Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Constitutional Convention

From the TL: A political activist from Cumberland County on Sunday used a local activist's annual forum to endorse a citizens' Constitutional Convention in the summer of 2007 to force changes in state government. Tim Potts, founder of the political watchdog group Democracy Rising PA, said he's tired of lawmakers promising reforms but failing to deliver, and changing the state Constitution through a Constitutional Convention may be the only avenue for change.
Potts was one of the main speakers at Mario Fiorucci's seventh annual State of the World Forum in his Sugar Notch back yard. A local
Green Party leader, Fiorucci has announced his candidacy for Luzerne County commissioner in 2007.

He believes that garnering support from 4 million to 5 million Pennsylvanians for a convention could sway legislators to vote for a change to the constitution.
Potts said Pennsylvania is the only state:


• without a lobbyist disclosure law to control influence peddling by special interests;

• whose legislature exempted itself from open records laws;

• to enact more legislation after the election in 2004 than before it, depriving voters of incumbents' complete records on Election Day;

• to make lame-duck sessions a common practice, and one of only 11 states that permit lame-duck sessions.

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