Constitutional revisions: An activist's delight

Even though liberals insist that all constitutions - federal and state - are living documents that essentially mean nothing, direct democracy (often mob rule) is alive and well in the form of citizen initiatives to amend state constitutions.

Instead of voting out the bums, or waiting until your party has control, voters often re-elect the incompetent and seek to cure the alleged "misrepresentation" of their elected representatives by citizen legislation. Citizen initiatives are easier to promote rather than going through the charade of arguing that the original constitutional language is a moving target for reinterpretation and only of historical interest.

President Barack Obama has encouraged this attitude at the federal level by referring to the U.S. Constitution as "fundamentally flawed" and an "obstacle" rather than the supreme law of our country and our guiding document. As a former professor of constitutional law, (coincidentally, as was Bill Clinton) it does beg the question of how he managed to take the oath of office to defend our Constitution, without crossing his fingers behind his back.

Florida is the only state that explicitly allows citizens to collect signatures to qualify a constitutional convention, although the ballot initiative process to amend the Constitution is more popular. Before a proposed amendment can become law it requires approval of 60 percent of the voters. (It used to be 50 percent.)

Considering the casual attitude progressive liberals have about the federal Constitution, it's a wonder Florida hasn't had a plethora of amendments to reflect the passion du jour. Surprisingly, Florida's current Constitution was proposed in 1968 via joint resolution of the Florida Legislature and not by citizen initiative. It really wasn't an earth-shattering event, other than creating a State Board of Education appointed by the governor.

The reality is that direct democracy is often used by well-heeled special interests to subvert the normal checks and balances of government. But it is often true that many voters simply become outraged or frustrated because certain issues cannot get resolved.

California - our bankrupt nation state - had become a model of legislative dysfunction for years. Many voters believe that the state government cannot fix itself, and that their overused initiative process is too limited in scope, so they are calling for a constitutional convention (con-con).

One huge issue is that under state law a two-thirds majority is required for budget bills. Perpetual political gridlock is guaranteed because even in ultra-liberal California, one can always be guaranteed of just enough pesky fiscal conservatives to grind the process to a halt. California faced a $41 billion budget deficit earlier in the year, with the deficit alone being larger than all the spending in all but 10 states. Democrats, who control both houses of the legislature, proposed to resolve the shortfall with even more taxes, whereas conservatives - no surprise - recommended spending cuts to close the gap. With such stark ideological and ethnic differences, California will be difficult to fix - if ever.

Since the majority of states are in the red, we could see more societal conflicts resulting in reform efforts by frustrated voters calling for state constitutional conventions. (A federal con-con movement is getting cranked up by Tea Party leaders.) But constitutional lawyers warn that once a convention starts anything can happen.

Congress can call for a constitutional convention if two-thirds of the states pass resolutions calling for one. In 1988 Florida rescinded a call it made 12 years before, for the U.S. to hold its first constitutional convention since 1787. Many were concerned of an unintended radical revision that would make our Constitution unrecognizable.

Over the past 222 years, different states have passed hundreds of resolutions calling for a constitutional convention. There is currently a move by some states to call for a con-con to repeal the income tax and shift to a fair tax. In recent years, 32 states called for a con-con to require a federal balanced budget. Other resolutions were for eliminating the electoral college, for term limits and the line item veto.

Many of these ideas are laudable, but a constitutional convention in our current political climate could be a prescription for disaster. One could only imagine the political chaos and riots by all the special interest activists. And considering the political ideology of the mainstream media - which would be in their glory providing wall to wall coverage of their liberal opinion - not limiting themselves to reporting the news - anything could happen.

Article V tells us "The Congress ... shall call" the constitutional convention. That means that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could set up the ground rules for both the selection of delegates and the election process.

And who do you think would be the Grand Pooh-Bah delegate presiding over this process? Right. Our president, who has already declared our Constitution an "obstacle" - a "fundamentally flawed" document, and who, along with other elected members of Congress would obviously not be required obey the oath of office required by the very document they would seek to render meaningless.