Constitutional Convention for Illinois

In the end, your decision about how to vote on a new constitutional convention for Illinois on November 4 comes down to a choice between fear and faith.

The opponents of a constitutional convention want you to choose fear:

· To be afraid that radicals on both sides of the political spectrum will somehow hijack the constitutional convention and do all kinds of mischief on “social” issues.

· To be afraid that the existing power brokers will somehow hijack the constitutional convention and control it.

· To be afraid that teachers and other public employees will lose their existing pension benefits (even though they are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution).

· To be afraid that it will cost us $80 million or even $100 million to have a constitutional convention, when the best objective estimate is one-fifth or one-quarter of that figure.

· To be afraid that good, independent people will not run or be elected as delegates.

· To be afraid that the delegates will not propose a series of thoughtful amendments to our present constitution, rather than rewriting the entire document.

· To be afraid that the voters will not have enough sense to ratify the good and defeat the bad proposals put forth by the constitutional convention itself.

The proponents of a constitutional convention (of which I am a proud member) want you to choose faith:

· Faith in ourselves, that we can handle the responsibility of citizenship.

· Faith that we don’t need the power brokers and the good-government types and the “progressives” who wrote the constitution forty years ago to tell us when it is OK for us to change how we do business as a state.

· Faith in our young adults, who are just learning what democracy is all about and for whom a constitutional convention would be a civic lesson like none other we could provide them.

· Faith in women, minorities, naturalized citizens and others who were almost totally unrepresented in the last constitutional convention (which was 80% white males and almost half lawyers).

· Faith in Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Independents and people of other political persuasions that we can put aside our ideologies, stand for the whole, and work for the common good.

· Faith in the media to keep us honest and focus our attention on the important issues that need our attention.

· Faith in democracy itself, which has proven to be the best system of government yet devised, but which needs to be exercised on a regular basis if it is to remain viable.

When you walk into the voting booth on November 4, you will have a clear choice. Not between McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden. That will have already been decided in Illinois, if not throughout the nation. But you will have a choice between fear and faith, between voting “no”—as the power brokers want you to do—or voting “yes” with those of us who feel it is time to send a message to Springfield that what has been going on down there is unacceptable and that we, the citizens of Illinois, are going to change the way they do business by amending our state constitution, a right that we are given only once every twenty years.