I'm curious for any other New Yorkers in here their opinion on the Constitutional Convention, and whether you're voting yes or no for it.
For those don't know, "Con-Con" happens every 20 years. It's the chance for NY State to re-write its Constitution completely. This is a very complex issue because there are arguments to be had for "yes" and "no" for Democrats, Republicans, and everyone in the middle. For whichever side you lean, this offers a chance to get a ton of legislation in without having to go through the typical amendment process. The flipside is, just imagine if the other side of whichever group you oppose pours the most money into this, gets whatever policies they want in that would have no chance of passing in the previously upheld State constitution.
There is a lot of misinformation being spouted about the convention in both the "yes" and "no" argument. The biggest pushback I've seen is from people claiming that their pensions can be at risk, or rights to unionize could be made harder. In my opinion, that's absolute horse shit. There is a risk in re-writing something from the ground up, but there are things New Yorkers have come to love overall, left or right, and one of those things is labor unions. I would be hard pressed to see big anti-union money actually overcome delegates of hundreds of thousands of blue-collar workers that jump through any hoop a union rep says to as it is.
If i can make a small tangent here, I really hate many labor unions. Too many of these are run by greedy corporate assholes that have created personal profit centers from stirring conflict with ridiculous demands knowing they'll settle with an agreement barely resembling what they rallied union workers behind, as long as they can make a good deal from it. While corporate corruption is subject to any type of business really, it seems much more prevalent in labor unions as compared to Teachers Unions, or Nurses Unions(not really shocked to believe that people fighting for workers rights of teachers and nurses are less corrupt than profit designed organizations). So, whether true or not, almost all labor unions have publicly come against this because even if there is a .0001% chance of the legislation of Unions being effected, they want to avoid it.
I'm honestly very in the middle on this. I'm not an anarchist that wants to burn down the current constitution for shits and giggles because radical change is good, even if it can possibly not be good. I understand that the flipside to any argument I make for it can be it going horribly wrong. My voting district voted overwhelmingly for Obama. And THEN overwhelmingly for Trump. So I know for a fact that there is a chance that delegates with awful horrible proposals can get much closer to getting something passed than they ever would.
One thing sort of leaning me toward the idea of voting "yes" is the possibility for actual campaign finance reform, among other things involving ant-corruption. NYC, it's boroughs, and neighboring counties have had an astounding amount of politicians head of to jail(usually not as long as they should). Between corporate interests, straight up bribery, gerrymandering voting borders, theft of public funds, there has just been a breeding ground of corruption. So this is an opportunity for voters to elect honest delegates to represent their communities and bypass a lot of the political bureaucracy that slows everything down. In addition this leads to the opportunity for many popular movements that have high favorability, but few legislative representation to gain traction($15 minimum wage, ban fracking etc).
Again, flipside, with delegates representing many areas of NY's wide political spectrum, you're going to have a modern constitutional drafting with people representing the Northeastern redneck confederacy that is upstate NY, in addition to the conservatives on Long Island(assuming per yearly migration that not all have yet moved south to Florida and North Carolina). So all of these people that flipped Obama voting districts into Trump voting districts will now have a chance to get representation in drafting a constitution that will effect NYC. Thinking about these people voting with their own financial interests in mind can be scary, as many of them will likely want less taxes and regulation period, over any concern of the deregulation of Wall Street.
So I'm somewhere in the middle to be honest. There are many possible benefits to having honest representation have this "once in a twenty year- chance to create major reform. However, this can backfire in the same ways everything could possibly improve. Personally, I'm seeing in my county almost exclusive "Vote No" promotion. I haven't seen a single "Vote Yes" bumper sticker, lawn sign, or anything. Yet I've seen hundreds of the "No" equivalent, and hundreds of Union workers venting about how their taxes will supposedly go up and they'll lose their pensions over this.
So my Tri State are friends, what are your thoughts. And to those in other States, what are your opinions on this potential venue for legislative reform?
