{"id":939,"date":"2014-08-08T23:09:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T03:09:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/?p=939"},"modified":"2014-08-10T22:10:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T02:10:00","slug":"bi-partisan-preparatory-commissions-first-public-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/?p=939","title":{"rendered":"Bi-Partisan Preparatory Commission’s Second Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Bi-Partisan Preparatory Commission met on August 7.\u00a0 It made two important announcements before beginning with public testimony.\u00a0 The first was that the Commission\u2019s report would be published by August 25.\u00a0 This date was premised on the need to get the Commission\u2019s report included in the Secretary of State\u2019s voter information handbook.\u00a0 The Secretary of State had informed the Commission that if it wanted its report to be in the handbook it had to meet his August 25 deadline.\u00a0 \u00a0As Beverly Clay and I argued<\/a> after the first Commission meeting, the Secretary of State should not allow the Commission to assume this unprecedented power, which is nowhere required by law.<\/p>\n

The Commission again didn\u2019t acknowledge that the original July 30 report deadline, which the General Assembly included in its enabling legislation, was not met.\u00a0 When most ordinary people miss a boss\u2019s deadlines, let alone one specified by law, an explanation is usually expected.<\/p>\n

The second announcement was said to follow from the first.\u00a0 Originally four public hearings were planned throughout the state.\u00a0 Now there would be three, all held at the State House, in order to meet the August 25 deadline.\u00a0 If that means that all three public hearings will be webcast, I like the change. \u00a0August 19 and 21 were set as the tentative dates for the remaining two public hearings.<\/p>\n

The Commission is made up of twelve members.\u00a0 Only eight showed up for the roll call at the beginning of the meeting. \u00a0The meeting lasted 70 minutes. \u00a0With 20 minutes left, only\u00a0seven\u00a0remained; with five\u00a0minutes left, only six, which was less than a quorum.<\/p>\n

At the July 31 Commission meeting, the chair said that all commission members would have a chance to submit their vacation plans before the four public hearing dates would be set.\u00a0 The low Commission member turnout suggests this either wasn\u2019t done or the feedback was ignored.\u00a0 One of the Commission members noted that he may have received even less public notice of the August 7 meeting than the public.<\/p>\n

As Beverly Clay\u2019s testimony<\/a> observed, the public notice for the Commission was posted 48 hours and 25 minutes before the Commission convened.\u00a0 The law requires 48 hours\u2019 notice. \u00a0Remarkably, as of 6:00 pm on August 8, the Commission was still not listed on the General Assembly\u2019s \u201cCommissions\u201d page, which is the gateway to commission information.\u00a0 However, the Commission\u2019s agenda and time of posting was available prior to the meeting if the \u201cCommission Agenda\u201d button was pushed at the bottom of the \u201cCommission\u201d page.\u00a0 However, agendas disappear after a meeting is held because the button is only for future agendas.\u00a0 I presume the lack of an easily accessible Bi-Partisan Preparatory Commission home page was a minor clerical omission.\u00a0 But the poor public notice seems to be more systemic.<\/p>\n

As for the public testimony, nine people spoke.\u00a0 Eight generally supported holding a constitutional convention, one opposed.\u00a0 Seven of the eight generally conceived of the constitution addressing democratic reform issues.\u00a0 The eighth focused on education reform (to equalize educational funding).<\/p>\n

Six of the nine addressed procedural issues a constitutional convention might address.\u00a0 Most of the recommendations overlapped and closely modeled the enabling act for Rhode Island\u2019s 1986 Constitutional Convention.\u00a0 I covered the recommendations most likely to be widely publicized in an earlier blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two of the nine people who spoke were elected officials (one a mayor from Cranston running for governor, another a member of the Providence City Council).\u00a0 Most of the others mentioned current or former leadership positions with good government groups, including Operation Clean Government, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, Common Cause Rhode Island, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n

As for a prediction, I\u2019d predict that the opponents of a constitutional convention will come out in greater force at the remaining two public hearings (their only advocate at this hearing was the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island).\u00a0 But I still think the major players will hold their firepower until it really counts.<\/p>\n

Usually, when it comes to state constitutional convention referendums, the opponents hold their firepower until the last few weeks\u2014and often just days\u2014before an election, when the press is distracted with more high profile candidate races.\u00a0 They\u2019ll then utilize their access to top political operatives to design a masterful media campaign and outspend the advocates for a convention by an order of magnitude or more (e.g., see \u2018Dark money\u2019 drives R.I. constitutional convention votes<\/a>).\u00a0 Sometimes there will be op-eds, but the focus will be on sound bite sized arguments; that is, media campaigns and robocalls.\u00a0 More in depth arguments will be provided in member newsletters, which are highly controlled environments where opposing arguments won\u2019t be aired.<\/p>\n

It would be great if there could be a substantial debate now, when it\u2019s still possible, about the benefits and risks of convening a state constitutional convention.\u00a0 If the Commission spurred such a debate, it would provide a great function.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019d bet against it.\u00a0 But the first two public meetings of the Commission were full of surprises.\u00a0 \u00a0Perhaps there will be more to come.<\/p>\n

\u2013by J.H. Snider, Administrator, RhodeIslandConCon.info<\/em><\/p>\n

The video of the meeting can be found<\/span>\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Providence Journal<\/em>‘s news report can be found here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Attached is the written meeting testimony that was submitted to the Commission. \u00a0If more becomes available, I will try to post it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beverly Clay\u2019s testimony<\/a>*<\/span><\/p>\n

Tim Murphy’s<\/span> testimony<\/a>*<\/p>\n

Phil West’s<\/span> testimony<\/a>*<\/p>\n

Sam Zurier’s<\/span> testimony<\/a><\/p>\n

Allan Fung (he\u00a0provided no written testimony elsewhere<\/a> has described his good government reform agenda)<\/p>\n

*member of RhodeIslandConCon.info’s Advisory Committee<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bi-Partisan Preparatory Commission met on August 7.\u00a0 It made two important announcements before beginning with public testimony.\u00a0 The first was that the Commission\u2019s report would be published by August 25.\u00a0 This date was premised on the need to get the Commission\u2019s report included in the Secretary of State\u2019s voter information handbook.\u00a0 The Secretary of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=939"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/939\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhodeisland.concon.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}