The Legacy of State Constitutional Conventions

Abstract

Constitutional conventions are ephemeral institutions in a state's political system. Usually they meet for only a few months and their impact on the system is commonly measured by whether the draft document they produce is adopted in the ratifying election (Goodman, et al., August, 1973, pp.571-596). The purpose of this research is to investigate whether constitutional conventions leave a larger legacy by (a) serving as a recruitment vehicle by which delegates move to other elective offices and by (b) seeding the state with a continuing constitutionally attentive elite. These are particularly crucial questions for understanding the impact of constitutional conventions in states where draft documents were defeated. We have data from the two most recent efforts at comprehensive constitutional reform in Arkansas. Both the 1969-70 and 1979-80 Arkansas constitutional conventions produced substantial revisions of the existing 1874 Constitution which were rejected by the electorate. We interviewed 80 of 95 lining delegates to the 1969-70 convention and 59 of 98 living delegates to the 1979-80 convention. A mail questionnaire yielded 60 responses from delegates to the earlier convention. An additional 20 interviews were completed by phone. All of the 1979-80 delegates responded to the mail questionnaire.