Sunday, February 18, 2007

Pennsylvania constitutional convention

Our friends at PACleanSweep is pushing a constitutional convention. The last one was in 1968. For all the talk of reforms in Harrisburg I'm of the opinion that the most far reaching one is to take redistricting out of the hands of the politicians. Congressional and state house/senate districts should be drawn to make geographic sense and be as competitive as possible. That would ensure term limits in many cases and make our representatives more responsive to the people. From the inbox:

On February 22 at Duquesne University, the Senate State Government
Committee will be holding a hearing regarding the possibilities of holding a
constitutional convention. A convention could address issues Pennsylvanians have
been talking about since the pay raise, such as changing the size of the
legislature, enacting term limits and setting new redistricting guidelines.

The Committee will be hearing from selected experts in constitutional law
and from a few established reform-minded organizations, but has not yet called
for any input from the general public.

Participate in the latest PACleanSweep poll and tell us what YOU think
about a constitutional convention. Please forward this message to as many
Pennsylvanians as possible - we can't let the Legislature move forward on this
without us!

Cast your vote now in the PACleanSweep
poll...


Current PA Constitution...

History of PA's Constitution...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can we get a petition and e-mail campaign started to pressure our state representatives and senators, letting them know that we want a Constitutional Convention so that items such as property tax reform are addressed immediately rather than later? They will only respond to voter pressure.

Unknown said...

We need an ongoing campaign with funding and continued pressure. Emails and petitions will not do it.

WestYorkBoro said...

We need a governor who will call for one, and shut down congress until it happens. Sgt. Robert Mansfield
www.mansfield4pa.org