Abstract
In a 2020 constitutional referendum on the 20th and 21st of September 2020, Italians voted to reduce the number of members of parliament from 945 to 600 . With a turnout of 51 percent, 70 percent voted in favor of this proposal . The article describes the historical background, the process that led to the referendum as well as the election result and its consequences . The main focus is on the question of why this referendum produced such a clear result . The thesis is that this high level of approval came about because the climate of opinion had been on the side of those in favor of reducing the size of parliament for years . This climate of opinion is the result of decades of debate about and against the political “casta”, which led citizens to more and more lose trust in parties and parliament until even the parties agreed to the reduction . The opponents’ attempt to tilt this climate of opinion shortly before the vote in order to mobilize a majority against the downsizing of parliament was bound to fail because of the long-cemented opinion on the issue .