December 21st, 2009

There are a lot of good arguments not to have a state constitutional convention.

* It will be costly, as much as $12 million to $20 million. The 1997 convention rejected by voters was projected to cost $50 million.

* The delegation could easily end up being stacked with puppets for powerful legislators and special interest groups, no matter how many safeguards they put in.

* Membership will be heavily skewed to New York City and Long Island, where the bulk of the state’s population lives.

* The Legislature already has the power to make many of the improvements that supporters of a convention are hollering about, including ethics reform, mandate relief, and tax and spending caps.

* You could be worse off than you are now, if the convention produces amendments that result in changes that increase the cost of government.

* And realistically, it’s possible it won’t accomplish much, if anything. The last constitutional convention, held in 1967, was considered a bust. Every single one of the recommendations made during the five-month convention was eventually rejected by voters, even though some of the amendments would have improved life for many New Yorkers. So when the proposal for holding a convention came up for a vote in 1977 and again in 1997, citizens decided they didn’t want to bother.

There you have it. Six solid reasons why the state shouldn’t hold a constitutional convention.

They should hold one anyway. Here’s why.

New York is broken. Broken to the point where it can’t be fixed. Attempts over the years by the Legislature to rein in spending, reform their ethics rules, foster more involvement by rank-and-file legislators by opening up the vote process, change the state’s irresponsible debt practices, enact a property tax cap and make state government more transparent have fallen flat. They talk, but nothing gets done. All these failures are finally coming to roost. Thanks to a push from the ailing the economy, the state is on the verge of a major financial collapse. And public confidence in state government to make the necessary improvements itself is practically nonexistent.

As Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb says, if this isn’t the solution, then what is?

Obviously, what they’re doing now isn’t working. A constitutional convention is the next best idea.

A constitutional convention, with reasonable proposals that voters will have a chance to decide on for themselves, could produce the meaningful reforms the Legislature doesn’t have the will or courage to enact themselves. Those include the reforms listed above, as well as others such as term limits and restructuring the Legislature to have only one house instead of two. Even the threat of a constitutional convention might move legislators to enact reforms they otherwise might not address.

To ensure the convention isn’t dominated by the same interests that protect the status quo – as the 1967 convention was – there will have to be a comprehensive set of delegate qualifications to make sure legislators and lobbyists don’t control the agenda. The latest proposal does have some controls, including requiring registered lobbyists and elected officials to resign their offices before serving. It also sets up a nonpartisan primary in which nine candidates from each state Senate district would be selected to run for three delegate positions. Campaign contributions would also be limited.

One of the reasons the 1967 reforms failed at the ballot box was because convention organizers put the reforms before voters as a single new constitution. So the positive reforms got tossed out with the ones voters didn’t like. The next convention should break out the reforms into categories based on the section of the constitution it addresses (judicial, legislative, executive …) so voters don’t have to choose between all or nothing.

Getting a convention up and running, and then getting meaningful reforms approved, isn’t going to be easy. Some of the ideas Assemblyman Kolb and others have put forth will naturally be opposed by certain powerful constituencies, and by extension the legislators who rely on their financial support. For instance, two of the state’s most powerful unions, the New York State United Teachers and the AFL-CIO, opposed the 1997 convention, as did the New York City Bar Association. Among the reasons listed for their opposition were that it included a proposed property tax cap, state spending caps and initiative-and-referendum (letting citizens vote on certain laws).

While holding a successful constitutional convention free of powerful outside influences will be difficult, it won’t be impossible if enough protections are put into place.

Despite the potential pitfalls, a lot of good could come out of a state constitutional convention.

And that’s more than you can say about what’s coming out of Albany right now.

Local editorials represent the opinion of The Post-Star editorial board, which consists of Publisher Rick Emanuel, Editor Ken Tingley, Editorial Page Editor Mark Mahoney and citizen representative Bill Reynolds.