Monday, December 1, 2008

Should State Constitutional Conventions Be More Frequent?

Here is an article in the New Republic that says so. Interestingly, some states have automatic referenda asking their citizens every couple of decades whether they want to hold a convention to revise their state constitution. Here, in California, we haven't had one since 1879--though we did, of course, have a massive revision process in the 1960's and 1970's, courtesy of the Legislature and the Constitution Revision Commission. Given the heterogeneity of our State, a convention would be pretty wild.

ps. Here is a resolution introduced by AssemblymemberBlakeslee that would ask the voters to decide whether there should be a constitutional convention to revise the constitution. Here is an opinion piece from the Los Angeles Times on the Blakeslee resolution and a similar resolution introduced by Mark DeSaulnier, a Democratic legislator. Here is an article from the Contra Costa Times on DeSaulnier and his resolution.

No comments: