* Eric Zorn thinks the state Constitutional Convention referendum will fail this November. Sure, we’re all mad as heck now, Zorn writes, but…
Soon enough, you’ll see opinion polls showing strong public support for the “it’s broken, throw it away and start again” position.
But next, mark my words, the Baby-Bathwater coalition will go to work.
A well-funded campaign backed by an astonishingly diverse set of business leaders, activists from across the political spectrum and other civic and political leaders will pour millions into a campaign aimed at replacing hope about what changes we’d see from a Constitutional Convention with fear.
Special interests or the entrenched powers might hijack the process. They might take away hard-won rights, throw out the good with the bad, then give us a document far worse than the one we have. We already have a process by which we can fix the constitution via amendment rather than trashing it.
Proponents will counter that the current system is designed to protect fiefdoms and thwart the amendment process. They’ll say the ratification requirements will provide safeguards against a runaway Constitutional Convention. But voters will decide not to risk it and send the referendum measure down to a whomping defeat.
* I wouldn’t be so sure. Both political parties opposed a Con-Con twenty years ago, and their affiliated interest groups funded the “No” campaign. Labor and business walked hand in hand and the entire media establishment went along for the ride. I don’t hear any of those people and groups gearing up this time around.
The Republican Party would be insane to oppose a Con-Con this fall. It’s their best bet to motivate voters to the polls. And a whole lot of Democrats are jumping on board. It ain’t just Pat Quinn and his merry band of goo-goos any more.
Plus, what better way to show your anger at Gov. Blagojevich’s goofiness than to vote for a Constitutional Convention in the hopes that his bizarre wings will be clipped? He personalizes this issue for voters in a way that just wasn’t the case the last time this came up.
Twenty years ago, there was no uproar about an out of control governor, or a dysfunctional General Assembly. And, there was still hope among the punditry and the political elite that school funding reform and a whole host of other issues could be resolved. There has been nothing done on any of that since then. They haven’t even been touched. There is no longer any hope of progress with our current system and our current actors.
Three things will kill this off…
1) The powers that be learn to behave themselves this year and voters calm down;
2) A deep recession scares the daylights out of people and their fear gets the better of them;
3) Gov. Blagojevich embraces the idea as his own and voters naturally recoil.
* John Bambenek has more.
Thoughts?