I’m really excited to attend the conference at Harvard: http://www.conconcon.org/

What’s that lyric by the Talking Heads? “Well--how did I get here?”

In 1981 I was sixteen, taking the tenth grade of high school over because of being down at Zuma too many days the previous year, and I was so troubled by what I learned in a social studies class, I figured there had to be a solution, and further reasoned that because the USA was the most powerful country on the planet, it would have to start here. Next thought was where to go if you wanted to change America and the world, the following thought was the Constitution. I walked directly to the library, ignoring my next class, attendance and all that, got a copy of the Constitution and began reading it. As soon as I saw the word convention I recognized that as the answer--"We just need to have a convention...." Then went off to become a stereotypical surfer, all the while reading far and wide.

In 1997 I read an article about the 1947 National Security Act: ever since the Department of Defense was created and the Pentagon built, the American citizen has been under a cap of disinformation: question the government or individuals who populate it--Sorry, it's a matter of “national security” you need not question further--move along…. As a poet and artist I began ruminating and digging, from history, to politics, conspiracy theory, social theory, and political science.

Then came the horrors: 1/12/01 and the betrayal by the Supreme Court by ruling a state must stop counting votes in a critical national election. Then 9/11. Knowing 9/11 would create a vacuum of power where certain forces would seep in, and the inevitable conclusion of that, a couple of days later I dedicated my life to causing a convention.

The 2002 Winter Olympics were held in Salt Lake City, and in December of 2001, the Olympic Torch began its journey around the country. I followed the torch, selling caps, banners, and pins, and discussed a “constitutional convention” with Americans day and night for two months, gathering data.

Then came the 2002 Help America Vote Act and the betrayal by Congress, flooding the country with 3.5 billion dollars of voting machines. If you don’t have transparent elections, you don’t have a free society, the two are one and the same. That’s the line in the sand.

I went to 501c3 groups set to combat private E-Voting and tried to reason that if they really wanted to secure The Vote from corporate interests and proprietary source code, they should beat the drum for a federal convention. No luck.

Then I went to 501c3 groups set to combat the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the Military/Industrial complex. I attended the 2004 national assembly of United For Peace And Justice and other local gatherings/meetings trying to reason with Pro-Peace activists that if they really wanted to bring the troops home and all that, they should beat the drum for a federal convention. No luck.

Then came the 2004 Presidential Election and I followed both the Bush/Kerry campaigns around the country, selling caps/t-shirts/buttons, attending a dozen rallies each, speaking with Americans day and night for two months about the Constitution, Article V, and whether or not we ought to convoke a federal convention. After the last campaign rally, I drove home from the Midwest to California, listening to news of Kerry conceding Ohio, voting machine irregularities, and flipped exit polls.

Days passed and a website I'd set up advocating for the convention clause http://www.cc2.org/ gotless and less hits. By then I was fried, just wanted to get back to work on poetry, plays, and a novel, and salvage whatever time I had left to make a mark.

Then more bad news, maybe it was the Cheney/Scalia duck hunting trip or something else abominable, but I was looking around the internet, and found a website dedicated to a federal lawsuit. It was before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court and concerned with the convention clause. I got in touch with Bill Walker the plaintiff, helped write text for the site, and began to get word out. I even put together a documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs7qIQ1VkEg&search=walker%20%2Bcc2

By then, the 9/11 Truth movement had picked up steam and I attended a national conference to reason with organizers, that if they really wanted truth from their government, they should beat the drum for a federal convention. I was also there looking for funding to get the suit to the Supreme Court--because the suit was addressed to members of Congress there were thousands in printing fees as a hurdle.

With a few days left to find the funds, someone from the 9/11 conference sent word asking how the suit was. I told the problem of funding, that it was about to die on appeal, and they suggested we put it into a form of Writ of Certiorari. By doing this, it enabled us to get it to the Supreme Court so the issue would be decided whether or not the Supreme Court and its workers put it in the pipeline--by denying it, it was decided.

The writ went to conference October 27th, 2006. My poet self back then really hoped a miracle would happen. The day we got news, Bill put up what I call the Black Page on his website, declaring the Constitution officially dead--which was true based on the rule of law. He thanked me for efforts and wished all luck in life. Then a week or so after that I remembered what Abe Lincoln said: it doesn’t matter what the Congress/Executive/Court say the Constitution means, only what We The People say. Some people are afraid of the idea We The People, but if you ever think about it deeply, if you’re a loving human being, you reach the conclusion it’s better to be human than robot. It’s obvious.

Since political science is floating the right idea at the right time, I redoubled efforts, posting on popular progressive blogs--“progressive”--meaning in favor of advancement of human civilization in terms of scientific advance and how best to apply it to our approach to existence.

Sometime then Harvard Professor Lani Guiner came to Santa Barbara to speak, I talked with her about the convention clause, and sometime after that the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy commissioned former Michigan State Supreme Court Justice Tom Brennan to revisit an article he had written back in the 1980s about the convention clause. In his research he discovered the lawsuit. The three of us began a round of e-mails and founded FOAVC.

