Most newspaper articles/editorials state incorrectly that we’ll have to wait until 2017 for the next convention.  Wrong!  It’s even longer.  Article XIX of the state Constitution lays it out.  The next “regularly scheduled” convention if approved by voters in 2017 would actually be held in 2019!

Here’s the process:

  1. November 2017 — voters approve holding a convention
  2. November 2018 — voters elect delegates to the convention
  3. April 2019 — delegates convene for an indeterminate period of time (until business concludes)
  4. Six weeks after the convention ends – voters accept or reject the revised or new constitution

It’s at least a 3-year timetable. 

So — are you content to wait until 2019-2020 for citizen-led changes in Albany’s pigheaded dysfunction?

We’re not.  There is another option.  Assembly Minority Speaker Brian Kolb (R-129th Assembly District) has introduced a bill (A9157) calling for the question of a People’s Convention to be put to the people, ASAP.  This bill is stuck in committee (the Senate version is stuck as well). 

We need to create pressure on legislative leaders to move this bill forward, debate it, and approve it.  Leaders and followers alike will have to feel threatened if they oppose it.  They must be compelled to perceive this issue as the key citizen litmus test on their survival in office. 

This fall, ask your candidates where they stand on holding a true People’s Convention earlier than 2019.  Tell them they will lose your vote if they are against it.