In recent weeks, the ACLU of Rhode Island and a number of other organizations have talked extensively about the risks of a Constitutional Convention. We’ve shown what came from the 1986 Convention, including a lasting restriction on the right to bail, and the 20 years it took to undo the Convention’s disastrous impact on minority voting rights. We’ve shown you the political trickery used to deceive voters during the last convention, like this question, approved by the voters in part because nobody knew exactly what it meant:

(It actually contains a restriction on the right to abortion: can you find it?)

We’ve brought you the words of delegates of the 1986 convention, like Lila Sapinsley, who said:

“If delegates to the 2015 convention are elected by existing electoral districts we will again have a duplicate of the legislature. Let’s concentrate on electing better representatives and forget about an expensive duplicate of the General Assembly.”

And we’ve shown what you can expect from a convention now by examining issues faced in other states, including:

• Bans on affirmative action
• Denial of various rights to immigrants
• Restrictions of LGBT rights
• Unprecedented restrictions on abortion
• Restrictions on state participation in the federal health care exchange
• Tax credits or vouchers for religious schools.

Despite all this evidence, proponents promise a Constitutional Convention divorced from politics and from the undue influence of out-of-state special interests spending millions to push their own pet projects.

The ACLU shares the frustration of many with the actions of the General Assembly, but your rights are too great a risk to take. Promises cannot protect your rights. Your vote can. Rejecting Question 3 may force advocates for change to work harder, but it makes sure your rights are still yours in 2016.

Tomorrow, vote to reject Question 3. Your rights depend on it.

Bishop Tobin, despite a lengthy career of advocating against abortion and marriage equality, has said that in the event of a constitutional convention being held in Rhode Island, he didn’t “think it would or should deal with cultural/moral/religious issues. These particular, discrete issues are better dealt with in the normal legislative process.”

The Bishop’s statement stands in stark contrast to his earlier statements regarding marriage equality, which he said should be placed on the ballot for a popular vote, “We will continue to oppose efforts to redefine the institution of marriage in Rhode Island… The citizens of Rhode Island have a right to vote on this crucial issue.’’

One wonders if Bishop Tobin’s backing off on the issue of abortion, as pertains to a ConCon, represents “an inexcusable lack of moral courage” and an abandonment of “teaching of the Church on the dignity of human life for the sake of self-serving political gain” as he recently said of Gina Raimondo when she announced her position on abortion.

Why would Tobin, so dedicated to changing the laws regarding abortion (and marriage equality) give up a potentially powerful tool that might help him accomplish his task? Does Tobin intend to go so far as to oppose any potential resolutions passed by a ConCon that sought to deal with “cultural/moral/religious” issues in a way the church favors? Can you imagine the Bishop taking a stand against an amendment limiting reproductive of LGBTQ rights if one were to make it through the ConCon?

I can’t.

Meanwhile, Mike Stenhouse, of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a group devoted to crank economics, has pledged to not “support any amendment in a convention that would infringe on individual rights,” despite a line in the Center’s own report that said a ConCon could, “Resolve some thorny cultural issues – one way or another – through the mechanism that most clearly represents the will of the people.” (page six)

Stenhouse’s attack on Jim Vincent of the NAACP and Steve Brown of the ACLU for pointing out the actual words found in the Center’s report rings false. Stenhouse maintains that, “Any honest reading of this section clearly shows that the Center was not taking a position on those topics. Nor is the Center aware that any pro convention organization has publicly suggested that social or cultural issues should be a convention topic.”

So what does “resolve thorny cultural issues” mean to Stenhouse? It’s hard to know, but Stenhouse defender Justin Katz, in a piece entitled, If not on the Ballot, Where? attacks Vincent and defends the Center’s statement by saying, “Look, cultural issues have to be resolved.” In other words, thorny cultural issues are up for discussion in a ConCon, no matter what Stenhouse says.

Maybe the Center should get its messaging straight.

