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SEIFFE:  Constitutional Conventions Are Dangerous and Inefficient

Thursday, November 19, 2005

By Ralf Seiffe

Illinois’experience with the 1970 Constitutional Convention was that it saddled its citizens with a number of bad ideas that no one anticipated.  Among these is the Constitutional Requirement that all benefits promised to public employees are guaranteed despite the state’s declining financial condition.  This has led the Illinois Supreme Court to decide that this guarantee so protects the employees interests that it essentially prohibits the state’s employees from questioning the state’s stewardship of pension funds.  This has resulted in the state engaging in financial practices that would be indictable in the private sector. See People ex rel Sklowdowski v State 182 Ill 2d. 220, 228-229 (1988)  

This got me thinking about the wisdom of Constitutional Conventions, generally.  The biggest problem seems to be scope; there is no way to limit the actions of a properly convened convention.  Indeed, the Constitution we have today is a result of the delegates in 1787 exceeding their authority.  They were charged with fixing the Articles of Confederation, not creating a new level of government, despite the fact that it has worked out.  

Conventions may be dangerous to liberty, as the 1787 experience shows, because of the extraordinary powers delegates have, combined with the biases they bring to the process.  The founders must have recognized their own excesses directly when they designed the Senate to specifically attenuate the passions of the House of Representatives.  This extraordinarily wise construction would be circumvented by an out-of-control convention that might resemble the House on a bad hair day.  

One could also question the efficiency of a convention.  The point seems to be to speed the evolutionary nature of our Constitution.  If that’s the objective, would the rules require that a proposed Amendment, or even an entirely new Constitution, be ratified on the spot?  Certainly, some state would object, proposing, perhaps to put any change to a vote of its citizens or legislature.  But, isn’t that what we do now?   

What about states that don’t come because their legislatures recognize the danger of a convention and refuse to participate?  What about those states that do attend and find it wasn’t quite what they expected and go home?  One supposes that when 38 states meet they can do pretty much what they want.  The enmity that would cause if, for example, the Red States ganged up on the few, very large Blue States and repealed Roe v Wade.  It isn’t  worth it.

Ralf Seiffe advises business start-ups and product launches from Chicago, Illinois and is a political analyst and columnist for the Illinois Leader.