Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby yesterday returned to one of his favorite issues — his contention that Article 48 of the state constitution requires the Legislature to vote up or down on proposed constitutional amendments submitted by initiative petition. Is Jacoby right? He may well be. But he’s not telling the whole story.
Currently an amendment is pending before the Legislature that would outlaw same-sex marriage. The amendment only requires the votes of 50 of the 200 House and Senate members, meeting in two consecutive sessions. If it clears that low hurdle, it would go on the 2008 ballot, where it would pass if it received a simple majority vote.
In order to get around the 25 percent requirement, Massachusetts Senate president Robert Travaglini, who will preside at the constitutional convention, is said to be considering a parliamentary maneuver — say, having one of his members file a motion to adjourn. If that motion were to pass by a majority, the convention would be over. Tom Birmingham did something very much like that when he was Senate president a few years ago.
Jacoby asserts:
Lawmakers are not given a choice in the matter. The Constitution requires them to vote. If it didn’t, initiatives opposed by the legislative leadership could be aborted by simply refusing to bring them up for a vote. Instead of operating as a check and balance on the Legislature, Article 48 would then be a toothless sham.
According to a LexisNexis search, this is at least the fourth time that Jacoby has railed against the Legislature’s disregard for Article 48. In 1997, he blasted the state’s Supreme Judicial Court for refusing to stand up to former Senate president Bill Bulger’s use of parliamentary maneuvers to kill a term-limits amendment. In 2002 and 2004, it was gay marriage.
But Article 48 cuts both ways. Bay Windows editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar sends along this recent article by Ethan Jacobs, in which Newton Mayor David Cohen, a former state representative, recalls precisely the same thing happening in 1990 to a proposed amendment that would have guaranteed abortion rights. Cohen told Jacobs, “That was used again by the anti-choice forces in blocking the amendment. There were repeated quorum calls, and since the pro-choice forces did not have a majority we could not maintain a quorum, and so that certainly is a legitimate tactic.”
A Boston Globe article published on Dec. 29, 1990, backs up Cohen. An excerpt:
Efforts to win legislative approval of two proposed constitutional amendments died yesterday when a majority of the state’s representatives and senators failed to show up for a constitutional convention called by Gov. Dukakis.
The constitutional convention, a joint session of the House and Senate that meets periodically through the year to debate proposed amendments to the state constitution, was adjourned for the year earlier this month.
But under pressure from the Massachusetts Teachers Association, backers of a proposal to add language to the constitution that would make equal access to quality educational opportunities in public schools a constitutional right, Dukakis called the convention back into session, as he is legally required to do.
That proposed amendment, however, has been overshadowed by another proposed amendment designed to guarantee access to abortion in Massachusetts. Both proposals reached the Legislature after tens of thousands of residents signed petitions favoring the measures.
Procedural rules dictated that the abortion amendment be debated before the education amendment and, because of organized opposition to the abortion amendment, lawmakers have failed to attend the convention sessions, leaving them without a quorum with which to conduct business.
Isn’t that interesting? I don’t believe Jeff Jacoby was writing in 1990. But if Article 48 requires a vote, then surely this is just as much of an outrage as what Travaglini is considering.
Finally, let’s take a look at the actual wording of Article 48. I’m not going to repeat the language Jacoby cites; besides, I tend to agree with him. At the very least, if the drafters of Article 48 realized the 25 percent provision could be defeated by such parliamentary shenanigans as motions for adjournment and quorum calls, I’m sure they would have written it differently. Rather, I’m intrigued by this:
No measure that relates to … the reversal of a judicial decision … shall be proposed by an initiative petition …
That seems to be clear enough. And what is the proposed amendment other than a transparent attempt to overturn the SJC’s 2003 Goodrich decision (PDF), which recognized the right of same-sex marriage under the state constitution? You may recall that two former state attorneys general, Jim Shannon and Scott Harshbarger, called on Attorney General Tom Reilly to refuse to allow the amendment to go forward. But Reilly, who must depend on the votes of conservative Democrats and independents in his gubernatorial campaign, ruled otherwise.
Amending a constitution to take away people’s rights is a nasty business. That’s why the amendment process is so difficult at the federal level, requiring two-thirds of both branches of Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures.
Amending the Massachusetts constitution may, as Ryan-Vollmar suggests, be harder than it is in some other states. But two 25 percent votes of the Legislature followed by a simple majority of the electorate is still pretty easy. Under those circumstances, I think Travaglini is justified in doing whatever he can to keep the tyranny of the majority at bay.
Finally: Two of the Democratic candidates for governor, Deval Patrick and Chris Gabrieli, say they favor marriage rights for lesbians and gay men. This week’s Boston Phoenix asks why they’re showing so little backbone on the constitutional amendment.
Update: There’s a breaking story on Boston.com right now that the SJC has ruled the anti-gay-marriage amendment can be put on the ballot if it passes the legislative hurdle. That strikes me as an odd interpretation of Article 48. Maybe Jacoby and I should get together and rewrite it.