New Constitutional Convention in Missouri?

Great Debates
1

Every twenty years in the State of Missouri (hereafter “Mo.”) we have a balloting, per the present State Constitution, on the issue of whether to call a new State Constitutional Convention & redraft the State Constitution from scratch. The ballot is tomorrow, so I’m not expecting to change anyone’s mind on this; I was just thinking about it again today.

A local college instructor, name of Simpson, ran a series of opinion columns in the local paper (our beloved Joplin Glob) in which he advocated a constitutional convention. I’ll provide links from the online archives, but you don’t have to click them to follow this post; I’ll summarize the gist.

(Part 1 is basically his thesis statement, with some vague talk about unnamed “charlatans” who “would have Missouri stagnate in a reactionary backwater.” Portends rhetorical badness to come.)

His major points were as follows:[ul][li]In Part 2: Since both State House of Rep’s & State Senate seats are filled from districts apportioned by population, there’s no good reason to have two houses. A unicameral legislature would eliminate the “needless duplication” of a voter having two different representatives in the legislature. (I’ll come back to this.)[/li][li]In Part 3: Voter initiatives (which in Mo. are used to amend the constitution, thus occasionally doing an end run around the professional politicos in the legislature) “give away that essential responsibility of citizenship” by “allow[ing] vested and narrow interest groups to convince us, using slick advertising and simplistic arguments, that we should circumvent the legislature and make laws and propose constitutional amendments on our own. In effect, when we resort to the initiative, we are rejecting the very choices we made for legislators.” Apparently, in Mr Simpson’s world, a direct vote is less the will of the people than is their representation through the proxy of legislators. :eek: [/li][li]In Part 4: Term limits, apparently, are always always bad. (Of course he thinks term limits are bad. Everything else he advocates is designed to keep power in the hands of elected legislators. But I think this has been covered in other SDMB threads, so I’m giving it very short shrift.)[/ul][/li]
Anyway, I decided I didn’t much agree with his theories on governance. (Did he have to force himself not to advocate the abolition of separate legislative & executive branches? I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with a parliamentary system. Or would he prefer we elect a despot every two years? That would save the taxpayers all those legislator salaries! Oh. Ahem.) But he got me thinking, especially about the House & Senate both having population-proportional districts. Wouldn’t it be neat if we had two houses in the legislature, but one was filled by candidates from the state at large? We could have voters pick their favorite party, and apportion seats according to percentage, like they do in Italy. Greens in the legislature! Meaningful bicameralism! Cool!

Of course, that’s un-American, 'cos we’ve never done it here. So Constitutional Convention or no, we won’t see it in Mo. anytime soon. Phoo.

In the final analysis, (and this is the part that occurred to me today) I won’t vote for a new State Constitutional Convention because I do hope for real political reform in this country, & in my state. Mr Simpson wants to change the constitution for conservative reasons, to combat future reform. The present Mo. Constitution is inherently reformable, which is the beauty of it. And we get to separately elect our Governor, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and State Auditor–a privilege I am unwilling to risk.

OK, that’s my post. Perhaps mundane, arguably pointless, probably rather odd, but maybe food for thought.

2

Have you seen how the Italian government works? American legislatures are models of efficiency and uncorruptability in comparison.

3

In any event, minor-parties do get their issues in front of the public, since the two big boys suck up the slate. In essence, the minor parties are breeding gronds for tommorow’s big new issue.

4

In any event, minor-parties do get their issues in front of the public, since the two big boys suck up the slate. In essence, the minor parties are breeding gronds for tommorow’s big new issue.

5

No cite, but some major Supreme Court decision (which I can’t remember the name of; thus, no cite) mandates that state legislatures have to employ (some sort of) proportional representation, even in bicameral states (which is most of 'em). Perhaps someone with a better memory can tell me what the hell I’m talking about here ;).

6

Some Guy, you may be thinking of how the formulation of representation and districting must be proportional to population, i.e. each Senator or Assemblyman represents exactly as many potential voters as the one seated across from him/her. Therefore no legislatures mirroring the US Senate, with one-Senator-per-County type of composition.

“Proportional Representation” however, when talking of legislative organization refers to something quite specific: that the final composition of the house be somehow proportional to the volume of votes-per-party in the entire jurisdiction. For instance, that if there is a Legislature of 100 seats, elected at-large, each member is seated on the basis of a Party having received one percent of the vote. Or that if the state is divided into 20 districts assigned 5 members apiece, each one is seated on the basis of the Party having obtained 20% of the votes in that district. The advocacy of “Proportional Representation” is based generally in that with the U.S.'s usual “first-past-the-post” election system, a party can win all the marbles including a clean sweep of the whole state’s legislature, without even getting close to 50% of the overall vote (while a 3rd. party that makes it as far as 30% is still S.O.L.)

