Mission
To provide information about the November 2, 2010 statewide ballot referendum on whether Maryland should convene a state constitutional convention. Maryland’s Constitution mandates that this ballot item be placed on the ballot every twenty years. Article XIV, Section 2 of the Constitution reads as follows:
It shall be the duty of the General Assembly to provide by Law for taking, at the general election to be held in the year nineteen hundred and seventy, and every twenty years thereafter, the sense of the People in regard to calling a Convention for altering this Constitution; and if a majority of voters at such election or elections shall vote for a Convention, the General Assembly, at its next session, shall provide by Law for the assembling of such convention, and for the election of Delegates thereto. Each County, and Legislative District of the City of Baltimore, shall have in such Convention a number of Delegates equal to its representation in both Houses at the time at which the Convention is called. But any Constitution, or change, or amendment of the existing Constitution, which may be adopted by such Convention, shall be submitted to the voters of this State, and shall have no effect unless the same shall have been adopted by a majority of the voters voting thereon (amended by Chapter 99, Acts of 1956, ratified Nov. 6, 1956).
Staff
J. H. Snider, the president of iSolon.org, has written extensively about democratic reform, usually in the context of media reform. During Spring Semester 2008, he was a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. From 2001-2007, he was a Markle fellow, senior research f
ellow, and research director at the New America Foundation. From 1999-2000, he worked in the U.S. Senate as an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow in Communications and Public Policy. He holds a Ph.D. in American Government from Northwestern University, an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School, and an A.B. from Harvard College.
Snider is especially interested in elected officials’ conflict of interest in designing democratic reforms to make themselves more democratically accountable. His work on this subject includes “Deterring Fake Public Participation” (Forthcoming), The Dismal Politics of Legislative Transparency, If Men Were Angels…., Automating Watchdog Reporting, The Case for Redistricting Juries, E-Government vs. E-Democracy, Open Government Rhetoric Versus Reality, Is it Time for an E-Congress?, The Failure of E-Democracy, Canada Steps on the World Stage as a Democratic Reformer, and Solving a Classic Dilemma of Democratic Politics: Who Will Guard the Guardians?