Whereas Tobin serves the Catholic God, Stenhouse serves the God of the Free Market, whose invisible hand makes the rich richer by picking the pockets of the poor. Stenhouse pledges not to support any amendments that might infringe on individual rights, but the term “individual rights” does not equate to civil rights or human rights. The term “individual rights” is much narrower than that.

Individual rights are not group rights. Individual rights are not environmental rights. Under this narrow conception of rights, corporations are individuals, unions are not. The concept of individual rights is often advanced as a way of avoiding the obligations our rights impose on us. Under this view, everybody is responsible for their own rights, not the rights of others.

Human rights, on the other hand, are understood to be “interrelated, interdependent and indivisible” and to apply to “individuals or groups.”  Stenhouse and the center are cautious to avoid terms like human rights and civil rights because these terms carry a moral, ethical and historical weight that is bigger and more expansive than the narrow limits the narcissistic, Objectivist term “individual rights” allow for.

Human rights are both rights and obligations. When we talk in terms of human rights, we call on the power of states to enforce and enhance those rights. Stenhouse and the Center prefer a world of limited government that is unconcerned with human rights and is concerned only with the narrow limits of individual rights. Civil rights legislation that forces bigoted shopkeepers to serve hated minorities are not allowed under this formulation.

Finally, it’s easy for Bishop Tobin, Mike Stenhouse and the members of Renew RI to pinky swear that they will not go after what they call “thorny cultural issues” because they don’t control all the forces in and out of Rhode Island that may involve themselves in the process. Further, their promise to not involve themselves in such issues are limited and conditional.

So it all comes down to this: Do you trust them?

Lila Sapinsley, former delegate to the 1986 Constitutional Convention and former Senate Republican Minority Leader, said:

“In 1986 when a Constitutional Convention was approved I eagerly ran for delegate. I naively thought that if delegates ran without party labels the convention would be free of politics. However, my hopes were dashed when I saw that since candidates ran from House districts, the convention was a mirror image of the House of Representatives. Delegates, if not directly connected to party leaders, were family or friends. The Speaker of the House controlled the convention. If delegates to the 2015 convention are elected by existing electoral districts we will again have a duplicate of the legislature. Let’s concentrate on electing better representatives and forget about an expensive duplicate of the General Assembly.”

East Providence resident Roberto Gonzalez, also a former delegate, stated:

“The 1986 convention was hijacked from the citizens of Rhode Island. While some delegates deliberated in good faith, the outcome of the convention had been predetermined by the then-powerful House Speaker, who was in turn controlled by the same special interests that have controlled House leaders in recent history. Many, if not most of the delegates, were family or friends of those in power. It was never a convention of the people to improve government, but rather a convention of special interests. I am sure that if the good citizens of this state choose to have another convention, the exact thing will happen. Instead of debating good government amendments, the convention will become bogged down with a plethora of polarizing social issues such as gun control, abortion, voter ID, and immigration. There is nothing to stop the delegates from putting measures on the ballot that will reverse or dilute the civil rights gains that have been so difficult to obtain.”

Tom Izzo, another former delegate, said:

“The process of electing delegates alone impacts the potential for a ‘purer, freer and more open deliberation’ – a process where, while non-partisan, does not allow for a real vetting of the candidates’ qualifications. In most instances–though not running–sitting representatives hold inordinate sway, and special interests can leverage their greatest influence. These special elections, as in most primaries, have a very low voter turnout, and candidates must depend on these special interests to get elected. While there were a few positive outcomes from the last convention, I do not believe the time, the financial cost, the potential negative impact on civil rights, and most importantly the virtually unlimited impact of special interests, especially in light of recent rulings regarding campaign spending, warrants or justifies the calling of another convention.”

There is no reason to think that a Constitutional Convention held today will be any different from the 1986 experience, and a number of reasons to think that the results of a new convention will be worse. Since 1986, the influence of money on politics has exploded. The present Speaker of the House is no less powerful than his 1986 predecessor, and is potentially more powerful. No changes have been made to the selection process of delegates that might prevent a convention from being hijacked again.

Promises from proponents that this Constitutional Convention will be different are meaningless. They have no more control over the proceedings and outcomes of a ConCon than I do. Across the country, no state has held a ConCon since the one held in Rhode Island in 1986, for all the reasons the former delegates outlined above.

Why should Rhode Island be the only state not to learn from its mistake?

How is this news?

These results are hardly surprising given the state of the economy and government. Based on these poll results, Center CEO Mike Stenhouse urges voters to approve a Con-Con to address these issues, but the poll does not demonstrate that voters favor a con-con as a remedy. In fact, it seems that the results of the poll that might deal with a con-con, Q.8-Q.18, have been withheld from the public. You can view the poll here, and see plainly that the questions jump from Q.7 to Q.19.

In other words, the information released is only what the Center wants you to see, not a real picture of likely voter attitudes.

Some results from Q.16 were released by the Center. These are statements from participants on why they favor holding a Con-Con, but question 15, which perhaps asks participants if they favor a Con-Con, is not included. There are 96 statements in support of a Con-Con listed, out of 516 participants interviewed and weighted for this poll. If this is everyone in favor of a Con-Con, that’s less than 20% support. Even if this is only half of the support the poll found, we’re still left with less than 40% favoring a Con-Con.

Had the poll indicated a majority of likely Rhode Island voters were in favor of a Con-Con, the Center would certainly have included this in the poll results they released. In the absence of the full poll results, we can only assume that the Center did not get the results they were looking for, and that GoLocal made a huge mistake in mischaracterizing the results.

Based on the information released by the Center so far, it’s obvious that Rhode Island voters see the Con-Con for what it is, a chance for special interests like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to alter the Rhode Island State Constitution in favor of the corporate interests they front for.

For instance, Norquist attempted to minimize the danger to civil rights that a con-con represents by touting the good government reforms that might spring from such a venture, saying, “I think you will find, as we have in other states…”

What other states is Norquist talking about? There hasn’t been a con-con in any state in this country in 30 years, and the last one was held here in Rhode Island. In that last con-con, there were several constitutional changes suggested (and passed) that directly impacted civil rights. So what is Norquist talking about, when he mentions “other states”?

“Every day that the legislature meets, they form a constitutional convention,” said Norquist, although what that statement could possibly mean is difficult to figure out. And why he thinks this would make Rhode Islanders want to have a con-con is even more difficult to ascertain.

Norquist says that during the process of a con-con, “one or two amendments might become intriguing and important” failing to note that the last time a con-con was held, 22 amendments were bundled into 14 ballot questions. These amendments were all over the place in terms of civil rights restrictions for minorities and women. There is a big difference between two amendments and 22.

At another point in his 13 minute talk Norquist claims, without offering one bit of proof, that a constitutional convention is a “more open process” than the General Assembly. I know of no study that indicates this to be in any way true or provable.

Obviously, Grover Norquist thinks that a con-con is a good idea, he made a special trip to Rhode Island while visiting his parents in Western Massachusetts to make his case on behalf of Mike Stenhouse, Ken Block and the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. But the sense I got from Norquist’s speech isn’t that he supports the con-con out of a love for the power of democracy or a yearning to put the power of government into the hands of average people.

What Norquist and the rest of the con-con supporters seem to be looking for is access to the document that sets the rules for how government functions in our society. The normal avenues of power are closed to Norquist and Stenhouse: Voters routinely reject candidates, such as Ken Block (who was also a speaker at this event) because they rightly sense that these candidates do not represent the interests of the public. Meanwhile, the General Assembly has been cool to the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s radical ideas, such as eliminating the sales tax without finding a revenue stream to replace it.

But if Stenhouse and his coalition can crack open the constitution and take to it with scissors and markers, they can possibly create the kind of government that responds better to the crank economic theories his center espouses. These won’t be temporary changes to the constitution either. As Norquist says, a con-con “elevates the debate from who win and who lose this week to ‘what are the rules for the next hundred years.’”

