Hours before a commission started work Wednesday to lay the groundwork for a once-in-a-decade ballot question in November asking voters if Rhode Island should hold a constitutional convention, nearly 40 labor and civil liberties groups launched a preemptive attack to persuade voters to say no.

Members of Rhode Island Citizens for Responsible Government gathered at ​​the Planned Parenthood offices in Providence Wednesday morning to launch the Reject Question 1 campaign. Speakers declared that well-funded special interest groups could use the convention as a means to constitutionally restrict women’s reproductive rights.

“Our state has made incredible progress over the past five years to make abortion care more accessible,” said the coalition’s chairperson, Vimala Phongsavanh, senior external affairs director for Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. “Rhode Islanders cannot go backwards — yet that is what could happen if there is a constitutional convention.”

Rhode Island is one of five states, along with Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa and New Hampshire, where people automatically have the chance to vote to hold a constitutional convention every 10 years. The General Assembly may also propose amendments during any election year.

Overall, 14 states mandated periodic constitutional convention referenda.

Rhode Island’s convention question typically goes on the ballot in years ending in the number four, but voters rejected ballot questions seeking to convene one in 1994, 2004 and 2014. The most recent convention was held in 1986 — the last such of any state in the nation. The 1986 convention featured an anti-abortion ballot question that voters overwhelmingly rejected.

Few seem to fully comprehend what the constitutional convention questions entails, according to a poll released by the University of New Hampshire Thursday. The survey found 53% of respondents said they had heard nothing about the topic. Only 36% said they understood the topic.

That lack of information is placed squarely on the lackluster job done by past commissions, Rhode Island State Constitutional Convention Clearinghouse Editor J.H. Snider said in an email Monday.

The problem, he said, is that past commissions have framed the debate on the potential cost and risks without much discussion on the benefits. Proponents for holding a convention to change Rhode Island’s governing documents say it gives the public a chance to update how the state government operates.

“Any serious discussion about the upcoming referendum should start with why this provision exists in Rhode Island’s Constitution; that is, what democratic function it was designed to serve,” Snider said.

The latest commission, made up of eight legislators and four members of the public, is tasked with holding public hearings to learn about potential issues that might be addressed if voters support holding a convention for inclusion in the voter handbook mailed to all registered voters before the Nov. 5 election.  

The commission must complete a report by Sept. 1.

With this tight deadline, the commission used its first meeting Wednesday at the State House to establish its purpose and elected its two co-chairs: Rep. Robert Craven, a North Kingstown Democrat, and Sen. Dawn Euer, a Newport Democrat.

“Rhode Island’s Constitution is a living and breathing document that charts the course of our daily lives,” Craven said. “We are fortunate that it requires public input every 10 years because that is what true democracy looks like.”

Craven said  the panel’s work will include reviewing the work by prior commissions, “but we will also not be bound by what has come before us.”

“Times change and so do the issues the public deeply cares about,” he said.

The commission’s next meeting, tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 30 at the State House,will mostly consist of figuring out the logistics for the next five weeks — along with the potential for public comment on the convention question.

“We’re not trying to answer the question as to whether or not people want a constitutional question,” Euer said in an interview after the commission’s first meeting. “We’re trying to create a framework of understanding of what issues are on peoples’ minds.”

Coalition calls for convention rejection

At the 1986 convention, delegates approved a Paramount Right to Life Amendment declaring that life begins at conception. It was defeated by 66% of voters in the November election that year.

“There’s absolutely no reason to believe the constitutional convention in 2026 would be any more sympathetic to civil rights and civil liberties than the one in 1986,” ACLU of Rhode Island Executive Director Steven Brown said at Wednesday’s press conference.

But Snider said the defeat of the 1986 right to life amendment, along with other recent rejections of anti-abortion referenda in heavily red states, suggest the measure would fail if it were to come up again.

“So what Steve Brown and the others who have been promoting his well-publicized arguments have been essentially saying is that Rhode Islanders will vote against their own interests on one of the most high salience issues in American politics if a convention (or legislature or citizen petition) puts this issue on the ballot,” Snider wrote in his email. 

“That, in my opinion, amounts to a direct attack on constitutional democracy, which is the foundation of our system of democracy.”

Brown acknowledged at least one positive change came out of the 1986 convention: the creation of the Rhode Island Ethics Commission.

“But again, it was the General Assembly, not the convention, that voters approved a constitutional amendment making sure that the legislators themselves were subject to the Ethics Commission,” he said.

Should a majority of Rhode Islanders want to move ahead with a convention, the state would have to set up a special election to select 75 convention delegates to represent each district in the House of Representatives. AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Patrick Crowley said the AFL-CIO is prepared to run a union-backed convention delegate in each district if that is the case.

“We are preparing for the bad news,” he told reporters. “We are not going to let the corporate powers take away our rights.”

Crowley said his organization has already contributed $5,000 toward the campaign to oppose the convention question.

“But make no mistake, we are going to be outspent if corporate money is allowed to pour into Rhode Island,” Crowley told reporters. “There’s just no way that $10 contributions from working people or $20 contributions and low-dollar contributions from Planned Parenthood or the Latino Policy Institute is ever going to compete against someone like the Koch brothers.”