Constitutional Convention?

From the BCCT. “How can the commonwealth keep up with today’s changing world if we are still living by guidelines set in the 1800s?” The U.S. Constitution was last done in 1787. When we follow its rules, we seem to do just fine.

Then there's an editorial where the BCCT agrees with the concept.

A call made to overhaul constitution
Two Bucks lawmakers say it’s time for a constitutional convention. Pennsylvania is operating under guidelines set in the 1800s.
By JAMES MCGINNIS

Two Bucks County lawmakers are calling for changes to the state’s Constitution to bring about “true reform.”

State Reps. Chris King, D-142, and John Galloway, D-140, said they want a voter referendum on the ballot in November. If approved by voters, a constitutional convention could convene in December.

Each senatorial district would send three convention delegates who are elected by the general public.

In a bill introduced in the House July 4, Galloway and King estimated the convention would need a budget of at least $20 million. No one currently holding state office could sit on the convention, according to the bill.

Galloway and King introduced a similar bill in March 2007. But that bill never made it to the House floor.

The last time the Pennsylvania Constitution was given a “comprehensive look” Ulysses Grant was in the White House, Galloway said.

“One could not imagine a company conducting over $50 billion worth of business and employing 55,000 workers would not routinely review and update its strategic plan,” Galloway said. “How can the commonwealth keep up with today’s changing world if we are still living by guidelines set in the 1800s?”

“The need for a state constitutional convention is clear and convincing,” King said. “Many of our freshman colleagues in the House were elected to bring reform to Pennsylvania. A citizens’ constitutional convention is the most important reform this commonwealth could undertake.”

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Broken system
The state Legislature is a dysfunctional body in need of repair. Citizens should be entrusted to fix it.

Anybody who’s watched the goings-on in Harrisburg for a few years or even a few days knows that often there’s not much going on. Not much we can call progress. There’s plenty of politics and all sorts of chicanery as recent indictments indicate. But there’s little progress on issues that really matter to people.

Property taxes, for example. Lawmakers have been trying for decades to do something about this unfair and increasingly costly means of paying for our schools. After numerous false starts and two alleged reform laws, not much has changed. Lawmakers talk about change constantly, but most don’t have the guts or the moxie to support the real thing.

Then there’s redistricting, the census-dictated process of reshaping legislative districts to reflect population shifts. Legislative leaders have turned this into a jigsaw puzzle contest.

In an effort to protect incumbents, far-flung neighborhoods sometimes stretching from one county to another are drafted into a district to pack in as many Democratic or Republican voters as possible. This highly political process makes it virtually impossible to defeat incumbents, depriving the Legislature of much needed independent voices with new ideas.

One of the few new ideas to come out of Harrisburg belongs to state Reps. John Galloway and Chris King, freshman Democrats from Falls and Middletown respectively. The two reformers have introduced legislation to place a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot calling for a “citizens’ constitutional convention.”

The idea is to let a delegation of citizens — three elected from each of the state’s 50 senatorial districts — review and reform a state government that no longer seems capable of serving the interests of citizens. The convention would last nine months.

“One could not imagine a company conducting over $50 billion worth of business and employing 55,000 workers that would not routinely review and update its strategic plan,” Galloway said, raising this logical question: “How can the commonwealth keep up with today’s changing world if we are still living by guidelines set in the 1800s?”

Answer: Not very well.

Essentially, our state government is broken. And by government, we mean the Legislature, which is dominated by entrenched “leaders” who keep change at bay by controlling the legislative agenda, committee assignments, the money — you name it, they own it.

Instated, Galloway and King want to “allow the people to own the government again. We should trust them to look at our Constitution and do the right thing,” Galloway said, adding that lawmakers have a “credibility problem.”

He’s right about that. One scandal after another has practically destroyed our faith in Harrisburg. Maybe it’s time, as the old saying goes, to give the power to the people. They couldn’t do any worse.