An amendment proposed by initiative petition, if not decided yea or nay by a vote of the joint session as of its adjournment, may be referred to the next joint session by petition of one forth of all the members elected.
That would be an amendment to the section on “legislative consideration” of proposed amendments. Similarly for the section on “submission” of amendments to the people:
An amendment proposed by initiative petition, if not decided yea or nay by the joint session as of its adjournment, shall be submitted to the people at the next state election by petition of one forth of all the members elected.
The petition process would have to be subject to some mechanical rules–say, the petition must be filed with the clerk or perhaps the Secretary of State within one month of the adjournment of the joint session.
So: Power to the people, but no power to anyone to repeal civil rights.
Does anyone have a better idea?
If someone wanted to pass an amendment that would “abridge the rights of individuals to assemble, to petition government, to the free exercise of religion, or to equal treatment under the law” then they could just as easily repeal your new amendment.
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However, I might point out that your proposed amendment wouldn’t be needed as all those rights are protected by the federal constitution.
is exactly what the anti-marriage-amendment folks want to put before voters. You can argue, maybe, that it ought to be protected by the U.S. Constitution, but in fact it isn’t.
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As to your first point: the barrier this would erect is not absolute (nor should it be).
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However, it would mean that a campaign that wanted to deny to some group any preexisting right to marry (or vote, or own property, etc.) would have to first (1) get the consent of voters against the general principle of “no abridgement of rights,” a four-year multi-step process, and then (2) repeat the same four-year process around the specific rights they wished to restrict.
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They could not run the two campaigns in parallel because step 2 would be unconstitutional until and unless Step 1 succeeded.
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These are formidable and I suggest appropriate obstacles.
when it comes to changing the constitution at all, imo.
Amending the Constitution takes an absolute majority of a referendum in which 30% of the voters participate.
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The one-forth rule–which is currently in the Constitution, and which only applies to initiative petitions–is only about qualifying proposals for a vote by the people.
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The Constitution says that there should be an amending process that does not allow a simple majority of the Legislature to be a bottleneck. As a general principle, I think this is a good idea.