We’re in it, now. The Blue faction of the “Committee of the Whole” gathered for its first session in the Constitution Chamber. It was considerably less crowded that the full session we had yesterday. It also felt a lot less tense. Not that there wasn’t a getting-down-to-business air floating about, but I, at least, felt less guard. (So glad I wasn’t assigned to the Red group.)
The PoC called us to order and the Secretary read out our current status, including the local weather. (Short version: it was going to be hot and dry.)
Next, Macy Dresswell was recognized and asked me, as a member of the first committee, to say a few words. You remember that feeling in school when the teacher would call on you when you were totally unprepared. Yeah, it was just like that. I said something like this (taken from my notes, not the official transcript):
“Mr. President, Delegate Dresswell, thank you for the chance to speak. As you might imagine, I don’t really have a lot to report at the moment. The Text and Intent Committee, which we’ve shortened to the T-I-C, met informally last night, and we talked about what could make our part of this a little easier. Basically, if we could start by thinking about the larger issues so there was a good sense of priorities we could elaborate on, especially with trying to find common ground between Blue, White, and Red, it would be very helpful.
“I do want to make clear that this is simply a request. I know all of you, like me, have a list of things we want to accomplish. We also talked about how to do with that as well, but we want to be pragmatic about it and will likely make other requests when we see how each of our groups wants to conduct their businesses in reality.”
And then I decided to stick my foot in the door.
“And since I have the floor, Mr. President, Delegate Dresswell, I know this is already breaking with the expected order of business, but I would like to submit the first resolution for the first change.”
There were a few murmurs, but when no one seemed to object, the PoC said, “Ms Dresswell?”
She stared at me. Pointedly. “I don’t think there’s a problem with that…this time. I do want to remind the delegates to review the preferred procedures and hold to them.”
I don’t know if there are vegetables redder than beets, but if there are, my face was in that level. Damn, it felt hot. The PoC shook his head an motioned to me, “Well, go on.”
“Th-thank you. And my apologies for jumping the gun.” I took a breath to remember what I’d rehearsed in my head while I was showering this morning. “I submit to the Convention the following resolution: Resolved, that the established order of Articles within the Constitution be reordered such that Article I will now be dedicated to the Rights of the People.”
That seemed to catch people off guard. I wanted to put this in so reinforce the idea of thinking about the big items first and then delving into detail. I continued, “As many of you know, the original Constitution as drafted at the Convention, despite starting ‘We the People’ scarcely mentioned the people at all. It was only on the insistence that a Bill of Rights amend the document as soon as possible that the odds improved that we’d have a nation.
“While critically important, it did serve to ghettoize the people — who were clearly an afterthought. Given how many social issues we’ve had to deal with, especially in terms of the rights of the people vs the rights of the government over them, we’d be remiss if we again failed to make the people of the nation the primary reason for having a nation. The people deserve to be first. Uh…I yield the floor.”
A thought I heard a couple of claps, but honestly, I was so wired at that point, anything outside of my body had a hard time registering. I did glance at Macy, and I noticed a friendly smirk on her face. I think I did good.
And on that note, I think I’ll write about the rest of the first Blue sessions in the next post.
