Adjunct Professor Jerry Goldfeder was quoted in a New York Times article about the upcoming constitutional convention in New York.
For as long as anyone can remember, dysfunction has ruled New York’s capital: Corruption is common, power is limited to a few, and habitual calls for change disappear like the sun on a January day.
But next month, the voters of New York have a chance to force a wide-open, monthslong, everything-on-the-table examination of the state’s founding document by authorizing a constitutional convention, a sight not seen here since Robert F. Kennedy was the state’s junior United States senator.
If passed, Proposition 1 would trigger the first such state convention in the nation in more than a quarter century; the last one, in 1992 in Louisiana, was limited to discussing the bone-dry issue of state and local revenues.
In New York’s case, however, the changes to the State Constitution could be profound, as could the impact on the inner workings of Albany and beyond.
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Jerry H. Goldfeder, an election law expert who teaches at Fordham Law School, says he opposes the convention because of both its potential for onerous horse-trading — “One would have to be naïve to think that wouldn’t happen,” he said — and because of the ability of local governments, through charter revisions, to “enact reforms without opening up a can of worms.”