As Senate President, Travaglini presides over the constitutional convention, so I hoped his office would be able to tell me. I also happen to live in his district. I called, and they helpfully answered my questions about the process, but could give me no information about his plans to postpone or not postpone, or what to debate.
So here we are, less than 24 hours before the Constitutional Convention, and the public has no way to know if any constitutional amendments are about to be debated, let alone which ones.
[1] … and as of this posting, the Joint Session Calendar I linked to is still the one from the 2005 convention. Both Travaglini’s office and the Senate Clerk’s office tell me the new calendar will be posted sometime today. It will have #2 – #19 from the 2005 calendar, plus two new amendments: the new marriage amendment, and one prohibiting the use of eminent domain for economic development.
[update: Two hours after posting this, I heard WBUR report that legislators have agreed to postpone the ConCon to July.]
They’ve now updated the calendar for the 2006 ConCon. They forgot to change the year from 2005 to 2006, but don’t be fooled: you can see the old marriage amendment is gone, and the new marriage & eminent domain amendments are added at the end.
stating his plan to not take up ANY ConCon items on the May 10th ConCon Agenda, including item #2 the Health Care Amendment that I and hundreds of activists have been working on for 3 years to place on the Nov 2006 statewide ballot. I was emailed word o this ConCon a no go update late yesterday after the State House News Service issued Trav’s statement to their subscriber list (which I cannot afford). The public had already been informed they would not take up the anti-equal marriage amendment until the SJC ruling, but there were many indications that other important amendments on the ConCon Agenda might recieve their vote.
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What a contemptous way to be treated by our elected leaders. Yesterday at 12pm over 200 health justice supporters gathered at a State House Rally in the rain for over an hour and then spent that much more time inside on a final lobbying push, many taking time off work to show support for creating a permanent right to “comprehensive, afordable, and equitabley financed health insurance for all state residents”.
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The Health Care Amendment Campaign site http:www.HealthCareForMass.org has posted this quote from Trav’s statement “After careful consideration, with both my colleagues and the Speaker, I have determined that it would be prudent to postpone the Constitutional Convention until a later date in July … The Senate is currently preparing its budget and will be advancing other important initiatives in the next few weeks,” Travaglini said in the statement.
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Very discouraging on a number of dimensions…
but you worked 3 years on this proposed amendment?
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Perhaps I am ignorant of the implications of making what appears to be a legislative matter part of our state constitution, especially given the “subject to approval by the voters at a statewide election” provision.
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What if voters continually reject any plan put forward? What if voters reject all funding schemes, or various regulatory measures? What if legislative consensus is impossible? Would MassHealth get an SJC green light to implement whatever it saw fit without regard for the cost? Is this not taxation without representation?
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Are you not simply enshrining a legislative prerogative? Will this language even stand legal scrutiny as constitutional?
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Does your amendment not make a mockery of our state constitution as a document protecting individual rights against their usurpation by government? The US Constitution is mostly an exclusionary document forbidding government action and limiting its power rather than a recitation of rights granted, as the proposed 800-page EU âconstitutionâ attempts. Why pervert ours in this way?
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And, if one believes a constitution is the place to affirm new rights, why not add affordable housing language? If health insurance is a right, why not auto insurance, or home insurance? No one should go barefoot so the constitution must be amended to make shoes a right. Whereâs it end?
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Your proposed amendment, regardless of its underlying political or policy merits (it has none), is dangerous to the structure of our basic liberties because it abuses the prime purpose of a constitution â protecting the rights of the people, and defining and limiting the power of government.
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I think defining methods and actions like insurance as rights and mandated is a dangerous way to go about it, but I do believe that the constitution is the proper place to affirm basic human rights like health care, food, water, and shelter. How to achieve and enforce these is a legislative matter, but enshrining our rights in the writen constitution is highly proper.
It belongs in the constitution.
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We already have a right to due process, for example. What does that mean? It means the state has to hire and train judges and prosecutors, pay for public defenders, maintain a court system, and so on. Is that “taxation without representation”? Hogwash.
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You can say that you don’t believe health care is a right. I’ll disagree with you. Don’t say that it somehow just doesn’t fit the constitutional notion. That just doesn’t make sense.
That part is indeed a serious problem, and may be enough to kill the amendment. It was put in there by Finneran, specifically because he didn’t like this amendment. Even beyond the resignation, he may succeed. I plan a separate post on this later.
What we found out last night is what several legislators I spoke to earlier in the week already told me: we’re not having the ConCon today, except officially. They decided to postpone it to July because the legislature has too many other things they can’t delay right now. Your comment makes it sound like they decided to skip that particular amendment for this year entirely, while taking up other matters, and putting off that amendment to the 2007 ConCon. That’s not the case.
http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=5
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CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTES
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PREAMBLE
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The end of the institution, maintenance and administration
of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it, with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life: And whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness.
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Our State Constitution is the appropriate place to establish the right to health care, as can be seen above in its preamble.
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Many of us who launched this effort 3 years ago (nurses, doctors, mental health professionals, health policy experts, and health law attorneys–check out the 20 original signers on the campaign website) understand the concerns about “shouldn’t this be a legislative matter?”, but we have been working on health system reform for decades through the legislative process only to have little significant and lasting progress made–in fact we keep having to re-fight similar battles and never get major lasting improvements accomplished.
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PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING NEEDLESSLY AND ARE DYING here in Mass. and across the U.S. because they do not have ready access to timely quality health care because they do not have health insurance. Read the Institute of Medicine’s report “Consequences of Uninsurance”. 18,000 people a year in the US die prematurely due to not having health insurance. It is the 3rd leading cause of death for Massachusetts residents ages 50-64. This is happening while we are all paying HUGE SUMS into our health care system (through taxes, insurance premiums, co-pays etc) but none of us are getting anywhere near our money’s worth in return. AND people are dying prematurely after living sicker lives and suffering more. Something bold must be done. This is why the Heatlh Care Amendment was launched in 2003.
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Insurance is the ticket to timely access. So yes, health care is the goal but health insurance is how reach the goal. Other industrialized countries have national health insurance programs, such as medicare for all. They spend far far less than we do in the U.S. and ALL those countries have better health status outcomes (check out the W.H.O. report).
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The HC Amendment language went thru rigorous drafting and re-drafting after constitutional law research was done to help model the HC Amendment language on that that exists now in our State Constitution affording each of us the right to public education. Massachusetts and John Adams led the way for the country on that one…
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In July of 2003 the final HC Amendment language was submitted to the Attorney General by the 20 original petition signers. It was deemed constitutionally sound. The Sec. of State then issued ballot initiative petitions. During the Fall of 2003 over 71,000 voter petition signatures were collected in over 340 towns and cities across the state. My husband and I, both nurses, together with many of our health care colleagues collected hundreds if not thousands of signatures. In Jan 2004 the Sec of State certified that the required number of proper signatures had been submitted and the HC Amendment moved to the legislature for a hearing as House Bill 4444 and the first of 2 required ConCon votes before it could be placed on the statewide ballot in Nov. 2006. It received the first vote in July, 2004. The second required ConCon vote was to occur today, May 10, 2006.
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More details about this effort and its rationale can be found on the campaign website at http://www.HealthCareForMass.org. I hope that many of you will want to learn more and then will join us in making health care a right for all in the Commonwealth.
Your arrogance is astounding.
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For 3 decades you have been unable to convince the voters of the urgency of your cause. Maybe health care isn’t the burning problem you think it is, except in your mind. And so, failing at the ballot box, you contort the issue into one of ârights.â
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I find this all the more ironic in light of recently passed health care âreform.â Is this not what you wanted? Is this not the proper way of achieving your goals, through legislative action?
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Cutting and pasting the preamble to the Commonwealth’s constitution in defense of your proposal is meaningless, and proves nothing. To the contrary, “natural rights” and the “blessings of life” have nothing to do with health care.
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By your standard, what issue isn’t a candidate in obtaining “measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness”? Let’s float constitutional amendments for dull knives, tax-rebate schemes, and recreational drugs.
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Far greater numbers are killed annually in auto accidents in the US than the 18,000 you cite die because of lack of health insurance. By this standard, should not airbags and mandatory seat belt usage be issues for the next ConCon?
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One can legitimately debate whether in fact âhealth careâ is a problem, seek voter consensus then legislative solutions. In this forum it is a legitimate topic of debate and political discourse. Indeed, is this not what happened in the recent passage of âreformâ. Is this not the appropriate civic mechanism?
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No. Now it is only your arrogance that needs to validate âhealth careâ as an amendment to the Commonwealthâs constitution.
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What other “rights” can we create? The possibilities are infinite.
and that’s really a shame. It sounds to me like you have not been involved in trying to pass laws that benefit ordinary people over corporate interests during the last 20 years. What many people and organizations that are doing this work have repeatedly come up against is an astounding and disturbing level of influence on our government by big money / corporate special interests that often shuts out the interests of ordinary people.
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The ability to pass and enact laws using our democratic process is not functioning very well at present, more so on the national level than the state but real problems exist on both levels.
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Many people from all walks of life that are paying attention to this issue worked hard to pass the MA campaign finance reform law that passed in 1997 with almost 70% support. Then our legislature refused to fund and implement the law. So much for democracy.
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As I think more about your comments I am drawn to the conclusion that something seems to be impairing your ability to understand and to care about social justice and human rights and to make the connection between those concepts and a functioning democracy that respects and protects the tools we need to have for civic participation and a healthy, caring society.
Your arrogance is astounding.
For 3 decades you have been unable to convince the voters of the urgency of your cause. Maybe health care isn’t the burning problem you think it is
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So… you equate working on an issue with “being unable to convince the voters”, and you then equate that with something “not being a burning problem”. And then you call that arrogance?
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I guess slavery never was much of a problem until it ended, was it? That Thoreau dude with his civil disobedience, he wasn’t able to convince the voters, was he? Certainly not in three years.
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How long did it take John Miur to “convince the voters” that our government needed to do something to preserve natural land? How much more natural land was forever destroyed during that time? Was it not a serious problem? Would you blame him for his “arrogance” in working on it for so long?
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Just because you disagree with her on whether health care access is a right or not, doesn’t obligate you to make yourself look this silly. Think about what you’re saying.