Rhode Island Current: Constitutional Conventions: A relic of old or a chance for reform? It’s time for voters to decide

This article originally appeared in the Rhode Island Current on June 11, 2024, and was written by Christopher Shea.  

Below is Common Cause Rhode Island executive director John Marion’s quote discussing the possibility of a constitutional convention and how it could impact Rhode Islanders.  

“It’s crazy because conventions used to be really common in the 19th century and even in the first half of the 20th,” John Marion, executive director of Common Cause Rhode Island, said in an interview Monday. But Marion said constitutional conventions started to fall out of fashion mostly because of political polarization. “That’s led to a real hesitation toward opening up some of our governing documents,” he said. Should a majority of Rhode Islanders want to move ahead with a convention, Marion said the state would have to set up a special election to select 75 convention delegates to represent each of the state House districts. “If that were to play out this time — a year from now we’d see that election,” he said. “We wouldn’t see a convention until around 2026.”

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