Article Options

Voters could bring on constitutional convention

By Blackwell Thomas, The Southern

Sunday, March 9, 2008 11:00 PM CDT

As Illinois voters head to the polls in November, they will be given a once-in-a-20-year opportunity to open up the state's constitution for wholesale change in a constitutional convention.

With a prolonged, bitter legislative session just behind them, many state lawmakers say significant change is needed in the Capitol, but opinion varies as to the necessity and potential pitfalls of rewriting the state's primary charter to reach that goal.

Issues like recalling elected officials, mandating school funding and giving citizens the ability to draft and vote on laws, as Californians can do through their proposition system, are matters that could be considered in a convention.

Last year, members of the Illinois House of Representatives voted 48-47 in favor of a resolution to support a convention. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, voted "no" on the resolution and said Friday he is worried Southern Illinois could be left with too few seats at the table while a new charter is hammered out.

"Delegates to the convention, the people who will draft it, are selected based on population," Bost said, before adding that the interests of Southern Illinoisans take an immediate hit because of this fact. "You ask a majority of the people on the street in Chicago, 'What's Southern Illinois?' and they say, 'Peoria.'"

Rep. Brandon Phelps, D-Harrisburg, said he voted "no" on the resolution to support a convention, in part for the same reasons as Bost.

"We would not be able to have the same representation as (voters in Chicago and surrounding counties)," he said. "We need to protect the rights we have now. In (a constitutional convention) everything is up for grabs. It's a very slippery slope."

But, according to John Bambenek, co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition, a group whose sole mission is to push for a convention, the state's constitution needs to be changed.

"Right now the state constitution says the state must have a balanced budget," he said. "To you and me, a balanced budget means you shouldn't have any debt. The state has about $108 billion of debt."

Bambenek and fellow co-founder of the coalition, Bruno Behrend, said the current constitution allows politicians to diminish the value of the vote by redrawing electoral districts and tailoring them to ensure job security for incumbents, not proportional representation. The two also said they hope a convention would open up the lawmaking process by stripping the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate of their control of what measures come up for vote.

Behrend said the reasons for a convention are many, but they can be distilled to a simple fact.

"This is not how governments were meant to function," he said.

blackwell.thomas@thesouthern.com / 351-5823