"The Only Way" To Make Sense Of Sen. Hughes Questionably Logical Pro Constitutional Convention Commentary

I've been resisting writing a post on whether Alaskans should vote to have a constitutional convention.  I listened to a debate between former Assistant Attorney General Libby Bakalar and Senator Shower and resisted.  But today's ADN commentary arguing for a convention was the straw that broke my resistance.  

[For non-Alaskans, our state constitution requires us to vote every ten years on whether to have a constitutional convention.  Since the Constitution was ratified, we've never voted yes.  But this year far right Republicans are pushing this as a way to get rid of the privacy provision which the Supreme Court has used to keep abortion legal in Alaska, and to change the very rational way we select judges among other things.]

So let me talk about a few things. (I could do more, but you'll get the idea fairly quickly.)

1.  The title

COMMENTARY

A constitutional convention is the only way to fix Alaska

Shelley Hughes

That's the headline.  I don't know that Rep. Hughes wrote it or the Anchorage Daily News editors wrote it, so take my comments with that in mind.  

Anyone who starts out saying there is only one way to fix something has already exposed themselves as an uncreative and rigid thinker.  There are always different ways to fix something.  Some very focused mechanical problems - like a backed up toilet - may have relatively few options.  But something as complicated as the whole State of Alaska, certainly has lots of different ways to be "fixed.'   And, note, she doesn't actually tell us what parts are broken and need to be fixed.  A constitutional convention is not the first thing that comes to mind as 'the solution', and probably not to most Alaskans minds. (Though we will learn next week whether this is true or not, at least for Alaskan voters.)

2.  Opening confusion.  She begins by imploring us:

"Alaskans, I respectfully implore you to recognize that the flood of paid advertisements you’ve been hearing about a state constitutional convention may not be telling you the whole story — and dare I say is “spinning” the story to protect the power and wealth of some who believe they would benefit more from your “no” vote."

This is a very confused sentence.   It's doesn't make grammatical sense. And, I'd note, unlimited Outside money is ok when it's oil interest money advertising for a GOP cause, but not when the other side has all that money.  

"the flood of paid advertisements you've been hearing about a state constitutional convention"

Does she mean a "flood of ads we've been hearing about"?   Or is 'about' connected to "a state constitutional convention."  As a blogger who writes a lot, I'm guessing this is the result of editing the original sentence without going back and reading whether it still makes sense.  

She then adds into this convoluted sentence something about spinning the story to protect the power and wealth of people who want you to vote no.  

Well of course, the 'no' side is telling a story to get you to 'vote no' because it's in their interest. 

Just like she's spinning a 'yes' argument to get us to vote yes, because it's in her interest.  

I'd note that Vocabulary.com says 'implore' suggests desperation.

"The word implore is often used to describe an urgent request made out of desperation. A man on death row might implore the governor to grant him a last-minute pardon."

And later in this Commentary she tells us why she's desperate - the No side is outspending the Yes side (her side) 100 to 1.  

3.  36 Questions.  Most of the commentary is made up of 36 questions.  (No I didn't count them, but I used the search function to tell me how many question marks there were.).   These questions, as you might imagine 

• "may not be telling you the whole story"
• " are “spinning” the story to protect the power and wealth of some who believe they would benefit more from your “no” ["yes"] vote."

They are all phrased with the very condescending school teacher structure of "Are we...?"  This is how some people talk to children.  Are we hungry today children?  Do we know what day it is today?

Question #1:

"Are we going to realize before we vote that more than 230 state constitutional conventions have been held in our nation successfully, peacefully, without upending state government and industry, without disrupting state economies and without constitutions being thrown out and rewritten, without extreme amendments passing voters?"

Let's briefly look at those '230 state constitutional conventions.'  A Cambridge University Press article published June 2022 tells us there were actually 250:

"From the 1770s through the 1970s, the 50 states held nearly 250 constitutional conventions, many of which brought about important changes in governance.

"Working from this list, I identify 77 of these conventions that were called to create inaugural state constitutions. Another 50 conventions were called for reasons stemming from the Civil War, including conventions called to secede from the Union and make necessary changes in state constitutions, then rejoin the Union and make state constitutional changes required as part of Reconstruction, and then later reverse changes adopted during Reconstruction. Another 41 conventions were called not at the instigation of legislatures but rather through automatically generated conventions or referendums or councils of censors or federal courts."

So the vast majority were:

• For the state to originally draft their constitutions*
• To secede from the US during the Civil War and then to rejoin the US after the Civil War make changes during Reconstruction and the reverse those changes.  All, according to Hughes, "without upending state government and industry, without disrupting state economies and without constitutions being thrown out and rewritten, without extreme amendments passing voters."  Really? Not even seceding from the US?  Not even setting up Jim Crow constitutions?  Really?

