Friday, October 17, 2008

Should Illinois have a "Con Con?"

Sept. 24, 2008 - On Nov. 4, Illinois voters will decide if they want lawmakers to re-work the state constitution. Specifically, they will vote on whether the state should hold its Seventh Constitutional Convention. The 1968 convention resulted in the 1970 Illinois Constitution, which is still in place today.

Three participants of the last "con con," as the convention is popularly known, said they put the option on the ballot every 20 years to "force a discussion." Last week these attorneys and politicians debated the merits of a 2008 convention at John Marshall Law School in Chicago.

"Then there was an almost universal belief that we needed to go back and review the entire constitution," said 1968 convention participant and law professor Dawn Clark Netsch.

The last convention was supported by both parties and business and labor groups, Netsch said at the event hosted by the Chicago Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society. Today, she said, only a few individual issue groups want single changes to the constitution.

For full story:
http://chicagotalks.org/wiki/should-illinois-have-a-con-con