Call for a Constitutional Convention

by Craig Ruff
March 16, 2010

I support a state constitutional convention. Whether one will be called is to be decided this November by voters, in accordance with a requirement in the current constitution that the question be raised every 16 years.

The existing document admittedly has no fatal flaws. Fatal is the key word here, as Michigan state government, despite its failings, still has a pulse.

I commend to Dome readers the Michigan Chamber of Commerce’s analysis of this issue. Go to http://www.michamber.com/mx/hm.asp?id=concon for answers to many questions you may have about constitutional history and the procedures a call would set in action.

I can posit many problems with the current constitution. It is a bloated mess. Interest groups have riddled it with self-serving protections. This document, with its 31 amendments, handcuffs state policymakers.

My primary reasons for supporting a convention are positive. I want a diverse group of 148 people to take a very long look at the foundations of state and local government; to use this special occasion to rise above the daily political clamor and the attendant sensitivities du jour; to modernize the structures of government; to give Lansing lawmakers discretion to fix problems as they arise; to make it a short, clear, and enduring document.

We’re in the fifth decade of the 1963 constitution, and Michiganians are enduring horrible economic times. We find governance indecisive, root bound, and paralyzed. Our economy and culture have changed much. It is sad to see public governance hobbled in place and incapable of easing change, let alone fostering it.

Elections are about the times. We use the ballot to punish or reward politicians, based on how we feel today. Ephemeral accountability, I call it. In crisis, we may wish to return seasoned hands to the ship of state, but term limits deny us that right. We may wish to place more accountability in one branch or level of government, but the constitution confines us. We may need to dramatically change spending priorities and taxing policies, but the constitution earmarks close to 80 percent of taxpayer dollars.

The problem is not just politics; it’s also how we have shackled the people who must work in that arena. Michigan, like many other states, adopted a very lengthy, highly detailed, and populist document, written in a given era and not terribly adaptable to social transformation.

A science writer, Timothy Ferris, writes of the U.S. Constitution that “it leaves citizens free to experiment.” In its relative brevity, it is beautiful. It permits the nation to have a government sail with it in both stormy and tranquil times while protecting the people’s rights.

Writers of the U.S. Constitution concluded that it should be amended only with great difficulty, and so it is: an amendment may be proposed only by (a) a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the U.S. Congress or (b) a formal appeal by two-thirds of state legislatures. Then, adoption must be approved by three-quarters of the nation’s state legislatures.

Writers of the current Michigan constitution concluded that the document should be amended with relative ease: an amendment may be proposed by (a) a two-thirds vote of both chambers of the legislature or (b) by a relatively small number of voters’ signatures on a petition. In this day of well-funded interest groups, the latter is the road often chosen, and, once the question is on the ballot, with enough additional money the group may sell it to voters.

A huge difference, then, between the U.S. and state constitutions is the relative ease with which a special interest or passion of the moment may trigger significant change.

Great change is underway in Michigan. More is in the offing. To meet these challenges, adaptation, nimbleness, and innovation will be crucial. Government not only should partner in change, it should lead the way.

I am well aware of why there is opposition to a state constitutional convention. It is fear, and it’s not entirely illegitimate. Some number of our 20,000 elected officials could lose their public post via consolidation and streamlining. A new document could remove some groups’ policy protections, or it could grant policy protections to these same groups’ ideological or economic adversaries.

It is only human to fear change, even if the purpose is to alter an unworkable or undesirable status quo.

Constitutional convention delegates are elected, and some voters will send Johnny-one-notes, zealots, and nitwits to a convention, just as they do to public office. But history tells us that the vast majority of convention delegates will be high-minded and humbled by the power and responsibility with which they are charged. If a hijacking occurs or delegates conjure up a document worse than the one we have, voters — who have the last word — will be smart enough to reject what is hatched.

In our wretched economic times, with governments all around the state struggling to do the same or more with less, critics point to the cost of a convention. But I counter that state government has spent about $1 trillion since adopting our current constitution. It spends more than $40 billion a year. The cost of a convention will be chump change. It is a one-time expenditure, and it could lead to revamping government in ways to recover the costs in a week or less. Do the math.

The only thing to fear is not change but rather the absence of it. Risk is all around us. I support the call for a state constitutional convention because opportunity far outweighs risk.

Craig Ruff is, among many things, a senior policy fellow and former president of Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants.