Women must edit N.Y.’s Constitution
This year marks the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New York. It is also a year when the question of whether to hold a constitutional convention — altering the state’s most important legal document — will be on the ballot in November.
The two are closely connected, as the state Constitution has been drafted overwhelmingly by men.
Just one woman was among the 175 delegates at the 1894 convention where today’s state Constitution was mostly written. Because women did not have the right to vote until 1917, women had no voice in the subsequent public ratification.
None of the 168 delegates to the 1915 convention were women. Six of the 168 delegates at the 1938 convention were women. Not coincidentally, that convention approved an Equal Civil Rights Amendment that did not include gender discrimination — a failure that has not been fixed to this day.
Ten of the 186 delegates at the 1967 convention were women.
A grand total of 17 women out of a total of 697 delegates have had their voices heard at constitutional conventions in New York in the past 120 years. That’s 2.4% representation.
If on Nov. 7, voters decide to hold a constitutional convention — as a state, we get the opportunity to say yes or no to the idea once every 20 years — that could produce a sea change in representation by women in New York. For the first time ever, New York could have a Constitution that women play a major role in shaping. Nothing, in fact, would prevent a majority of delegates being women.
That would be a marked contrast to the state Legislature, where carefully crafted mechanisms — some enshrined in the Constitution — make it especially hard to unseat incumbent legislators. As a result, women constitute only 27% of the Assembly and 22% of the state Senate, despite being 51.4% of the state’s population.
It is not coincidental that other mechanisms make it hard for women balancing work-family obligations to vote. The Constitution does not clearly allow early in-person voting, even though 32 states and the District of Columbia do. It does not allow same-day registration, even though 14 states and D.C. do. It does not permit submitting an absentee ballot by mail without having to certify a reason why in-person voting is not possible, even though 27 states do.
The way the rules are written and applied is also preventing a woman from breaking into the “three men in a room” club of those who govern the state on a day-to-day basis. Andrea StewartCousins, the Senate’s top Democrat, is the first female legislative leader — and would be the Senate majority leader if it weren’t for Jeff Klein.
Klein has allied his Independent Democratic Conference with the Republicans to prevent Democrats in the upper chamber from exercising the majority they won at the polls. Critical to this arrangement is the claimed constitutional right of the Senate majority to compensate members of the IDC as if they were committee chairs when they are not. Gerrymandering, also protected by the current Constitution, is also critical. The Senate “majority” gave Klein one of the most gerrymandered districts to assure his continued reelection.
The Constitution falls short of protecting women’s rights in other ways. It does not explicitly protect a woman’s right to make her own choices relating to reproduction. While it’s true that New York allows abortion, neither the law nor the state Constitution protect that right to the degree that the current Supreme Court does.
The chance to correct this and other long-enshrined wrongs will not come around again for another generation. Which is why Nov. 7 is absolutely vital for women in New York.
Opponents of a constitutional convention are fearmongering, throwing out all kinds of crazy theories about destructive or antidemocratic ideas that could emerge.
That’s nonsense; voters themselves will have a chance to elect their own delegates, and then to approve all proposals in separate up-or-down votes.
The real danger is voting against a convention — and allowing a Constitution that was drafted overwhelmingly by men to last for at least another 20 years.