Coffee Party Nation's blog

My takeaway from A Conference on the Constitutional Convention

by Al Cannistraro

Al Cannistraro is a retired Social Security Disability Adjudicator from New York City.  He lives in upstate New York near Albany, where he pursues various and sundry interests.

A "Conference on the Constitutional Convention," a three-day event held recently at Harvard Law School's Ames Courtroom, located in historic Austin Hall on the Cambridge campus. "ConConCon," as it was also called, examined the "pros and cons" and "ins and outs" of attempting to hold an Article V Constitution Convention to make necessary updates to the US Constitution. The clause of Article V that was specifically examined and discussed allows for a convention to be initiated by applications from 34 of the 50 states (two-thirds), with any resulting proposed amendments to be put up for ratification by three-fourths of the states.

The event was co-chaired by Mark Meckler, a lawyer and former network and Internet marketer, who also is a spokesman for and co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, and Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor and founder of Rootstrikers. The event drew approximately 400 participants from across the political spectrum, several of whom were pro-convention activists and/or Article V experts.

Lessig and Meckler opened and closed the event.

Instapundit founder Glenn Reynolds delivered a "Keynote from the Right,” while Prof. Lessig delivered a keynote from a different perspective. Speakers on different panels focused on legal and procedural issues, political issues, and strategies. A Closing Panel looked forward to possible next steps.

by Phil Aroneanu, US Campaign Director for 350.org

I have been extremely busy with work, but I've been really inspired by the recent discussions of Occupy Wall Street.  Having just come off a marathon couple months of climate action, including two weeks of arrests in Washington DC as part of the Tar Sands Action, and a global day of climate action called Moving Planet, I was tired and reticent to get engaged in more public protest.

But I decided to head to Occupy Wall Street anyway, where I linked up with Max Berger, and talked to the inspiring individuals who were camped out in Liberty Park. What I found was a crew of mostly young people, dedicated to linking up the issues that most Americans care about: immigration, income inequality, corruption, climate change...etc.  I was surprised how eloquently they wove all those issues together, and how much inspiration they took from the many global movements that people I know have helped to organize.

Here's a quick video that nicely captures the linkage between the #occupywallstreet and the global climate movement:

by Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist for Public Citizen

When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations may make unlimited expenditures for and against candidates, those five justices did not understand that there are no meaningful corporate governance rules in place to ensure such spending decisions are made by the corporation as a whole.

Citizens United allows CEOs single-handedly to dip into the corporate coffers and spend unlimited amounts of other people’s money on their own political whims, without even informing the board or shareholders how their money is being used. It is imperative that the SEC step in and establish appropriate corporate governance procedures to safeguard shareholders.

Shahid Buttar is the executive director for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee.  He graduated in 2003 from Stanford Law School, and has served on as counsel to Muslim Advocates’ Program to Combat Racial & Religious Profiling, and as Associate Director for Communications & Outreach for the American Constitution Society for Law & Policy.

by Shahid Buttar

Reflections on the 9/11 attacks are important and moving. But most overlook the enduring legacy of the attacks, in the form of the vastly greater damage done to American principles over the past decade. Whether in the context of surveillance, torture, or the congressional cowardice that has enabled them, our leaders have sullied the legacy of an America that once inspired the world.

Earlier this summer, when facing a crucial accountability moment for an agency that continues to abuse the rights of millions of Americans, members of Congress asked no tough questions, avoided controversy, and submitted to a White House proposal to entrench the FBI leadership—at the same time as they fought to the knuckles over issues that Congress created in the first place by spending the country into a fiscal black hole and absurdly cutting taxes in the midst of multiple wars.

Most astounding in all this is Congress’s apparent abandonment of its own institutional interests. Even in the face of documented lies by the FBI’s leadership to congressional committees and repeated proof that Congress, the press, and the public are hearing only tiny slices of the whole truth, Congress has failed to use its many tools to seek transparency and investigate executive abuses.

There was a time that America’s leaders took seriously their oaths to defend the Constitution by conducting aggressive oversight of executive agencies. A generation ago, for instance, the Church and Pike Committees investigated many of the same practices that have recurred in the past decade. The failure of their successors in Congress threatens the future of democracy in America and reflects a disturbing pattern of congressional submission to executive power.

Congress began lining up to defend executive abuses in the face of public criticism soon after the 9/11 attacks. Special registration requirements, the PATRIOT Act’s draconian surveillance powers, unprecedented authorities to arbitrarily—and indefinitely—detain individuals on the mere basis of accusation, and major revisions to the FBI Guidelines all generated little debate in Congress.

And while we might find comfort in the hope that a counter-movement would emerge, that hope is misplaced. Despite running on a platform announcing that the “choice between liberty and security” was “false,” the Obama administration has continued—and even expanded—the Bush administration’s surveillance and secrecy. And by reversing course on accountability for torture, the Obama administration affirmed that criminals with enough political connections would receive judges’ robes rather than prison terms.