By now you should have received the Rhode Island Secretary of State’s 2024 Voter Information Handbook , as it was mailed to all registered voters before early voting started on Oct. 16. The Handbook includes an “explanation and purpose” of Question 1: Shall there be a convention to amend or revise the Rhode Island Constitution ?
This ballot summary, paid for by taxpayers and written by a government official, is supposed to be objective. But it is biased against calling a convention because instead of merely explaining the question it takes the improper additional step of answering it by implying that a legislature can do anything a convention can at less cost and risk. It mimics three biases that convention opponents routinely make in their anti-convention advertising:
More: Taking sides: Where do RI leaders stand on constitutional convention question?
First, it doesn’t explain the unique democratic function of the periodic constitutional convention referendum in Rhode Island’s Constitution. Twenty-four American state constitutions provide the ballot initiative to allow the people to bypass the legislature. As an alternative legislature bypass mechanism adopted by 14 states, Rhode Island’s framers adopted the periodic constitutional convention referendum.