In yesterday’s Portland Press Herald, I have another story involving a model text from the American Legislative Exchange Council making being introduced in the Maine legislature.
This one has national implications: a resolution to have Maine become the 13th state to call for a constitutional convention under Article V of the US Constitution, which would allow delegates to amend or theoretically completely rewrite the nation’s fundamental document. It takes 34 states to make the effort binding.
Critics — including the late Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Warren Burger — have warned that since there are no rules laid out for how such a convention would function, absolutely anything could happen.
How did the text wind up in Maine? How is it up for a floor vote as early as tomorrow? Read on to find out.
I’ve written about ALEC in Maine three other times in the past month, including this article and a follow up on a bill that would prevent towns from building high-speed broadband networks and this article on another that would prevent them from passing pesticide ordinances.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.