[hijack]
And having an upper house elected at-large need NOT result in a paralyzing parliamentary mess – not if you (a) set the threshold for getting a seat high enough (say, 8%) and (b) do not employ a simple gross-percentage mechanism, but either a weighted system (e.g. barely making the minimum does not get you 8% of the seats) or one that still allows direct voting but with preferential ranking (as in Australia, where you can chose which other candidate you want in if your first choice does not make it)

BTW American courts would probably say the party-list-percentage style of PropRep is not consistent with the 'American Way" of allowing the voter to vote directly and specifically for whom they want in that seat.
[/hijack]

Here in PR each House has 11 at-large members (on top of the 16 district Senators and 40 district Reps), that are elected nominally by having each voter cast a ballot for one and only one of the candidates: the top 11 vote-getters make it. In reality, what each major party does in order to ensure a good distribution is not run a full 11-person slate and randomly assign which of the candidates will show up at the top of the ballot column in each precinct. Our tiny 3rd Party runs only one single A-L candidate per House in order to pool all its votes. The usual result is that the at-large delegation winds up split 6-4-1 or 5-5-1. Add the district group and you get typical mixes of 28-22-1(House) or 16-10-1 (Senate)…
…HOWEVER…
…if a party manages to get more than 2/3 of the seats, without having achieved 2/3 of the vote, a constitutional provision kicks in that unless that latter condition is met there must ALWAYS be 9 minority Senators and 17 minority Representatives. So in those cases additional at-large members are added from the top vote-getting unelecteds. Thus today our Senate is actually split 18-8-1-1 (2 major parties, 1 minor party, 1 runaway independent) and adds up to 28, one more than normal.

7

Yeah, there were two US Supreme Court cases mentioned in the newspaper column:

Baker v. Carr (1962), in which the USSC asserted its right (ostensibly under the 14th Amendment) to rule on internal voting practices of the states. I find it a bit inappropriate for the USSC to rule on the constitutionality of constitutional law, especially state constitutional law, but it probably seemed like a good idea at the time. This page includes a summary, & the dissent of Justices Harlan & Frankfurter.
(Must be nice to just assert rights for yourself. Anyone else regretting that Justiceships are for life? I know, I know, that’s a quantum leap. But think about it.)

Reynolds v. Sims (1964), in which it was further declared that both houses of a bicameral legislature must be apportioned by population. See this page for the transcript.
For the meat of the decision, see Part IV: “We hold that, as a basic constitutional standard, the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis. Simply stated, an individual’s right to vote for state legislators is unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a substantial fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens living in other parts of the State.”
Now, I can see that the decision in Baker v. Carr at least arguably served a useful purpose. This, on the other hand, is founded in less-than-incontrovertible ideology.
In the court’s opinion, Chief Justice Warren says (part III) “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres.” From this he determines that, “Logically, in a society ostensibly grounded on representative government, it would seem reasonable that a majority of the people of a State could elect a majority of that State’s legislators.” Of course Justice Warren forgot that legislators rule not only people, but trees, acres, & waterways, inter alia. There are sound reasons for apportioning fewer Senate seats per person to urban areas, whether state constitutions exercise this option or not. By prohibiting such hypothetical constitutional reforms, the Court overstepped its bounds.
I like Justice Harlan’s dissent: "The Court’s constitutional discussion … is remarkable … for its failure to address itself at all to the Fourteenth Amendment as a whole or to the legislative history of the Amendment pertinent to the matter at hand. …
"If constitutional amendment was the only means by which all men and, later, women, could be guaranteed the right to vote at all, even for federal officers, how can it be that the far less obvious right to a particular kind of apportionment of state legislatures – a right to which is opposed a far more plausible conflicting interest of the State than the interest which opposes the general right to vote – can be conferred by judicial construction of the Fourteenth Amendment? …
"Recognizing that ‘indiscriminate districting’ is an invitation to ‘partisan gerrymandering,’ the Court nevertheless excludes virtually every basis for the formation of electoral districts other than ‘indiscriminate districting.’ …the Court declares it unconstitutional for a State to give effective consideration to any of the following… : history; economic or other sorts of group interests; area; geographical considerations; a desire ‘to insure effective representation for sparsely settled areas’; availability of access of citizens to their representatives; theories of bicameralism (except those approved by the Court); occupation; an attempt to balance urban and rural power; the preference of a majority of voters in the State.
“So far as presently appears, the only factor which a State may consider, apart from numbers, is political subdivisions. But even ‘a clearly rational state policy’ recognizing this factor is unconstitutional if ‘population is submerged as the controlling consideration . . . .’”
He adds, “The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare, nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements. …when, in the name of constitutional interpretation, the Court adds something to the Constitution that was deliberately excluded from it, the Court in reality substitutes its view of what should be so for the amending process.”

Sorry to go on, but Reynolds v. Sims strikes me as bad (i.e., shortsighted) law, & law forged in a bad process. How can we challenge the decisions of a Supreme Court that puts itself above every lawmaking body? Reminds me of my opinion that we should be extremely ready to impeach Supreme Court Justices at all times, in the name of “checks & balances.” (But that would be another thread.)

