Senate Bill S6424

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S6424

 TITLE OF BILL :
An act to provide for the submission to the people of a proposition or
question to convene a constitutional convention


 PURPOSE :
This bill would place on the next ballot of the general election the
question, "Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution and
amend the same?"

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :
Section 1: Declaration and findings.

§2. Requires that the question, "Shall there be a convention to revise
the constitution and amend the same" be placed on the next general
election ballot as allowed under Article XIX, section 2 of the State
Constitution.

§§3 and 4: Process and voting.

 JUSTIFICATION :
New York's Constitution is a fundamental document that performs three
vital roles. It organizes the government, establishes the fundamental
rights and liberties of the people and articulates the basic values
              

and principal concerns of the people that they wish their government
to address. Periodic review of the Constitution is absolutely
critical. New York is one of a handful of states that possess this
important constitutional Clause. Such reviews correct deficiencies and
strengthen the governing process. As part of our acceptance of the
social contract embodied by our Constitution, periodic review and
democratic citizen participation is necessary to truly have a fair,
efficient and modern representative document. As Thomas Jefferson
stated:

And, lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at
stated periods...Each generation is as independent as the one
preceding, as that was of all, which had gone before. It has then,
like them, a right to choose for itself the form of government it
believes most promotive of its own happiness; consequently, to
accommodate to the circumstances in which itself, had received from
its predecessors; and it is for the peace and good of mankind, that a
solemn opportunity of doing this every nineteen or twenty years,
should be provided by the constitution; so that it may be handed on,
with periodic repairs, from generation to generation, to the end of
time, if anything human can so long endure. (1)

As Jefferson envisioned, state constitutions should be revisited every
nineteen or twenty years or for "periodic repairs." Throughout
history, the Constitution, either by convention or amendment, has been
altered to structurally reform the inefficiency of government al
institutions or to expand the rights of the People. Recent dysfunction
in government vis a vis the budget process and other institutional
failures illustrate the need to revisit New York's Constitution to
remedy and provide "periodic repairs."

Nine conventions have taken place over the course of the State's
history. Out of those conventions have come profound and expanded
rights for all New Yorkers. The first convention convened in White
Plains in 1777.  At this convention the first State Constitution was
drafted. Other conventions have produced significant expansion of
rights and reformation of governments. For example, the Bill of Rights
and the Governor's veto power were added to the Constitution at the
convention of 1821. The convention of 1846, the extension of the
franchise and the transfer of many appointive offices to elective ones
was added to the Constitution. At the convention of 1894, a provision
that required legislation to age for at least three days prior to
being put to a vote was ratified and the Blaine amendment (prohibiting
State funding to parochial schools) was approved. The last convention
was held in 1967 and the new Constitution was subsequently defeated.
1997 was the last year that voters got to decide whether or not to
hold a convention.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :
A.11859 of 2004
A.579 (2005-06)
A.1197 (2007-2008)

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :
Undetermined.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This act shall take effect immediately; provided that the provisions
of section two of this act shall not take effect unless and until the
question proposed in section one of this act shall have been submitted
to the people at the general election to be held in the next
succeeding November after the effective date of this act, and shall
have received a majority of all votes cast f or and against it at such
election. Upon approval by the people section two of this act shall
take effect immediately. The ballots to be furnished for the use of
the voters upon the submission of section one of this act shall be in
the form prescribed by the election law, and the proposition or
question to be submitted shall be printed in the following form:
"Shall there be a convention to revise the constitution and amend the
same?" (1) Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval (July 12,
1816) in THOMAS JEFFERSON WRITINGS 1395, 1402 (Library of America ed.,
1984).