Stenhouse, Norquist and Block repeatedly point out that fears of attacks on civil rights are overblown, and in one sense they are right because rich white men almost never face serious challenges to their civil rights.

Just the prospect of a constitutional convention in Rhode Island has outside money and special interests sharpening their knives in anticipation. Grover Norquist and his extreme right-wing  ideology are just the tip of the spear.

Grover Norquist’s visit to Rhode Island makes it obvious that outside forces are sharpening their knives in preparation for a chance to carve up Rhode Island’s Constitution into bite-sized chunks. Perhaps even small enough to drown in a bathtub?

The progressive coalition against such a fate, the Citizens for a Responsible Government, held a press conference outside the Squantum Association minutes before Grover Norquist gave his short pep talk to those in support of a Constitutional Convention at a fundraising luncheon. Coalition spokesperson Pablo Rodriguez was joined by Kate Brewster, head of the Economic Progress Institute and Michael Araujo, business agent for the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees, Local 23.

Together the three speakers made a compelling case for why the very presence of Norquist, an out-of-state conservative lobbyist representing anonymous, big monied interests makes a compelling case against holding a constitutional convention.

“The poster child of wealthy out-of-state special interests is Grover Norquist,” said Pablo Rodriguez, who is also President of Latino Public Radio, “whose could use a Constitutional Convention as a vehicle to buy any issue he wants. If we allow a Constitutional Convention, we will essentially be handing the keys of our government over to people like Norquist and his billionaire friends.”

“The average Rhode Islander who is struggling to pay the mortgage, afford child care so they can get to work, or put their kids through college doesn’t have the time or the resources to fight wealthy, out-of-state special interests like Grover Norquist and his billionaire backers, the Koch brothers,” said Kate Brewster.

“Grover Norquist is a guy who once said, ‘My ideal citizen is the self-employed, homeschooling, IRA-owning guy with a concealed-carry permit,’” stated Michael Araujo. “Is this really who hard-working Rhode Islanders should be taking voting advice from?”

There is a reason that no state has held a constitutional convention since the last time we had one in Rhode Island, three decades ago. Big money wants to write the rules of our democracy, and corporate interests are served by weak governments that can’t afford to protect their citizens from being exploited.

The March 29 conference on the convention was perhaps the whitest crowd I’ve ever been in in my life. And I’m not exaggerating there. That to me is demonstrative of what’s going on in the debate about the convention.

Let’s stop and remind ourselves that constitutions do not change how power is distributed in a state. They merely change the rules by which that power is fought for. Since the Bloodless Revolution, the state’s power has been mostly distributed to an alliance of white middle-class men (both blue and white collar) in the Democratic Party.

But one of things that makes the Bloodless Revolution important is that it removed the last power structures supporting the old elite; the middle- and upper-class WASP males of the Republican Party that had previously dominated Rhode Island politics since its founding. In its heyday, that alliance was vicious in its hold on power, and seriously corrupt, winning us the “for sale, and cheap” moniker its successors are fond of repeating. Today, it often sounds anti-democratic in its approach to the regular Rhode Island voter.

Both alliances have been extremely privileged by their long grasps on power in the state. And much of the Pro-convention rhetoric isn’t about empowering the traditionally marginalized. Thus, one of the conference panel’s seven white men can ignore the very real evidence to the contrary and claim that there isn’t much appetite to restrict civil liberties in Rhode Island.

No, much of the Pro-convention rhetoric seems to be about increasing the power of the old elite, even if it’s not explicitly advocated (and you’d be foolish too explicitly advocate for that). Ethics control has the potential to root out ethical misconduct that will reflect poorly on established political power. A line-item veto will increase the power of the Governor’s office, one of the few veto points in RI that the Republicans have had any chance at controlling.

This is what I suspect will ultimately doom the chances of the convention. In a battle for political power between two over-privileged groups, the average Rhode Islander is the loser. By outright dismissing the needs and fears of the sub-dominant groups in Rhode Island (women, immigrants, non-whites, the poor) the Pro-convention side appears tone-deaf and out-of-touch.