P.S.: All this work, and the net clogs, & JRD posts first. Well, I’ll read it in a minute.

8

OK, now I’ve read JRD’s post. Huh. One more reason for Puerto Rico to stay out the Union (there are many): They don’t need the “Supremes” rewriting their constitution.

9

They can do that right now if they wanted to, anyway, foolsguinea. They just don’t bother to very often. So on that issue it’s 6 of one, half-dozen of the other :slight_smile: Back in '64 the AG here wrote an “opinion” that the at-large meta-district and the “minority adjustment” did not violate Reynolds, and for 40 years nobody has bothered challenging it.

10

Admittedly, I only skimmed most of the text of Reynolds, but I think it would favor, rather than prohibit, at-large candidates on principle. “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres.”

11

Um, before you get all het up about the decisions you cited, foolsguinea, you might want to understand why they Supreme Court of the United States thought it important to do what it did. Although the decisions make no reference to the issue, the main reason that the apportionment of representatives had been left untouched for 60-plus years was that it kept blacks from having substantial representation in the state legislature. By limiting urban counties to the same number of representatives as rural counties, the urban black vote from Birmingham, Mobile, etc. was substantially diluted (similarly blacks in Memphis, etc. in Tennesse). Needless to say, the Supremes didn’t think much of this concept. You will note that only Justices Frankfurter and Harlan objected to the basic conclusion that the concept was violative of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. The others were not about to let the discriminating white legislators keep the black voters from having an equal say in state politics. (Yes, I know that there were other issues involved, such as the fear of rural voters that city-folk were gonna run roughshod over them, but in 1964 the main reason that these issues made it to Washington was because of discrimination against blacks).

Further, one might point out that the basic notion articulated by Chief Justice Warren is correct: in a republic, legislators represent people. Now, one might point to the Senate of the United States Congress and say, “but, but, but…” The Senate, however, is the legislative chamber of the states, as opposed to the people of the United States. And counties, though certainly important political divisions, are not states. That is, they are not self-contained political entities binding themselves together to form a greater whole; rather, they are political subdivisions of the state, existing for the purpose of ease of administration. So to say that a legislator represents a county in a state legislature is nonsense; he/she represents the people of his/her district. Mr. Justice Warren made this quite explicit in his decision in Reynolds.

Now, maybe the Court did throw out the baby with the bath water in annunciating the sweeping proposal that it did, but the purpose was to make it clear to Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, et alia that they should stop attempting to finagle a voting scheme that would disenfranchise urban (black) voters.

12

As a Missourian, let me step in briefly.

I voted against the convention, and apparently so did pretty much everyone else in Missouri. So, no convention is forthcoming.

As for the legislature, I too have often thought it silly to have a bicameral legislature in which both houses are apportioned by population. It’s too bad about that SCOTUS case you cite. Missouri could really use a senate with one or two senators per county. As it is, Kansas City and St. Louis can band together and control the affairs of the entire state. This gives no respect to the fact, clear to any Missourian, that the people of those two cities have widely divergent values and interests from those in the rest of the state (excepting my own little villa, Columbia, the town the Washington Post called “the Berkeley of Missouri.”)

You are really underestimating the extent to which rural people, including those here in Missouri, perceive themselves as residents of the county. I am a Columbia resident…but not 5 miles outside of town the people of the little villages surrounding would describe themselves foremost as Boone County residents. Over to the east 20 miles, someone is more likely to describe himself as a Calloway County resident than as a New Bloomfielder or Millersburger. Counties represent a group of people, a group of people who share certain interests. St. Louis county may have many more people, but why should its citizens be able to bully the people in rural Audrain County, tax them to serve their big-city interests, and impose their big-city values?

There’s at least a good argument to be made. Other states may not be so diverse, but I suspect most are.

13

FYI, Alaska has the same convention question, only it appears on the ballot every 10 years. We said “no” on Tuesday.

Here as in MO, the unicameral legislature was one of the suggested changes. However, people were more afraid of special interest groups monkeying with the constitution. Plus, the rules for how delegates would be elected are vague-to-nonexistent. You’d think a question that’s been on the ballot 3 times before would’ve reminded someone to plan for the eventual “yes” vote.

14

The point I made about who/what a state representative represents is not that there is no sense of identity among residents of a county, but the important legal point that a county is not a seperate political entity joining into a communal whole called the “State of Missouri”.

The result of the cases certainly is that the political machinery of government is somewhat easily dominated by the legislators from the big cities, a fact as true in California as it is in Missouri. Of course, there are other protections available, as the majority opinion in the second case noted.

15

Look. I understand why they did it. I know enough of the history of the time. And strict constructionist though I am, if they’d stopped at regulating the lower house in each state, I really wouldn’t care. But not allowing for any alternative theory of legislative district organization, while it probably seemed necessary at the time, was a mistake. They went too far.