Young Turks Attack on Common Cause Ignores Danger of New Constitutional Convention

Statement by Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn

The attack on Common Cause for our opposition to a constitutional convention by Cenk Uygur is both misguided and inaccurate. We agree with The Young Turks host and Wolf PAC founder on the need to overturn Citizens United, but we believe that we should use the path that has always been used in passing amendments to the U.S. Constitution: Congress passes the amendment and then sends it to states for ratification. Uygur’s call for an Article V convention is a very dangerous way to try to achieve that goal. The overwhelming majority of the democracy reform community is in agreement with Common Cause in opposing a constitutional convention, recognizing that even one convened for a single issue could very easily become a “runaway convention” capable of a massive overhaul of the Constitution and, worse still, one that would be driven by deep-pocketed special interests, like the Koch brothers. A constitutional convention is not the silver bullet Wolf PAC believes it to be, instead it is a potential Pandora’s box that poses a grave threat to our democracy.   

To read a New York Times piece on the threat of an Article V convention, click here.

To read a Common Cause background memo on the topic, click here.

2015 Common Cause study on the topic: The Dangerous Path: Big Money’s Plan to Shred the Constitution