ROTTERDAM Assembly official seeks early constitutional convention Kolb wants to see action taken as soon as 2011 BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter
New Yorkers may need to wait seven years before they’ll have a chance to rework the state’s constitution, a governing document some state legislators cite as the reason for Albany’s dysfunction. But with pressure from the public, the state Legislature could advance a resolution convening a constitutional convention as early as 2011. Republican Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb said a constitutional convention would give state residents a chance to help solve many of the problems that have hampered progress in the capital and prevented real change from being enacted across New York. “It’s an opportunity for change, its an opportunity that is not partisan and it’s an opportunity to get ideas out there that normally get stifl ed in the legislative process,” he told a gathering of about two dozen people at the Rotterdam Senior Center Tuesday. Kolb has toured more than a dozen municipalities across the state in an effort to drum up support for an early constitutional convention. Ordinarily, state residents decide whether to host such a convention via a question that appears on the ballot on Election Day every two decades. New York’s constitution was first written in 1777 and has been revised extensively since. Signifi - cant changes were made to the document during a number of conventions in the early 19th century and another in 1938. Legislators called for the last constitutional convention a decade earlier than normal in 1967, but the changes that emerged were ultimately rejected by voters. Republican Gov. George E. Pataki stumped for a convention in 1997 but lacked support even in his own party. Voters resoundingly rejected the ballot measure. Efforts to place a ballot question calling for a convention have periodically cropped up and subsided since the measure was last defeated at the polls. But with a late state budget and an uproar over burgeoning property taxes, Kolb is confident he can generate support in both major parties. “This is not political,” he said. “This is not partisan.” For instance, Kolb said all candidates for governor have suggested they’d support a move to host a convention early. This means a referendum could go to voters next year if both the state Senate and Assembly advance a resolution calling for the ballot question. Were voters to call for a convention, each of the Senate’s 62 districts would choose three delegates via the normal election process. Another 15 delegates would be elected as at-large representatives. Delegates would only be required to be over the age of 18, registered and not convicted of any felonies. However, any candidate serving as a lobbyist or in state offi ce would be need to resign their post before becoming a delegate. The convention itself could take upward of eight months and is estimated to cost roughly $30 million through the state’s general budget. Kolb said this cost is only a fraction of the money that is routinely wasted in Albany as a result of the state’s archaic constitution. Republican Assemblyman George Amedore Jr. agreed. He said a convention could help advance a number of his initiatives, such as term limits and debt reform, that have been stymied by the legislative process. “The only way we’re going to fi x New York is we need to amend the constitution,” he said during the meeting. “The lawmakers are becoming the lawbreakers, and you’re seeing that in the budget process this year.”
So all the powerful special interests will run and take over teh constitutional convention. Lets not kid ourselves.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
So all the powerful special interests will run and take over teh constitutional convention. Lets not kid ourselves.
And you know and think this why?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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