Yes to a constitutional convention

By Ambrose Bennett

“Vote yes” will be my cry for the question on this years’ ballot for a constitutional convention. Common sense should let every voting citizen know that it’s your turn to do something about the government and the political problems of the CNMI. This golden opportunity only comes every 10 years according to the present law and common sense tells us it is not a law for nothing.

Although the last constitutional convention was not a success—primarily due to the poor leadership that applied the wrong format for the recommended changes to the Constitution to be presented to the voters—we should take note of this oversight to assure that voters are given the opportunity to address each recommended change individually on the ballot and not as a packaged deal like before. Some of the recommended changes from the 1995 ConCon actually had the potential to prevent some of the headaches we have gotten from the government but they weren’t approved because everything was tied up with the Article XII issue. Hopefully, we will have better leadership and better outcome by avoiding the critical mistake of the 1995 Convention.

The Constitution represents a “social contract” between the people and government. We all know that “contracts” need to be re-negotiated from time to time because the conditions of the working relationship change; it’s common knowledge and common sense. So the people only need to ask themselves one common sense question to determine how they should vote on the ConCon. The question is, “Am I totally satisfied with the way our government has been operating for the past 10 years?” Common sense tells me that 99.99 percent of the people will say no because the average person will have at least one concern among a list of concerns that can be addressed in the Convention. The outcome of the vote should be obvious given this fact but I’m writing this to make sure all the people are informed about the significance of having a Constitutional Convention to help make sure we don’t commit the blunder of not having a Convention.

So just use your common sense when it’s your turn in the voting booth. Think about the conditions our CNMI government is now operating under and think about the people, not politics, when it comes to the Constitutional Convention and vote yes. Give the people and yourself a chance to make changes in the CNMI Constitution for improvements in our government. One people, one direction.

(Ambrose Bennett is a Kagman High School teacher and the Teacher Representative to the Board of Education. He is the 1997 CNMI James Madison Fellow, a Congressional award that funded a major portion of his Masters Program in Educational Leadership that included additional Political Science courses at San Diego State University and Georgetown University in Washington D. C. Upon his completion of the James Madison Fellowship Program, he was “certified” as a U.S. Constitutional Scholar, recognized by the U. S. Congress and the James Madison Foundation.)