Editor:

The League of Women Voters of Oconee and Pickens Counties is asking our two state Senators, Rex Rice and Thomas Alexander, to carefully consider the possible implications of calling a Constitutional Convention to revise the U.S. Constitution, as outlined in SC Senate Bill S.133. This bill will be voted on in the SC Senate in the near future. If passed, it could lead to serious economic repercussions.

Members of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the only one held in our 235 year history, felt driven to replace the Articles of Confederation with our US Constitution. It enabled our national government to present a united front to our friends and enemies in the rest of the world as a single nation with a single market, a single currency, a single defense, and an adequately funded federal government. That strengthening of our central government enabled our infant nation to emerge as a world power that spoke with one voice.

In a divided nation, however, such a convention is unlikely to make the necessary compromises that will lead to ratification. It could put at risk some of the basic protections in the Bill of Rights. There is considerable uncertainty about what ground rules the current Congress might create for such a convention. For all these reasons, a much safer route would be to pursue an amendment to permit an article-by-article amendment process, as South Carolina did with its Constitution in 1970. That approach was a remarkable South Carolina innovation that led to substantial progress in bringing the SC Constitution into the modern era.

We urge Senator Alexander and Senator Rice to reject this radical, unproven, and risky process in favor of something more aligned with our own state’s experience in Constitutional revision.

Ruth Reed, Co-President

Linda Gahan, Co-President

League of Women Voters, Oconee & Pickens Counties