Constitutional Convention

Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said yesterday that he plans to proceed with a Constitutional Convention next week that will include discussion of whether to proceed with a proposed 2008 ballot question that would ban same-sex marriage. "In July, we recessed with the understanding that the Constitutional Convention would take up the remaining items on the calendar when we reconvene," he said. "We have the shared responsibility to debate and seek final resolution of all the items remaining on the calendar," he said.

CALLING THE Tea Party movement "terrorists" is grossly misplaced. Indeed, the real domestic terrorism going on in our country is our socialist government's confiscatory taxation, public education indoctrination, and economy-crushing regulations, and the extreme environmental movement raising the cost of living. The spontaneous Tea Party movement is a reaction to the way many American voters feel about big, intrusive, out-of-control government. Demonizing the movement will only make it grow to be heard loud and clear in the 2012 elections and beyond, until the people and the...

CALLING THE Tea Party movement "terrorists" is grossly misplaced. Indeed, the real domestic terrorism going on in our country is our socialist government's confiscatory taxation, public education indoctrination, and economy-crushing regulations, and the extreme environmental movement raising the cost of living. The spontaneous Tea Party movement is a reaction to the way many American voters feel about big, intrusive, out-of-control government. Demonizing the movement will only make it grow to be heard loud and clear in the 2012 elections and beyond, until the people and the...

JAMESTOWN, R.I. - Bruce Sundlun - a former Democratic governor of Rhode Island, businessman, lawyer, and World War II bomber pilot who was shot down while flying over Belgium - died Thursday evening at his home. He was 91. Mr. Sundlun died surrounded by his family in Jamestown, the family said in a statement. "As a husband, father, and grandfather he was our north star," the statement said. "We are deeply grateful for his love and lessons throughout our lives. " Governor Lincoln Chafee ordered Rhode Island flags to be lowered to half-staff until Mr. Sundlun is laid to rest.

THANK YOU to Renée Loth for her important column highlighting why we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and to restore democracy to the people ("Clean elections take a hit," Op-ed, July 9). The ruling presents a serious and direct threat to our elections, unleashing a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any previous campaign expenditure totals. The ruling also marks the most extreme extension yet of a corporate-rights doctrine that has placed corporations over people.

SAN CARLOS, Calif. - Fed up with the budget crises and partisan battles that have paralyzed California for years, some influential voices believe it is time to tear up the state constitution and start anew. Once dismissed as a hokey gimmick, support for a proposed constitutional convention has been building in the nation's most populous state. Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would back an effort to retool the document to make state government function more smoothly.

HARTFORD - Now that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the right to wed, opponents of gay marriage are pinning their hopes on a ballot question in a longshot bid to block the unions. Every 20 years, voters can force a convention during which delegates can rewrite the entire constitution. It's a long, painstaking process that could cost millions and, by coincidence, it's on the ballot this November. "This is our one opportunity for the people to have a voice, for the people to be heard, for them to decide whether marriage will be...

RANGOON, Burma -- The government defended its haphazard efforts to draw up a constitution as delegates prepared to work on the much-delayed document, saying yesterday that the country has the right to choose its own path toward democracy and that the process cannot be rushed. Meanwhile, the government confirmed for the first time that it has extended pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention by six months. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been held without trial under an antisubversion law for 10 of the last 16 years.

The Lost Constitution , By William Martin, Forge, 512 pp., $24.95 This past March, a federal appeals court struck down the District of Columbia's gun control law, ruling it to be an unconstitutional abridgment of the Second Amendment's right of the people "to keep and bear arms" clause. The ruling is likely to bring this politically and emotionally charged constitutional issue before the Supreme Court, but already it makes William Martin a most prescient novelist. And his novel should stand as a provocative entry in the post-Virginia Tech gun control argument.

JAMESTOWN, R.I. - Bruce Sundlun - a former Democratic governor of Rhode Island, businessman, lawyer, and World War II bomber pilot who was shot down while flying over Belgium - died Thursday evening at his home. He was 91. Mr. Sundlun died surrounded by his family in Jamestown, the family said in a statement. "As a husband, father, and grandfather he was our north star," the statement said. "We are deeply grateful for his love and lessons throughout our lives. " Governor Lincoln Chafee ordered Rhode Island flags to be lowered to half-staff until Mr. Sundlun...

