Saratoga County Democratic Committee chooses to vote NO on the NYS Constitution Convention

The Saratoga County Democratic Committee encourages you to vote no to a NYS Constitutional Convention.

Tonight, at the Saratoga County Democratic Committee meeting, the Committee voted overwhelmingly to oppose the constitutional convention on the ballot this fall.

Voters will be asked on the Nov. 7 ballot to decide whether the state should hold a constitutional convention to revise and amend the New York State Constitution. Not only could a convention cost at least $50 million-$100 million in taxpayer dollars, the outcome could have far-reaching effects for decades to come.

Reopening the document threatens the basic rights and protections guaranteed in the state constitution, and would become the vehicle to advance attacks on public education, collective bargaining and the environment, among others.

[image source: UUP]

It is not going to be a “People’s Convention,” as some well-financed people would like you to believe. Here’s why:

Most delegates are not your average citizen

During the last convention in 1967, four out of five delegates were career politicians, attorneys and Albany insiders. Every politician who ran that year won a delegate seat, and all of the convention leaders were sitting legislators.

  • Most troubling: Thanks to Citizens United, corporate special interests can spend unlimited money getting their delegates elected.
The odds are stacked against ordinary citizens being elected as delegates.
  • People from an established party need 1,000 signatures to run (and the party apparatus can help get signatures). Individuals independent of a political party need 3,000 signatures to run.
  • Of the 204 prospective delegates, 15 are “at large.” At-large candidates need 15,000 signatures to run.

There’s more

State lawmakers and judges elected as delegates can simultaneously collect salaries and pension credits as elected officials and as delegates.

Instead of wasting tax dollars on a convention …

$100 million could be used for:

  • Four years of SUNY tuition for 3,864 New Yorkers
  • 625,000 doctors’ visits for uninsured patients
  • After-school programs for more than 23,000 kids per year
  • A year’s worth of food for 163,333 of our hungriest children

[text source: UUP]

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