This November, Michigan voters will see a question on their ballots about whether the state should convene a constitutional convention.
The last constitutional convention in Michigan took place in the early 1960s. There have been several conventions before that including when the state's first constitution was drafted in 1835.
A proposal to allow Michiganders to revise and review the current state constitution now shows up on the ballot every 16 years.
"Michigan's one of a few states that do this, and it allows for a check in. We're not just putting our governments on autopilot and assume that they got it right from the beginning," said Citizens Research Council of Michigan President Eric Lupher.
The current Michigan Constitution has seen dozens of amendments that have aimed to address political issues and needed changes.
"As we've grown further and further out from the 1960s, more and more people are voting to do the constitutional convention, but we haven't reached that 50% threshold. There's nothing really that raises the level of the system's broken," he said.
The Citizens Research Council of Michigan is putting out a series of publications about the history of constitutional conventions, or con-cons, and the state of Michigan's current governing document.
"We are the sort of policy wonks and policy nerds that dig into this stuff, but we don't suppose a lot of other people are paying close attention to how well our constitution is working," Lupher said. "So, we're going to try to give them the ammunition to make informed decisions in November."
He says voters should ask themselves questions about current constitution to figure out whether or not to vote for a convention in November.
"Do you feel like the state, state government, our local governments, our school districts, our universities, everything related to state and local government in Michigan is working well now? There's certainly issues, but does it raise to the level of let's start over?" Lupher explained.
The CRC plans to release its 15 papers about the Michigan Constitution about every other week between now and October.
Interview Highlights
On the goal of constitutional conventions
This is Michigan's fourth constitution. So, the question for the voters is, do you feel like the state, state government, our local governments, our school districts, our universities, everything related to state and local government in Michigan is working well now? There's certainly issues, but does it raise to the level of let's start over? Let's pull people together to give and take, negotiate and see if they can come up with a better way of structuring our state and local government, creating ground rules for how those entities should work, creating tax limitations, protecting our rights, all those types of issues.
On the time since the last constitutional convention in the early 1960s
We ask a question every 16 years. Michigan's one of a few states that do this, and it allows for a check in. We're not just putting our governments on autopilot and assume that they got it right from the beginning. So, I think at the beginning, in 1978, people said, we're only, you know, 15 years removed from that drafting of it. Let's give it time to work. And as we've grown further and further out from the 1960s, more and more people are voting to do the constitutional convention, but we haven't reached that 50% threshold.
On the publications the CRC is putting out to educate voters about constitutional conventions
We're releasing the first paper this week, and that just explains sort of what we've done here today: What is a constitutional convention? What are the mechanics for choosing the delegates? When would it get working? How much do we think it might cost, issues like that. The next papers are going to look at some of the history, how we've amended the Constitution, you know, what were the issues that led to the '61 Constitutional Convention, and then from there, there's 12 different articles in the state constitution, we're going to go, one by one through each one
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: This November, Michigan voters will see a question on their ballots about whether the state should convene a constitutional convention.
The proposal shows up every 16 years and would allow Michiganders to revise and review their current state constitution.
Eric Lupher is the president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan.
His organization is putting out a series of publications about the history of constitutional conventions, or con-cons, and the state of Michigan's current governing document. He joins me now. Thanks for being here.
Eric Lupher: Thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.
Saliby: So, what is a constitutional convention, and what happens during one?
Lupher: The easiest way to think about it is think back to your high school civics class, and when the founding fathers of our nation got together in Philadelphia 1787 and came up with what we now know is our U.S. Constitution that was replicated in each state, in Michigan in the 1830s. And since that time, we've gone through the exercise, this is Michigan's fourth constitution.
So, the question for the voters is, do you feel like the state, state government, our local governments, our school districts, our universities, everything related to state and local government in Michigan is working well now? There's certainly issues, but does it raise to the level of let's start over? Let's pull people together to give and take, negotiate and see if they can come up with a better way of structuring our state and local government, creating ground rules for how those entities should work, creating tax limitations, protecting our rights, all those types of issues.
Saliby: The last constitutional convention the state had was in the early 1960s. Why hasn't there been one since then?
Lupher: We ask a question every 16 years. Michigan's one of a few states that do this, and it allows for a check in. We're not just putting our governments on autopilot and assume that they got it right from the beginning. So, I think at the beginning, in 1978, people said, we're only, you know, 15 years removed from that drafting of it. Let's give it time to work.
And as we've grown further and further out from the 1960s, more and more people are voting to do the constitutional convention, but we haven't reached that 50% threshold. There's nothing really that raises the level of the system's broken, we need to fix it, contrary to what we're going to hear between now and November by a lot of politicians.
But there's the big picture issues tend to get addressed through amendments, whether that's value issues in Article One, or how we fund schools or things like that. But there's a lot of issues that don't raise to that level that probably can only be addressed to a constitutional convention. And, you know, I think over time, more and more people look at those types of things and say maybe it's time to pull that group together.
Saliby: I was going to ask, is there a typical time gap between con-cons? So, there was one in 1907, before the convention in the '60s. So, that was about 50 years. Now we're past 50 years here now.
Lupher: Each of them we've gone longer. This is Michigan's oldest, but it's still a pretty new constitution relative to the other states.
Massachusetts is still working with their constitution that predates the U.S. Constitution, so there's nothing magical about it. Each state chooses how to do their own thing.
Saliby: Looking back on the 1960s convention, it seemed like there were a lot of groups, like the League of Women Voters, some municipal groups that wanted change, and they kind of pushed and did a lot of campaigning around voting yes.
I'm not seeing any groups coming in and coming forward and saying, "Everybody needs to vote yes this year." So, is there a push from any type of organization that you've seen?
Lupher: I really haven't seen anybody pushing for it. I've heard of some people preparing to campaign against it, but we're not really involved too much on the politics side of it. We're trying to do the education. As you said in the introduction, we're trying to help people understand what this question is about, give them some history of our constitution and then our series of papers that we're going to publish over the summer are going to look article by article.
We are the sort of policy wonks and policy nerds that dig into this stuff, but we don't suppose a lot of other people are paying close attention to how well our constitution is working. So, we're going to try to give them the ammunition to make informed decisions in November.
Saliby: So, what is that education going to look like? And what are you going to cover in these papers?
Lupher: Right, so we're releasing the first paper this week, and that just explains sort of what we've done here today: What is a constitutional convention? What are the mechanics for choosing the delegates? When would it get working? How much do we think it might cost, issues like that.
The next papers are going to look at some of the history, how we've amended the Constitution, you know, what were the issues that led to the '61 Constitutional Convention, and then from there, there's 12 different articles in the state constitution, we're going to go, one by one through each one, and talk about the issues that have risen to the level of something doesn't seem to be working here, and maybe there's a better way to do it, and then wrap it up in time for voters to get their absentee ballots, if they choose to do that in early October, and they'll have a whole series, and it'll be a lot to dig through.
We're going to try to keep each paper short and concise, but collectively, 15 papers of five to 10 pages is a pretty good haul to get through. But at the same time, this will be a resource that people can come back to after November and think about what's working and not working, and how can we make our state better.
Saliby: Eric Lupher is the president of the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. Thank you for joining us well.
Lupher: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