From the National Conference of State Legislators website, we learn:

"Nine states drafted new documents during the turbulent years between 1964 and 1975. Only two states have adopted new constitutions since then: Georgia in 1983, and Rhode Island in 1986.

Alabama is often mentioned when the idea of a constitutional convention comes up. The state’s current document dates to 1901 and at 376,000 words is about 80 times the length of the original U.S. Constitution, making it by far the longest and most amended of state constitutions. Amendments make up about 90 percent of it. Many local government functions are established by the constitution, and it often takes an amendment proposed by the Legislature to make changes to policies affecting a single county, or even a single town." 

So, it isn't a happy story of 230 states willy nilly calling conventions and having kumbaya conventions.  And conventions stopped happening, for the most part, in the 1970s.  And the state that has amended its constitution the most is Alabama.  Now there's a stellar role model for Alaska.  

A related set of questions from Hughes:

"Are we aware that in the more than 230 state conventions that have been held in our nation that Pandora’s box was not opened, that not a single worm escaped a can? That only sane and reasonable amendments were adopted?"

How do 'we' know this?  Just because she says so?  Not a single worm escaped?  How about the Civil War?  Maybe we should look carefully at all the changes to the Alabama constitution.   Actually Former Louisiana state senator Tony Guarisco wrote: 

"The 19th-century racist constitutions of the Bourbons and their 1921"crazy quilt" successor were embarrassments at best. Between 1922 and 1973, a constitutional revision by amendment produced 536 changes to a document that became virtually incomprehensible. Louisiana's law schools expended little or no effort to teach useless or inferior legal authority."

While Guarisco may not be unbiased, he was involved in one the Constitutional rewrites and probably has a better take on this than Sen. Hughes has.

Question 2:  (I'm not going to go through all 36 questions.  Just a few.  So this is the second question from Hughes' list that I'm going to address.)

"Have we processed the fact that the yes side only has donations from individual Alaskans, not the millions from outside ultra-liberal organizations like the opposition? And that the no side is outspending the yes side by 100 to one? That this is a David vs. Goliath battle?"

I haven't checked these facts out, but articles do confirm that the NO campaign is vastly outspending the YES campaign, and that they have a large donation from the same Outside group that supported Ranked Choice elections.  But it ignores the many Alaskan organizations - unions, fisheries groups, Native Groups - that oppose having a convention.

What I want to address here is the David and Goliath comparison.  In the Biblical tale, Goliath was bigger than David.  And Goliath was the bad guy.  David was the good guy.  Well, Senator Hughes here makes the argument that the NO group is bigger (has more money) and then slips in the assumption that the NO group is also the bad guy and that YES group are the good guys.  But she hasn't proved that at all.  Sometimes the stronger guy is also the better guy.  

She reinforces this at the end of the commentary: 

"Much is at stake. Root for David; vote yes."

Question 3:

"Do we realize that the voters elect the delegates by district and therefore the delegates will reflect the values of Alaskans statewide?"

This is actually one of the murkiest parts.  We've just gone through a very contentious redistricting board process.  Exactly how many districts will there be?  Who will set the boundaries for the districts?  The Alaska legislature is elected from districts.  Why would the convention be more harmonious than the legislature (which Hughes implied in previous questions couldn't do the job)?  And why wouldn't the urban centers dominate the rural areas?  [Yes, I just gave you a bunch of questions, but they weren't rhetorical ones like Hughes' questions.  They seek answers.]   I haven't found any documentation on how these delegates would get picked, or even how many there'd be.  The Voter Pamphlet only asks us vote whether to have a convention or not.  It doesn't tell us any more detail than that.  

OK.  That's enough.  You get the picture.  I'll reiterate.  From my perspective the YES folks want to have a convention for two main reasons:

1. They are frustrated because the Alaska Supreme Court has interpreted the Privacy section of the Alaska Constitution as guaranteeing the right to abortions.  So reason one is to change the Privacy section of the Constitution and they want to add language to prohibit abortions.  
2. They want to change the very rational way the Constitution sets up for picking judges so the conservatives  have more political control of the judges.  

And there are other things they would change if they had the chance, but I think these are the two most critical ones.

If you haven't already voted, be sure to vote No on Proposition 1 that calls for a constitutional convention.  

*I'm not sure either why 50 states would have 77 constitutional conventions to draft their original constitutions.  Perhaps some were rejected the first time round and they had to start again.  And territories, like Puerto Rico, have drafted constitutions but haven't been accepted as states yet.  (Alaska and Hawaii had their conventions prior to becoming states.)