We had a period where membership was flooding in, then there was a sudden change of the website, and we had our first blow-out as a group. Then I attempted to persuade that in this audio/visual day and age, you can’t tell people, you have to show them--the old theatre adage--we needed a documentary. Then there was another falling out, and I was voted out. That’s the history of how we’ve gone from discussing this as a “constitutional convention” to “the Article V Convention.” The former is still used, and variations, the latter is used frequently.

The summer of 2009, I loaded my Volvo wagon with copies of the novel (I recommend the Volvo to anyone), as a way to get down the road to talk with folks about the convention clause; drove from Santa Barbara CA to Montauk NY and back, talking about it day and night for almost three months; handing out the FOAVC website along the way. I've called into C-SPAN multiple times, numerous local and national radio shows, and have maintained e-mail relationships with various leading intellectuals--Professors Sanford Levinson, Lawrence Lessig, Noam Chomsky, and others. I've paid $250 to attend fundraisers to speak directly with my Senators and Rep. I've sent letters on more than one occasion.

Then I was fried again--scrambling to write stuff, already on to the Shakespeare book--when a Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Tom Scheff found a website put up: http://www.articlev.org and sent an e-mail. Then, I was still in touch with Sandy Levinson and asked him to sent a positive note:

May 26, 2010
Dean Bruce Tiffney, College of Creative Studies
University of California at Santa Barbara

Dear Dean Tiffney:

I am taking the liberty of writing you with regard to conversations I have had over the past year with John De Herrera about the possibility of staging a mock constitutional convention at the University of California at Santa Barbara. I am very excited about this possibility and would certainly volunteer whatever services I might provide to make it happen. I am the author of Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (and How We the People Can Correct It)(Oxford University Press, 2006), which offers a critique of the political system established by the 1787 Constitution and proposes, among other things, a new constitutional convention to engage in systematic reflection both of the adequacy of our present Constitution and of possible changes that might give us a better constitution for the 21st century. University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato, in his recent A More Perfect Constitution, also proposes a new constitutional convention. I am pleased to say that my book (though certainly not all of my particular ideas) was endorsed by, among others, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, who was then Dean of the Harvard Law School, where I have been teaching courses over the past six years while on leave from the University of Texas Law School.

I will not surprise anyone when I say that I receive far more agreement concerning many of my specific criticisms of the Constitution than with regard to the proposal for a new convention. Because it has not been done (at the national level) since 1787, most people, I think, believe it is simply off the table. One reason is that they cannot imagine a truly productive convention, given the differences among present-day Americans. One important purpose of holding a mock convention is to test that perception and, I hope, to demonstrate that one can bring together a group of young Americans who can in fact respectfully discuss (and often disagree) with one another about vital issues and, perhaps, come to what might be surprising agreement on potentially desirable changes to our political system. John’s idea to produce a film of the convention, which could, obviously, be shown across the country, represents, to my mind, a very imaginative and potentially important way of helping to jump-start a vitally needed, and long overdue, national conversation.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that over the past three years, I have driven from Boston, where my wife and I spend the fall semester, to Medfield, Massachusetts, to speak to an honors social studies class at Medfield High School that has read my book and spent some significant time engaging in a mock convention. These 17- and 18-year olds have consistently gotten involved in discussing basic issues of constitutional design, and I know that the teacher (who has won the Massachusetts Teacher of the Year award) believes that it is time well spent. My visits have come in December, after the students have spent several weeks discussing various aspects of American constitutionalism. In the best of all worlds, a mock convention would be part of a systematic course, but it would also be extremely valuable to see and hear the responses of less primed students, for a central question is whether ordinary Americans, without the goad of taking a course and receiving credit, can be persuaded to think of potential imperfections in the existing Constitution and the possibility of fundamental change. Such questions are especially important in California, of course, given the widespread dissatisfaction with the current California constitution and the proposals by a number of very respectable people for a state constitutional convention.

I would be delighted to communicate further with any of you regarding a mock convention or any specific role that I might play. In any event, I have been delighted to discover Mr. De Herrera’s interest in such a project, and I hope even in these financially straitened times it will be possible to bring it to fruition.

Sincerely,
Sanford Levinson

W. St. John Garwood and W. St. John Garwood Jr.
Centennial Chair in Law, University of Texas Law School,
Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin

Cc: Chancellor Henry Yang
Dean Mel Oliver
Dean David Marshall
Dean Pierre Wiltzius
Professor Karen Poirier
Professor Leroy Laverman
Professor Henry Reese
Professor Tom Scheff
Professor Apostolos Athanassakis
Professor Adrian Wenner

Then Bruce Tiffney put me in touch with the Associated Students President, I pitched the idea to him and he was giddy, and rightly so, about the idea of holding a convention. “I know so many on campus who would love to participate!”

Then there was the voicemail: “John, I’m sorry I misspoke, we’re not ready to meet with you Wednesday....”

Besides that, I also committed an act of civil disobedience, tampering with federal property, in a necessity defense--breaking a law to prevent a greater harm--which got the issue into the federal courts once again, even having a federal magistrate say in open court they were unaware all fifty states had cast applications.

So now somehow I’m going to Boston. I hope to make a decent documentary.