Voters in no mood to do the Con Con
ALBANY — Voters on Tuesday rejected the idea of holding a convention to overhaul New York’s Constitution but approved an amendment allowing corrupt politicians to be stripped of their pensions.
With opposition driven by some of the state’s most powerful labor unions and interest groups, the proposal to hold a constitutional convention — known as Proposition 1 — was crushed by more than 50 percentage points, according to early returns.
“Voters ultimately agreed that the Con Con was just a con — a costly process full of risks and unknowns,” the group, New Yorkers Against Corruption, which opposed the convention, said in a statement.
Opponents of the convention spent more than $1 million on a campaign to defeat the proposal, arguing, among other things, that it would give business interests and other well-financed groups an avenue to weaken existing worker protections and other regulations.
Supporters, including the League of Women Voters and the New York State Bar Association, believed a convention offered the best chance to enact reforms long stalled in the Legislature, including tighter campaign finance limits and stricter government ethics laws.
State law requires the question of a constitutional convention to be put to voters at least once every 20 years. If voters had approved it, an election would have been held next year to select delegates and a convention convened in 2019.
Voters did approve a constitutional amendment that gives judges the power to strip pensions from corrupt elected officials. The amendment was drafted by lawmakers in response to recent corruption arrests in Albany, including exAssembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan).
Another proposition to ease the forever wild restrictions in Adirondacks and Catskills forests by creating a land bank appeared in jeopardy of failing, according to early returns.