Posted on: Tuesday, June 8, 2004

EDITORIAL
Constitution no place for election antics

One of the more remarkable trends of the recently concluded 2004 session of the Hawai'i Legislature was the great interest shown in constitutional amendments.

As it turns out, this amendment business turns out to be far from being strictly a Hawai'i phenomenon. Congress has taken up no fewer than four proposed amendments this session.

Two of them (banning desecration of the flag; outlawing same-sex marriage) feel more like election-year posturing than they do sincere efforts to "modernize" our Constitution.

The flag issue has been coming back session after session for at least two decades.

It shares, with the same-sex proposal, the distinction of being a proposal that would use the Constitution to limit rights rather than expand them.

In the case of flag burning, the amendment would carve out a specific exception to a constitutional right long in place: the right to free speech.

Concerned that this is all too much election-year posturing, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — whose subcommittee considers such matters — has proposed a ban on all constitutional proposals in an election year. Good idea.