Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

The short and sweet answer to the question “Shall there be a constitutional convention?” ought to be a resounding “Yes!!!” The question appears on ballots once every twenty years, with predictable results. This year the party of the status quo – all the special interests that for years have been suckling on the now withered breasts of Mother Government – is especially enraged by the idea, which was put into the state constitution by committed Jeffersonians. It was Thomas Jefferson, a son of the enlightenment, who thought that the government of these states should participate in a bloody revolution every so often to clean the entrails of Mother Government of its detritus. After the French Revolution, Jefferson settled for constitutional change. The past, Jefferson thought, was younger than the present, because the past had not the advantage of current experience. The forces in Connecticut that have conspired to obstruct the calling of a constitutional convention obviously disagree. By r...