THANK YOU to Renée Loth for her important column highlighting why we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the US Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and to restore democracy to the people ("Clean elections take a hit," Op-ed, July 9). The ruling presents a serious and direct threat to our elections, unleashing a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any previous campaign expenditure totals. The ruling also marks the most extreme extension yet of a corporate-rights doctrine that has placed corporations over people.

SAN CARLOS, Calif. - Fed up with the budget crises and partisan battles that have paralyzed California for years, some influential voices believe it is time to tear up the state constitution and start anew. Once dismissed as a hokey gimmick, support for a proposed constitutional convention has been building in the nation's most populous state. Even Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would back an effort to retool the document to make state government function more smoothly.

HARTFORD - Now that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that same-sex couples have the right to wed, opponents of gay marriage are pinning their hopes on a ballot question in a longshot bid to block the unions. Every 20 years, voters can force a convention during which delegates can rewrite the entire constitution. It's a long, painstaking process that could cost millions and, by coincidence, it's on the ballot this November. "This is our one opportunity for the people to have a voice, for the people to be heard, for them to decide whether marriage will be...

The Lost Constitution , By William Martin, Forge, 512 pp., $24.95 This past March, a federal appeals court struck down the District of Columbia's gun control law, ruling it to be an unconstitutional abridgment of the Second Amendment's right of the people "to keep and bear arms" clause. The ruling is likely to bring this politically and emotionally charged constitutional issue before the Supreme Court, but already it makes William Martin a most prescient novelist. And his novel should stand as a provocative entry in the post-Virginia Tech gun control argument.

Governor-elect Deval Patrick demonstrated the difference between campaigning and governing yesterday when his 11thhour appeal to legislators to block a procedural vote aimed at banning gay marriage proved to be as ineffectual as it was eloquent. The passion and the timing of Patrick's declaration that "a vote to advance this question to the 2008 ballot is irresponsible and wrong" took even the most ardent legislative supporters of same-sex marriage aback. Declaring, as Patrick did just before a joint session of the Legislature met in constitutional convention, that "it's time to move on" is...

Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said yesterday that he plans to proceed with a Constitutional Convention next week that will include discussion of whether to proceed with a proposed 2008 ballot question that would ban same-sex marriage. "In July, we recessed with the understanding that the Constitutional Convention would take up the remaining items on the calendar when we reconvene," he said. "We have the shared responsibility to debate and seek final resolution of all the items remaining on the calendar," he said.

Governor-elect Deval Patrick demonstrated the difference between campaigning and governing yesterday when his 11thhour appeal to legislators to block a procedural vote aimed at banning gay marriage proved to be as ineffectual as it was eloquent. The passion and the timing of Patrick's declaration that "a vote to advance this question to the 2008 ballot is irresponsible and wrong" took even the most ardent legislative supporters of same-sex marriage aback. Declaring, as Patrick did just before a joint session of the Legislature met in constitutional convention, that "it's time to move on" is the stuff of...

America's Constitution: A Biography By Akhil Reed Amar Random House, 657 pp., $29.95 The drafting of the new Iraqi Constitution, ratified in October, went about as well as the rest of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It wasn't pretty. Writing the supreme law of a land, as it turns out, is hard, vexing work. So many semantic perils to navigate. The Bush administration has defended the Iraq process by comparing it with our own predecessors' considerable struggles at the Constitutional Convention more than two centuries ago in Philadelphia.

America's Constitution: A Biography By Akhil Reed Amar Random House, 657 pp., $29.95 The drafting of the new Iraqi Constitution, ratified in October, went about as well as the rest of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It wasn't pretty. Writing the supreme law of a land, as it turns out, is hard, vexing work. So many semantic perils to navigate. The Bush administration has defended the Iraq process by comparing it with our own predecessors' considerable struggles at the Constitutional Convention more than two centuries ago in Philadelphia.

RANGOON, Burma -- The government defended its haphazard efforts to draw up a constitution as delegates prepared to work on the much-delayed document, saying yesterday that the country has the right to choose its own path toward democracy and that the process cannot be rushed. Meanwhile, the government confirmed for the first time that it has extended pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention by six months. The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been held without trial under an antisubversion law for 10 of the last 16 years.