Recently, talking to my cousin in Brooklyn who lost his job a little while ago, it occurred to me that my arguments against voting “yes” to a constitutional convention in New York lack both passion and empathy. He was clearly already sympathetic to the idea, maybe because of his own circumstances and maybe because of the crowd that he'd been hanging with, and I could tell that everything I was saying rang hollow.
I guess I'd better back up a bit. New York State, in case you didn't know, is due to have a scheduled vote this November on whether to hold a constitutional convention in 2018. After the convention, the proposed changes go on a ballot in 2019. We're required to have the vote on whether to have one of these things every twenty years, we voted against having one the last time. We had one in 1967 and no changes were made. There was a convention in 1915 and the proposed changes were rejected at the time, only to be adopted later on their own, independent of the convention itself.
So, New York hasn't changed its constitution in over a hundred years. Think about that for a bit before proceeding.
Of course, as someone who works in the public sector, I've been getting lots of literature from my union telling me to vote NO, largely because of public pensions. This is on point. Other states, like Wisconsin and Michigan, used to have robust public employee unions that were steadily watered down. Illinois raided its public employee pension system, rendering it insolvent. New York has managed to dodge this bullet, so far, because with few exceptions, we've had excellent comptrollers who have made sure to keep the pension fund separate from the general fund, despite being hounded by the legislature every year. New York's constitution contains a guarantee that pension benefits cannot be taken away. In essence, they're a contractual obligation enshrined in New York's DNA.
First, a little bit about me. I've worked for New York state government for about four years. I'd been in graduate school for almost a decade before deciding it wasn't for me, and in 2008 I started temping in the Albany area, near Schenectady, where I grew up. Of course, this being the capital district, a lot of the temp gigs were in government, and it was only a matter of time before I ended up with one of those. That's how I found out about civil service exams. I took one, in part to humor the people I was working with, who saw this bright kid (I fooled 'em real good!), and wanted to help me get my foot in the door. I took an entry level exam, and did well enough to get a job after about a year when they finally got to people with my score. Since then I've taken more exams and clawed my way up taking whatever exams I could qualify for. I'm doing okay, and having what I'd describe as a pretty good life that's boring in all the right ways.
I'm lucky to have my pension, and I know that it's something that not a lot of people have. My pension contributions come directly out of my paychecks. The pension system is funded by three things. Contributions from employee payroll, contributions from employees, and investments. Once the contributions are made, they are no longer a concern for the taxpayer. They are something that I and my employer chose to spend money on. Money that had, in every sense, already been earned. Some choose to buy nice clothes and flat screen TV's, I spend 3% of my paycheck on my pension (well, I don't choose, but I did choose my job, so ultimately it's the same thing).
I'm no exception. People in the bowels of public service are just like everybody else. They go to college, or they don't. They have families, or they don’t. They deal with the same adversities and joys and sorrows as everybody else. They shop their resumes around, they take some civil service exams, and they interview, and if they are good enough, they get jobs in state or local government. We don't get paid as much as people in the private sector, and we take the jobs we do at least in part because we crave the peace of mind that comes from great benefits and collective bargaining. I realize that in this regard, I'm lucky. Not all industries have these kinds of benefits, and that's sad. When I started, with the state, I hadn't had dental work done in a while (it wasn't included in the health insurance offered by my temp agency) and one of the first things I did was get a thorough cleaning. I still have gum problems, but it's getting better.
A word about pension systems before I continue. A defined benefit plan, such as New York's, is like an insurance policy. When I contribute, I'm betting that I'm going to make it to retirement. I'm betting against the system, the “house” if you will. In other words, the pension system is betting that I won't make it. And you know what they say: the house always wins. That's as it should be, because without the house, there's no game. Like any good insurance plan, it's carefully calibrated by very, very smart actuaries. They know what they're doing. A rather beautiful corollary of all this is that if I don't beat the mortality tables, I'll have given my life for the retirement system. Digest that for a bit.
