Adjunct Professor Jerry Goldfeder wrote an op-ed in a New York Daily about the upcoming constitutional convention in New York.
This November, New York has an automatic ballot question asking whether to call a constitutional convention. Fourteen states do this. Five states pose the question every 10 years. We do it every 20
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In 1997, I favored it. I believed that a revised Constitution could include election, campaign finance and ethics reform. The Legislature had not successfully addressed those issues, and I believed a convention stood a better chance. I was in the minority, and the proposal was soundly defeated.
The opposition at the time pointed out that the same tired faces would be delegates to a convention, including sitting legislators who had already failed at their regular jobs.
I now realize that the opposition 20 years ago was right. Delegate eligibility is seriously problematic, and, because delegates are elected both from state Senate districts and statewide, probably unconstitutional as well.
