OPINION: If now isn’t the right time for an Alaska constitutional convention, when will be?

How will you vote Nov. 8 on the constitutional convention referendum? Many Alaskans — surely a majority, including some prominent current and former politicians — believe voting “yes” to enact a convention would amount to opening a Pandora’s box. They say Outside money will flood into the state, cynically manipulating voters opinions, and we voters will then acquiesce - hypnotized - turning our very constitution over to… well, pick your least favorite special interest group.

Five referendums since statehood, five rejections. Always, the story is the same: “Too risky.” “Too contentious.” “Alaska has a good constitution.” “There is already an established process for amending the constitution in an orderly fashion that goes through the Legislature.” Above all: “Now is not the right time.”

If now is once again not the right time, when will it be?

Ever?

And when those delegates of yore wrote the decennial convention referendum into Alaska’s constitution, were they implicitly saying, “Look, but don’t touch?”

Is the convention referendum just a hood ornament?

I aim to convince you voting “no” and thus rejecting the convention is the second-worst thing we could do with our vote. The worst thing would be to so fear the convention that we squander this opportunity to engage with our democracy more deeply - to think about it, talk about it, discuss it. Shouldn’t we talk about it? When we look around us and it seems like political compromise has become almost impossible and that civil society itself appears to be unraveling, are we to assume that it is all just bad luck? “Too bad it has come to this. Maybe if we keep following the same path and just give it a little more time, things will all work out.”

Is that how problems get solved?

The original convention of 1955-1956 in Fairbanks is rightly famous for being idealistic, effective despite partisan differences and almost entirely free of the influence of lobbying - in other words, so unlike our present politics as to seem almost mythical. Most of those who comment on this remarkable convention seem to believe that it was mostly a product of a unique and perishable context: Alaska in the mid-1950s, shaped by the dynamism and optimism of the World War II generation.

But what if the original convention represented not only a special time and a special generation of delegates but also a special process? What if, no matter when it takes place or who carries it out, the convention process itself — which is a different process than our ordinary politics — will make bigger things possible, will confer some of the good stuff of 1955-1956 on any convention, whenever it takes place? Even now.

That’s what I believe — that constitutional conventions are special. Our ordinary politics, the status quo, is where the real risk is. The convention process incorporates at least four powerful checks that are either missing from our ordinary politics or have become corrupted over time and no longer work as they were intended. We can change that through a constitutional convention. But only if we can find within us the boldness to vote “yes.”

The convention referendum represents a truly vast and complex topic. Which means that there is not space enough in one commentary to address both the crippling fears and misunderstandings surrounding the convention process, and then also what we might change. But here I offer an example: Make our Legislature unicameral and nonpartisan, as it has been in Nebraska for 85 years.

Unicameral legislatures are more transparent, easier for voters to follow and understand and harder for lobbyists to influence. Again, that’s harder, not easier, based on Nebraska’s actual experience. Unicameral legislatures are more representative for a given size of legislature. And nonpartisan legislatures are more effective, because their official procedures are not hostage to partisan trench warfare, which means legislators can actually compromise and get things done.

The convention referendum is a profoundly important decision that we should not make reflexively or thoughtlessly. Let’s start talking about our constitution, because many of the problems we see in our government and politics and, even in our society, are not the result of bad luck. They emerge naturally from the structure of our government, and that structure is encoded in our constitution.

We don’t have to speak in whispers. And the time is now.

Donald “Don” Canning lives in Two Rivers.

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