Back to my cousin, who hasn't been so lucky of late. I realized that going straight to talking about my pension, without any context or background, puts me dangerously close to the guy who complains about high taxes because “I've got mine.” That's not someone I want to associate myself with.
Which suggests that the surprising momentum for a convention, this time around, is coming from the same sense of frustration with the world that gave us Brexit, Trump, and most recently, the disturbing election result in Germany. People see a system that they feel has failed them, and in their eyes, the only answer is to turn the whole thing on its head and start over. It's easy to see how this is terrifying to people who've done okay within the current system. It's harder to see if you think you're being left behind.
Here's the thing, though. Once you start messing with the DNA of a government, there's simply no telling where you're going to end up. Unicameral legislature? Unitary executive? Dissolution of entire levels of government? Gutting of environmental protections? Everything is on the table. All at the same time. All in a single, hot summer, when tempers are high and people are running for the beach or the mountains.
And, in New York. One of the bulwarks of resistance to Trump. Our very own Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been working hard to get Trump from a legal end, using the force of New York State law. Preet Bharara has made New York his home. Our governor’s brother, Chris Cuomo, has been asking tough questions on CNN. Even Bill DiBlasio, for all his faults, has helped. A constitutional convention would take their eyes off the ball. In a big, devastating way that the world can ill afford.
The prospect of a constitutional convention here in New York will get little attention in October. Maybe an article here or there in a local paper, or if we’re lucky in the New York Times below the fold, but for the most part it’s a boring enough topic that it will go largely unnoticed. Even PredictIt doesn’t market for it at the moment. I haven’t checked Ladbroke’s.
After, on the other hand. That’s another story. If we do end up voting for it, the rest of America will notice. Almost immediately. Trump will notice it and probably tweet about how wonderful it is. The Koch brothers will be ecstatic. Putin will toast it with a vodka.
And people in other states will start getting ideas. I believe that if New York does indeed vote to have a constitutional convention, it could very well signal the beginning of the end of our country. In some ways, more than the election of Trump.
Look, our constitution in New York isn’t perfect. Which is why we get to amend it, through our duly elected representatives. There are good reasons to tread lightly around amending something as fundamental as a constitution — it’s dangerous.
See, government, on the most basic level, is an institution for preventing, mitigating, and resolving human conflict. The rules we agree to live by are machines for doing just that. The executive branch uses those tools, the legislative branch creates them, and the judicial branch troubleshoots them.
The best, most precious rules that do the yeoman’s work of enabling us to live together seldom represent clean victories, but honorable draws. That’s why a document like a constitution is such a hot mess — it represents a fight that’s been played to a draw. Nobody gets everything they wanted; everybody gives something up; and we all get to walk away feeling like we couldn’t have done any better. This is something our President fundamentally misunderstands with his constant talk of winning, and it’s an aspect of government I wish more people understood.
With the federal government increasingly dysfunctional, we need stable state governments. The kind of creeping instability that could occur if just one state — one of the states that is thought of as exceptionally “blue” — does something as dramatic as a constitutional convention — is hard to overstate.
Or we could just say, NO. Not here, not now. The madness ends HERE. And November 8, 2017 will be another normal day.
Update:
If you don't live in New York, you might be thinking, “so what? What this to me?”
So here are a couple less parochial reasons to be very, very concerned about the prospect of a con-con in New York State.
1. New York’s pension fund is with JP Morgan Chase, a major player on the world stage financially. The threat of a constitutional convention in New York will almost certainly spook a lot of younger civil servants. The ones who aren’t vested will be that much more inclined to withdraw from the system completely, interest and all. That could have unpredictable repercussions.
2. At the national level, 27 state legislatures have already approved an Article V federal constitutional convention. Only 7 more are needed for it to go through. At a national convention, anything could happen. The President could tighten his grip on power. Term limits could be erased. The emoluments clause could be eliminated. A framework for state secessionism could be put in place. Literally, all bets would be off.