Delegate Mary E. Batastini of Providence, in yellow blazer, addresses her fellow delegates on May 1, 1986, during proceedings of the Rhode Island Constitutional Convention, the last year the state held one. Batastini was the chairwoman of the Committee on Citizen Rights. (Screenshot from Plenary Session video/Rhode Island State Archives)
The mild debate over whether Rhode Island should hold a constitutional convention is unsurprising. And not because the political world has become recently polarized. In fact, Rhode Island has always been very particular about the language in its governing documents and has found it difficult to come to consensus. Once we manage to adopt something, we become pretty invested in not changing it.
Consider Rhode Island’s original European settlers, who were free thinkers who had trouble aggregating. They settled in Providence, Warwick and in two places on Aquidneck Island establishing separate communities with their own governing authorities. But pressure from adjoining colonies, which both rejected notions of religious tolerance and wanted Rhode Island’s resource-rich landscape, encouraged the groups to come together and to get from King Charles II a document which codified the ways they had chosen to live, most particularly, with freedom from governmental stipulations about religion.
The resulting charter took a trip to England and 17 years to get right before it was adopted in 1663. It created the unified colony of Rhode Island and was our central governing document through the Revolution and Independence. The charter includes both standard boilerplate for such documents in the 17th century, and very specific language about religious freedom, written by Rhode Islanders.
We liked our charter so much that we were reluctant to endorse the new, U.S. Constitution, and were the last new state to do so in 1790.
Of course, that was not the end of it.
Rhode Island historians love to tell the story of the Dorr Rebellion, so I will keep it short. In the 19th century, the State of Rhode Island was still using the ancient charter as its state constitution. Thomas Wilson Dorr, a lawyer and politician, wanted to expand voting rights. He gathered followers, wrote a new constitution and ultimately provoked an armed rebellion against the state. This effort failed to replace the government, but it did force a constitutional convention, and a new state constitution, in 1842.
It took a big push to make a change.
We have made amendments to our constitution since, and regularly tweak the laws it oversees, but the last real rewrite was during a constitutional convention in 1986. Once every 100+ years or so, it seems, we become willing to come together to manage big change.
We are not even halfway through that timeline this year. So it does not surprise me at all that while the citizens of Rhode Island have the right to call for a convention, many oppose it.
There is something legitimately concerning about making significant changes to our foundational legal documents. If, as I often argue, our shared culture in this very diverse nation is based in large part on our laws, large-scale changes to how we manage and create them, even at the state level, seems fraught.
Once every 100+ years or so, it seems, we become willing to come together to manage big change. We are not even halfway through that timeline this year.
There are arguments to make that redrafting our foundational documents for the 21st century is an exercise that would have value, if it involved the whole public, and worked towards establishing the kind of aspirational goals that our national constitution, which has served us very well, contains.
Big, culture-changing issues led Dorr to foment his rebellion: removing limitations on who was allowed to vote, and the legality of slavery. And some of the proposed changes that might be considered if we were to hold a constitutional convention now could address things like the way we conduct our elections. These are potentially important to examine.
But many of the issues under consideration today seem small. Should the governor have a line-item veto on the budget? Should we have an office of inspector general? These are things that could be solved legislatively, if there was consensus.
And since it appears there is not consensus yet, will a constitutional convention change that? Or will it simply allow some factions to try to force changes into place, setting up a contested election on the results?
The level of time, care and organization required to develop meaningful small-d democratic consensus on big issues is not easy to imagine in the moment in which we live. If we are fighting our historic reticence as well, I have some real concern that we can’t do it right.
In which case, we should not do it at all.
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