Public Defense

So what happens after a Constitutional Convention?

By Gideon

Given the important question that will appear on our ballots here on November 4th, I’ve had a few questions swirling in my head for the past few weeks. Here are some of them:

• Who pays for a Constitutional convention?
• How much does it cost?
• How long does one last?
• How do issues get debated at a ConCon?
• Do we still have to vote on the issues after they’re approved by the convention?
• What happens when direct initiative is approved?
• Why do we need legislators after direct initiative is approved?
• Can the legislature supercede a law passed by referendum?
• What’s to stop people from putting abortion to a popular vote?
• What’s to stop people from repealing Article 1, Section 8 of the State Constitution (the bill of rights, as it were)?
• How is this push for a Constitutional convention not driven by bigotry?
• Can one voter initiative repeal an earlier one?
• What will the point of a legislature be, if we can pass all laws?
• Is the legislature forced to fund all initiatives that pass?
• What if they can’t?
• What if a Constitutional Amendment violates another provision of the Constitution?

There are so many variables here. CT News Junkie has a nice piece touching on a few of these aspects, but that still leaves many unanswered questions.

For example, if a statute is passed establishing a three-strikes law, what’s to stop the legislature from passing a new statute declaring the previous statute void? And so on and so on in circles?

It seems to me that this call for a concon is driven solely by special interest groups that know they don’t have the votes in the legislature and want to to get their agenda approved.

The system works very well as it is. Why fix something that isn’t broken?

This is why I’ll be voting no. What about you?

Full post as published by A Public Defender on November 01, 2008 (boomark / email).