevented the Parliament from deciding on a reform.

After the 2013 general election, constitutional reform remained a prominent political topic. However, the first real breakthrough occurred when Matteo Renzi, the new Secretary of the Democratic Party, was appointed Prime Minister in February 2014. As part of his government's program, Renzi pledged to implement a number of reforms, including the abolition of the perfectly symmetric bicameralism, with a substantial decrease in the membership and power of the Senate. As well as effectively abolishing the current Senate, the package also included a new electoral law, aimed at giving the party that won the most votes in elections for the Chamber of Deputies a great many additional seats, allowing the formation of a stronger government.

After the proposals passed both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate twice, as required by Article 138 of the Italian constitution, Renzi scheduled a referendum to secure the Italian people's endorsement for October and also indicated that he would resign if his reforms were rejected.^[20] Some opposition parties, predominantly Five Star Movement, Lega Nord and Italian Left, and also some newspapers like Il Fatto Quotidiano and Il manifesto, accused Renzi of turning the referendum into a plebiscite on his premiership with those comments.^[21] However, after some months, Renzi said that his government will continue until the end of the legislature.

On 15 January 2016, La Repubblica reported that Renzi had hired American political adviser Jim Messina – who had worked with Barack Obama^[22] and David Cameron^[22] and would later work for Mariano Rajoy^[23] – to oversee the campaign for "Yes".^[24]

Prime Minister Renzi was accused by some law scholars and politicians, such as Stefano Rodotà and Fausto Bertinotti, of being authoritarian and anti-democratic for proposing this reform.^{[47][48][49][50][51]} Others, like Gianfranco Pasquino, argue that the adopted text is badly written.^[52][53]

In April 2016, a paper called "Appello dei costituzionalisti" ("A Plea from Constitutional Scholars") was written by 56 law scholars (mainly constitutional law scholars), showing criticism of the proposed reform and their numerous concerns: among them are Francesco Amirante, Paolo Caretti, Lorenza Carlassare, Ugo De Siervo, Giovanni Maria Flick, Paolo Maddalena, Valerio Onida, Alfonso Quaranta and Gustavo Zagrebelsky.^[54] The main points of criticism the paper raises are the following:

• The reform was approved by Prime Minister Renzi's coalition, without reaching a consensus among a plurality of the political parties in the Parliament. (The Constitution of Italy was adopted and has been traditionally amended by consensus.)
• The reformed Senate does not adequately represent the interests of the regions because of its weakened powers and the method of appointment of the senators (which favors the representation of political parties, rather than representatives of local interests). The number of senators has been changed without accounting for their role in electing independent organs, such as the President of Italy and part of the Constitutional Court.
• The many legislative procedures (the paper identifies three) bring risks of uncertainties and conflicts.
• Ordinary regions are rendered almost powerless under the new Constitution (while the five regions with special autonomy are left unchanged). The lack of coherent legislation to regulate the partition of competence between the State and regions and the lack of effective cooperation between the various constituent entities are not addressed. The reform abolishes concurrent competence between State and regions on one hand, but on the other it limits many areas of exclusive competence for the State to "general and common dispositions" only (which was defined as "concurrent competence" in the pre-reform Constitution).
• The reform aims at lowering the costs of public institutions, but it does so while weakening democratic representation: the number of senators is reduced to less than one-sixth of that of members of the Chamber of Deputies; provinces are abolished even in the most densely populated areas; metropolitan cities are bolstered instead of rationalizing the constituent entities (Italian comuni differ dramatically in size and population); CNEL is abolished without introducing a substitute for the debate between political institutions and representatives of the Italian society.

Later, in May 2016, other 184 law scholars and professors of various disciplines (among whom Franco Bassanini, Massimo Bordignon, Stefano Ceccanti, Francesco Clementi, Carlo Fusaro, Claudia Mancina, Stefano Mannoni, Angelo Panebianco, Pasquale Pasquino, Francesco Pizzetti, Michele Salvati, Tiziano Treu) signed, instead, an appeal in favour of the constitutional reform.^[55]

"Almost 19,500,000 voters rejected the reform (59.11%), while nearly 13,500,000 voters approved it (40.88%). The turnout (65.47%) was by far the highest compared to Italy's other constitutional referendums: in 2001, the voter turnout was extremely low (34.10%); in 2006 it was higher, but barely exceeded half of the total number of eligible voters (52.46%)".^[95]

More information Choice, Votes ...

Choice	Votes	%
Y Yes	13,432,208	40.89
N No	19,419,507	59.11
Invalid/blank votes	392,130	–
Total	33,243,845	100
Registered voters/turnout	50,773,284	65.47
Ministry of the Interior Archived 4 December 2016 at archive.today

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More information Popular vote ...

Popular vote N No   59.11% Y Yes   40.89%

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By region

Sardinia and South Tyrol, both constituent entities of the Italian Republic with special conditions of autonomy, reported overall the highest percentage^[96] of No^[97][98] and Yes^[99] votes respectively.

More information Region, Y Yes ...

Region		Y Yes		N No		Electorate	Turnout
		Votes	%	Votes	%
	Abruzzo	255,022	35.6	461,167	64.4	1,052,049	68.7
	Aosta Valley	30,568	43.2	40,116	56.8	99,735	71.9
	Apulia	659,354	32.8	1,348,573	67.2	3,280,745	61.7
	Basilicata	98,924	34.1	191,081	65.9	467,000	62.9
	Calabria	276,384	33.0	561,557	67.0	1,553,741	54.4
	Campania	839,692	31.5	1,827,768	68.5	4,566,905	58.9
	Emilia-Romagna	1,262,484	50.4	1,242,992	49.6	3,326,910	75.9
	Friuli-Venezia Giulia	267,379	39.0	417,732	61.0	952,493	72.5
	Lazio	1,108,768	36.7	1,914,397	63.3	4,402,145	69.2
	Liguria	342,671	39.9	515,777	60.1	1,241,618	69.7
	Lombardy	2,453,095	44.5	3,058,051	55.5	7,480,375	74.2
	Marche	385,877	45.0	472,656	55.0	1,189,180	72.8
	Molise	63,695	39.2	98,728	60.8	256,600	63.9
	Piedmont	1,055,043	43.5	1,368,507	56.5	3,396,378	72.0
	Sardinia	237,280	27.8	616,791	72.2	1,375,845	62.5
	Sicily	642,980	28.4	1,619,828	71.6	4,031,871	56.7
	Trentino-South Tyrol	305,473	53.9	261,473	46.1	792,503	72.2
	Tuscany	1,105,769	52.5	1,000,008	47.5	2,854,162	74.4
	Umbria	240,346	48.8	251,908	51.2	675,610	73.5
	Veneto	1,078,883	38.1	1,756,144	61.9	3,725,399	76.7
	Italy	12,709,515	40.0	19,025,275	60.0	46,720,943	68.5

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Italians abroad

More information Constituency, Y Yes ...

Constituency		Y Yes		N No		Invalid/blank		Electorate	Turnout
		Votes	%	Votes	%	Votes	%
	Europe	415,068	62.4	249,876	37.6	65,031	8.9	2,166,037	33.7
	South America	207,144	71.9	80,831	28.1	40,275	12.2	1,291,065	25.4
	North and Central Americas	62,816	62.2	38,113	37.8	15,979	13.6	374,987	31.2
	Africa, Asia, Oceania, Antarctica	37,644	59.7	25,433	40.3	7,201	10.2	220,252	31.9
	World	722,672	64.7	394,253	35.3	122,486	10.3	4,052,341	30.7

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After the first exit polls, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi stated in a midnight press conference that he would resign the next day.^[101][102] In his speech, Renzi assumed full responsibility for the referendum defeat.^[101]

The President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella asked Matteo Renzi to briefly postpone his resignation, in order to complete the parliamentary approval of the next year's budget law. After the budget was passed on 7 December, Renzi resigned that night.^[103]

Financial markets were not particularly affected by the defeat of the constitutional reform: the Milan stock exchange closed the Monday session relatively stable (−0.2% on respect of previous Friday closing, before the vote),^[104] while on Tuesday 6 December the stock index jumped at +4.15% (best result since 11 March 2016).^[105]

In order to assure Italy stability, on 11 December 2016 President Sergio Mattarella gave Paolo Gentiloni the task of constituting a new government.^[106]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Italian constitutional referendum, 2016.

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