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Rudolph Guiliani is the latest person to call for a new constitutional convention--for the state of New York. "New York State government," he begins, "is not working. This has been true for some time. But the paralysis and confusion that has overtaken the capital demonstrates the need to confront this dysfunction directly and take decisive steps to solve it once and for all. That?s why I?m calling on Albany to convene a state constitutional convention." So, among other things, this means that leading political figures in both California and New York are willing to address the fact that the "dysfunction" revealed in their political systems is not simply the result of failures of vision, leadership, etc, but may indeed have something to do with the formal structures established and entrenched by the state constitutions. It should probably go without saying that I scarcely agree with all of Guiliani's recommendations, such as requiring supermajorities for tax increases, but that is really beside the point. Rather, he deserves credit for noting that it is time that New Yorkers take a sober look at their constitution and do something about it before the state is further wrecked and further entrenched in the group of states correctly deemed "ungovernable."

I was bemused, incidentally, when reading the galleys of Barry Friedman's forthcoming book, The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution, to come across the following quotation from a 1931 public lecture by then-prominent University of Chicago political scientist Charles Merriam: "There was probably never a period in history when social change was as rapid as at present and when the need for adjustment and adaptation was as great. The real difficulty lies in the unwillingness of many Americans to face in government what the meet in industry, the constant need for readjustment and reorganization." The more things change.....

As John Dinan notes in his valuable book The American State Constitutional Tradition (which is coming out in a paperback edition in August), states frequently not only amend their constitutions, but also hold constitutional conventions that may lead to fairly significant transformations. This is one area where we may indeed have something to learn from states!

So I suppose the central question is whether President Obama and Rahm Emanuel, plus the specter of Ted Kennedy's looming departure, will lead to the ability of Congress to confront the true crisis of medical care and funding. If they succeed, then everyone will issue self-serving pronouncements about the glories of the system and of "effective leadership." If Congress gets terminally mired because of the various veto points encouraged by both our formal and informal constitutions, then perhaps someone at the national level would emulate the Californians and now Guiliani who are leading the way at the state level. 'Twill be interesting to observe.

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