Article XIX, Section 2 of the New York State constitution mandates that every 20 years after 1957, or when the state legislature decides by legislation, a referendum on whether to hold a constitutional convention must be submitted to the voters. The voters must both approve the resolution to hold a convention, and then vote to approve the constitutional changes proposed by the convention for a new constitution to take effect.

Since 1900, three constitutional conventions have been convened with the voters rejecting constitutional changes proposed in 1915 and 1967 and adopting those proposed in 1938. In 1997 the voters rejected a proposition that would have established a new state constitutional convention.

We are badly in need of a new constitution. New York government completely sucks (list included below, in case you are not paying a bit of attention to state politics and don’t believe me).

The referendum in 2017 is good news.

Usually when New York has a referendum provision, it’s a not really “power to the people.” Usually the people have no say in who gets to write the law the voters approve in referendum. For example, New York has 10,521 local governmental entities (see AG memo “AG Program 1 Sponsors Memo _2_.pdf”) and if you’d like to consolidate two or more entities by referendum, you can. Sounds great — more efficiency, voters rise up and demand an end to these redundant fiefdoms of power — but no. The referendum can only occur if the politicans from the consolidating entities want to merge — and lose their own authority. The constitution is written by and for insiders. Google New York State “consolidation of local government entities properly initiated by petition of electors.”

However, the state constitutional convention is much, much better. The delegates to the convention are picked by the people directly: “the electors of every senate district of the state, as then organized, shall elect three delegates at the next ensuing general election, and the electors of the state voting at the same election shall elect fifteen delegates-at-large.”

That’s kind of hopeful. Those people might not all be hacks and cronies and write a shitty constitution. And if they do write a bad constitution, the voters can reject it by referndum.

Come on New York, let’s do this. Next year, let’s vote to have a constitutional convention.

Here are some things that need changing in New York;

There is no system to police local ethics. You might think that can’t possibly be the case — like making the speed limit 65 miles an hour and having no system to enforce the law and you wonder what will happen, as if people might not speed — but yes, there is no cop on the public corruption beat at the county, town, city level. No one. There are 11,000 jurisdictions and no one watching them to see if they steal. What do you think they are doing? Stealing? Bingo! You got that one right. The leaders of the senate and assembly are both convicted of being crooks. None of their underlings/back benchers ever called the FBI and said, “You know, my boss over here in the senate/assembly is kind of a crook.” Why didn’t they? Because they all play ball. Albany is play ball town. We need to mess up their game completely. Rise up. Convention! They all keep their pensions even when they’ve been convicted of graft. Freedom of Information Law applies to almost everyone in the state but… wait for it… the legislators who wrote the law, the senators and assembly reps. Funny, that, you think? New York State politicans are the highest paid losers in the country. And Cuomo’s cool with that. He spiked every attempt to put in any ethics reform and fired his own ethics reform commission. http://blogs.hudsonvalley.com/fray/2016/08/04/proposed-raise-would-make-ny-lawmakers-highest-paid-in-u-s/?rssfeed=true

That’s just a hint of how bad New York State is. Now, let’s imagine how great we could make this state:

New provisions for complete transparency. All documents go right online — no need to FOIL any invoice, any proposed legislation, anything — it all goes online immediately and is searchable. This is now possible, not so in 1938 when the constitution was written. It’s easier to put documents online than print them out and file them in a cabinet so let’s open this sucker up. No more Mr. and Ms. Bigwig. You are in the State Senate. Therefore, you think you’re a hot shot. You get staff. You get travel allowances. You get member items to put your name on a playground. Aren’t you special? Well, no, you’re likely to be a crook rather than someone special, judging by recent history. How about we restructure what being in “public service” and take a page out of Vermont’s playbook? In Vermont, being in state government is really service. There are way more reps per capita and there are too many to corrupt. They don’t get any perks. I know I don’t like New York State politicians, so it seems counter intuitive to want MORE elected officials, but having 400 people to corrupt is a lot harder than corrupting 40. You serve in the state assembly. Thank you. You also live down the street and I can go over and talk to you if I need to. We trust juries to vote on matters of life and death. Why not let the people have a say over the laws too? Proportional representation. In America, we only have winner take all elections. You take an area, draw a line, and one person will represent that area. But we could do proportional representation, at least for some of our reps, which would open up government to third parties, minorities of all kinds deserve a voice. We could pick some reps by district and some by state wide election. Upstate/downstate issues need real attention. Downstate subsidizes upstate but that doesn’t help the upstate economy, rather allowing inefficient and corrupt government to flourish on the fat that floats up from the city. Both parts of the state would benefit from a new relationship. Whole cities upstate can fall off the map with no one noticing, with water like Flint but less coverage in the news. Open primaries. Referndums. Default voter registration. Protect the environment. Ethics laws enforcable by citizen action in court. Oversight of police and DA’s. People power to check the aggregation of power by cronies. End the waste. 11,000 jurisdictions it ridiculous. I live in a county with 60,000 people, 21 highways departments, 42 judges, 5 police departments… there has to be a better way.

Let’s do it. Get ready to vote in the convention, and, more importantly, fill those spots in the convention with people who are ready to give power back to the people.

Other than this convention provision, the New York State constitution and New York State governmental structure and political culture sucks a big old sky-scraper.

Thank you for attending to my screed!