By GWEN FLORIO of the Missoulian | Posted: Sunday, October 3, 2010 6:15 am
“We the people of Montana grateful to God for the quiet beauty of our state, the grandeur of our mountains, the vastness of our rolling plains, and desiring to improve the quality of life, equality of opportunity and to secure the blessings of liberty for this and future generations do ordain and establish this constitution.”
– Preamble to the Montana Constitution
It’s 2010. Do you know where your state constitution is?
More important, do you like where it is?
If not, this is your chance to change it. On Nov. 2, Montana voters will be asked whether they want to convene a convention to rewrite the Montana Constitution, as is their right every 20 years. The unusual provision – only about 10 other states have similar stipulations – was written into the Constitution in 1972.
That’s not the only thing that makes Montana’s Constitution different.
Its explicit rights – to a “clean and healthful” environment, to individual privacy, to government transparency, to bear arms as individuals – go above and beyond those guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
For that, Montana’s Constitution is revered in some quarters, reviled in others.
The arguments provided to voters for and against Constitutional Convention Call No. 2 reflect those views.
“Montanans have always been independent, individualistic and insightful. The traits which make us a people and the things we value are enshrined and protected in our Constitution,” wrote state Sen. Larry Jent, D-Bozeman, in the argument against a new convention. “This Constitution works. … If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
“While our visionary U.S. Constitution has proven its brilliance over 200 years, the Montana Constitution’s brief 38-year history reveals it to be deeply flawed, self-contradictory, and unworkable,” Republican state Sen. Joe Balyeat, also of Bozeman, wrote in urging a new convention. “Our children’s freedom, prosperity and welfare depend on your vote ‘FOR’ CC2.”
Briana Schwandt is a third-year University of Montana law student organizing this week’s Honorable James R. Browning Symposium that will focus on the constitution and the possibility of a new “con-con,” as it’s called.
Schwandt said that in her year-plus of working on the symposium, she’s learned that “people are very polarized about it. They either love our constitution or they think it’s too progressive a document.”
*****
Back in 1970, Montanans voted nearly 2-1 in favor of rewriting the state’s original 1889 constitution.
The resulting constitutional convention involved 100 elected delegates and 56 staffers (among them a young Max Baucus, who now chairs the U.S. Senate Finance Committee) who compiled 2,500 pages of reports to prepare the delegates for their task.
When the second constitution was still a teenager (the first vote on it came in 1990, just 18 years after it was written), Montanans voted just as decisively – 85 percent to 15 percent – against another rewrite.
During those years, “Montanans really came to appreciate that we have a terrific document and the vote in 1990 reflected that,” said Fritz Snyder, director of the law school’s William J. Jameson Law Library. A decade ago, Snyder co-authored “The Montana State Constitution: A Reference Guide,” with Professor Emeritus of Constitutional Law Larry Elison.
Snyder said the “ingenious” provision letting voters call a new constitutional convention is one of the document’s strengths. He has his own ideas as to why a rewrite might or might not be a good idea.
For starters, at a time when projections already show Montana having a budget deficit, a convention today would be terrifically expensive, costing something around $3.4 million, Snyder said.
Besides, he said, if a new constitutional convention were to convene, “anything can happen. There are no restraints on what the 100 elected Montana constitutional convention delegates can do.”
That’s the whole idea, said Balyeat, who called the present constitution “a lawyer’s dream.” As he wrote in his formal argument: “When Montana’s expansive constitution is placed in the hands of our overzealous courts, the net result is assault with a deadly weapon on Montana’s economy and jobs.”
The “rights” enumerated in the constitution, he said, are more akin to entitlements – “the only way you can have them is if either you or somebody else pays for them.”
*****
That kind of talk makes Snyder’s co-author Elison, who will give the symposium’s keynote address Thursday night, crazy.
Balyeat’s formal argument, he said, comprised “a lot of wrathful vituperative accusations – a kind of demagoguery.”
“The little slashing stuff really bothers me,” he said. “There’s so much anger” directed at a document that he said was full of “just damn good stuff.”
Schwandt said symposium organizers worked hard to make sure panelists represented different points of view on the constitution’s various provisions.
Balyeat remained skeptical. “Nobody’s invited me,” he said.
He added that he doesn’t think that matters. Balyeat fully expects that voters – at least the ones aware of the issue – will decide to leave the constitution alone.
Count Ida Asbury of Missoula among those who didn’t know she’d see the issue on the ballot. After being told about it, Asbury said she’d likely lean toward leaving the Montana Constitution alone.
But, like Snyder, she weighed reasons for and against: The present constitution “is fine with me. I haven’t had any problems,” said Asbury, 70, a retired artist. “It would cost us, and my income isn’t that high.” On the other hand, she said, “it’s a good idea to stay on top of things.”
No, she repeated, she hadn’t known anything about the ballot issue. But now she’s going to think about it.
Reporter Gwen Florio can be reached at 523-5268 or at gwen.florio@missoulian.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment