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Conference on the Constitutional Convention<br>
September 24-25, 2011, Harvard University<br>
<br>
From the <a href="
http://conconcon.org">
http://conconcon.org</a>
website:<br>
<br>
On September 24th, people from across America and across the
political spectrum will convene at Harvard University to discuss the
advisability and feasibility of organizing towards a Constitutional
Convention. While the conference's lead organizers are proponents of
a convention—and are particularly passionate about the need to
reduce the influence of private money in politics—we actively
encourage the participation of those who support a convention for
other reasons, and those who oppose holding a convention at all.<br>
<hr size="2" width="100%">I am not necessarily opposed to holding an
Article V convention, provided that it meet with specific proposals
already prepared by groups of those most able to draft
constitutional amendments of the kind I could approve. It would be a
waste to convene a bunch of people and expect them to develop
amendments from scratch during the event. Such a convention would
not be composed of experts in constitutional design. The most like
participants would be the same kind of people who attend Republican
and Democratic national conventions, who have trouble agreeing on a
platform or agenda, much less on something as far-reaching as
constitutional amendments. Those require years of deep discussion
and debate. I also doubt that Congress will call such a convention
unless it knows in advance what it will consider.<br>
<br>
However, this September 24-25 conference could be useful to organize
the working groups to develop amendment proposals. Two days is not
enough time to develop actual proposals, but we could get the people
together that might do that, and get them started in the right
direction.<br>
<br>
I estimate there are only about 200 people alive with the necessary
skills and disposition to do it right. I would like to have it
proved this is an underestimate.<br>
<br>
I have a website that can support discussion and work on this, <a
href="
http://amend-it.org">
http://amend-it.org</a> , where I have
some proposals already, mainly those developed by Randy Barnett and
by me, independently. Randy has tried to develop proposals that he
hopes would have broad effect, while I have focused more on
proposals that would overturn specific precedents. <br>
<br>
For your amusement, here is what Scott Adams, the creator of
Dilbert, <a
href="
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704101604576247143383496656.html">has
to say</a> on the subject, from his college experience:<br>
<blockquote>The dean required that our first order of business in
the fall would be creating a dorm constitution and getting it
ratified. That sounded like a nightmare to organize. To save time,
I wrote the constitution over the summer and didn't mention it
when classes resumed. We held a constitutional convention to
collect everyone's input, and I listened to two hours of diverse
opinions. At the end of the meeting I volunteered to take on the
daunting task of crafting a document that reflected all of the
varied and sometimes conflicting opinions that had been aired. I
waited a week, made copies of the document that I had written over
the summer, presented it to the dorm as their own ideas and
watched it get approved in a landslide vote. That was the year I
learned everything I know about getting buy-in.<br>
</blockquote>
That is about the only way an Article V convention might work.<br>
<br>
I would also prefer such conferences be held at a more neutral
location, like <a
href="
http://www.hillsdale.edu/seminars/default.asp">Hillsdale
College</a> or the <a href="
http://www.cato.org/projects.php">Cato
Institute</a>, so it wouldn't be dominated by rent-seeking
statists.<br>
<br>
<a
href="
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/1peoDn6o/Constitution-Society/"><img
src="cid:
part1.02080702.01050704@cons..." alt="Donate
Now!"></a>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- Jon
----------------------------------------------------------
Constitution Society <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="
http://constitution.org">
http://constitution.org</a>
2900 W Anderson Ln C-200-322 twitter.com/lex_rex
Austin, TX 78757 512/299-5001 <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:
jon.roland@cons...">
jon.roland@cons...</a>
----------------------------------------------------------</pre>
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