I worry that even those who believe in good faith in a convention are ignoring the power dynamics that are inherent in any political system. We put great stock in the Constitutional Convention that brought forth the US Constitution, but we forget that its drafters would be abhorred at the extension of the vote we see today. Elbridge Gerry (whom the “gerrymander” is named after) warned that “The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy.” Edmund Randolph supported him by saying “…that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.”

In our dealing with own constitutional convention we need to shun such thoughts. If the same people who wonder aloud whether Rhode Islanders who don’t reach some arbitrary level of “intelligence” ought to be able to vote then turn around and call for a convention it is clearly not because they have found some faith in the voters of this state. If the same people who call voters idiots for electing incumbents over and over again are supportive of a constitutional convention it is not because they suddenly believe in the ability of the people to select their own representatives. It is because they sense an opportunity. And their opportunity will come at the expense of the people.

One of the most common refrains I hear from Pro-convention people is the need for a line-item veto for the governor’s office. Others argue for the need to re-assert the Ethics Commission oversight over the General Assembly. And maybe it’s just me, but I do not foresee voters citing these as their top concerns when it comes to whether to hold a convention or not. On one hand we have the possible de facto outlawing of abortion in Rhode Island. On the other, the governor gets to decide which parts of the budget he’ll strike down.

Maybe if a governor ever bothered to veto the budget, the case for line-item could be stronger. Certainly, forcing an override is a dramatic turn of events. Had Chafee vetoed the budget last year, it’s possible the House leadership might’ve collapsed as the Sakonnet River Bridge tolls controversy exploded. Instead he signed the budget, and the facade of tranquility in the House survived until the Five Days in March.

But this is precisely the point; Rhode Island only thinks about hypotheticals in relation to how things are now. Call it a sort of status quo bias. What many in the Pro-convention camp are calling for weak sauce reforms to the current state of affairs. Thus, we suggest that the governor gain the line-item veto, but fail to call into question whether a governor is even required in Rhode Island. The drum is beaten for eliminating the ballot’s straight party option, but we never ask ourselves whether first-past-the-post is the best voting system we should have.

A more recently trumpeted problem in the state is the lack of trust Rhode Islanders have in their government. The line-item veto does not restore trust. Ethics oversight might boost trust, but it is unlikely to change the lack of transparency in state government. Furthermore, none of the commonly proposed structural changes increases civic participation in government. The Pro-convention movement needs to pause and consider what reforms will genuinely make the citizenry of this state more active and involved in our democracy. Half-assed modifications of the current system are going to be rightfully ignored.

One of the major stumbling blocks to supporting a constitutional convention is the fact that it’s an “unlimited” convention.

It’s important, as Prof. Robert Williams of Rutgers University told the March 29 Conference, to remember that state constitutions don’t function like the US Constitution. The US Constitution grants power to the federal government, whereas state constitutions restrict the powers of the state governments.

But all constitutions also lay out the civil liberties their citizens can expect. And both functions of the constitution are up for review. Of the 14 amendments to come out of the 1986 convention, about six pertained to civil liberties in some manner.

This is an important reason to fear the risk of the convention. Even if all the delegates campaign solely on the structural part of constitutional change, there’s nothing stopping them from throwing in civil liberties amendments as well. In all likelihood, these amendments won’t increase civil liberties, but rather weaken them for non-dominant groups; women, recent immigrants, racial/ethnic minorities, and the incarcerated.

One suggestion offered by Prof. Williams was to have a “limited” convention. It’s possible to write an amendment to the state constitution that allows a convention to be called that can only focus on structural issues of government. However, that would require a popular, grassroots effort to force the General Assembly to do so. Engaging in that effort would demonstrate good faith that Pro-convention side is responsive to the concerns of the Anti-covention side. That could do a lot to win support for a future convention.

• Part 1: Pro-convention reasons against a constitutional convention ‘Why now?’
  
• Tomorrow: The status quo bias