Creating the Land of Lincoln by Cicero Jr. Frank;

Author:Cicero Jr., Frank;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Illinois Press

The Amending Process: Don't Tread on Our Work

Constitutional convention delegates in Illinois, as in other states, consistently have expressed distrust of legislatures and been jealous to protect their work product from being undone. They have written into constitutions requirements of extraordinary majority votes by legislators and the public to alter “their” constitutions. With justification, they have been criticized from within their own ranks for manifesting an attitude that they are superior in wisdom and judgment to the legislature and others in government and even at times to the voting public.

These attitudes were clearly expressed in the 1847 convention. In the first half of the nineteenth century, a convention was the accepted device for revising a state's fundamental document. The 1818 Illinois constitution was typical in providing that the only way “to alter or amend” the constitution was for the legislature by a two-thirds vote to recommend to the electorate that they vote “for or against” a constitutional convention. By the time of the 1847 convention, a second method of revision, changing constitutions by legislative-initiated amendments approved by the state's voters, without conventions, came into common use.76

Reflecting distrust of the legislature and the electorate, the process adopted in the constitution for submission to the voters of proposed amendments was a difficult one. Putting an amendment before the voters required, first, a two-thirds vote of each house of the general assembly. After the next general election, a majority vote of the new general assembly had to approve the same proposal. Amendments could be proposed to only one article of the constitution at a session. Finally, at the next general election the proposal required the approval of a majority of the number of voters casting votes for members of the house of representatives.77

The difficult process of amendment was never utilized. In the twenty-two years until the adoption of the 1870 constitution, the 1848 constitution was never amended.

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