“There is a pleasure sure in being mad, which none but madmen know.”

-John Dryden

I attended the UAA-sponsored constitutional convention debate on Thursday because I didn’t have anything better to do. From the looks of the auditorium, I was among the minority. NPR libs practically vibrated with enthusiasm as the same smooth jazz loop played over the Wendy Williamson speakers.

I convinced a good friend to come along with me – a guy who, ironically enough, I met through high school debate. He had the same vaguely annoying, Sam-Hyde-influenced style of joke-writing as I did, and we both passed the time in between debate rounds trash-talking the same effete Lincoln-Douglas and Policy debaters. I shan’t mention him by name here, because to do so would probably jeopardize his professional career, but he was one of the few that made it out of the debating sphere relatively unscathed, and with an intact sense of humor. He’ll be referred to in this column only as Evan Wright, after David Foster Wallace’s journalist friend that attended the 1998 AVN Awards with him (an event immortalized in Wallace’s essay “Big Red Son.”) Author’s Note: I’m David Foster Wallace in this analogy. Direct your complaints to the Landmine editorial staff. They can’t fire me – I’m freelance!

Evan Wright and I are seated in the back half of the auditorium, looking down on the stage like God. He keeps trying to show me 2008-era rage comics in sort of a post-ironic fugue state, claiming they describe the debate we’re about to watch. I think he’s irony-poisoned, then realize that I’m one to talk.

“When the constitutional convention doesn’t happen…” (EW pulls up a picture of the troll-face on his phone, and cackles uproariously.)

Sarah Palin is here, sitting quietly towards the back, and so is Vic Fischer, who later gets a standing ovation towards the end, that I initially thought meant the debate was over. Color me silly!

I’m scribbling in my Moleskine notebook abstract doodles, complaints, quotes from Borat, when a UAA faculty member appears on stage and performs the longest land acknowledgement I think I’ve ever heard – and I went to school in Washington, where the self-flagellation has reached levels hitherto unimagined by modern science. “We acknowledge that we are on Dena’ina land,” and on and on it goes, twisting and turning through history’s dim annals, at times resembling “Run To The Hills,” the Iron Maiden classic. “He brought us pain, and misery…”

The debaters are introduced: on the pro-convention (pro) side, we have former Lieutenant Governor Loren Leman and Bob Bird, two of the Alaskan right’s Old Guard, as it were. It’s a unique pairing: Bird’s made headlines and raised many an eyebrow on the left for his controversial opinions regarding abortion, nullification, and the interpretation of the constitution, while Leman seems to have been brought on board to act as the comparatively level-headed member of the team. During the debate, he repeatedly said, “Well, I’ll take a stab at answering this,” in sort of an aw-shucks attempt at mediating whatever image Bird might have given the pro team.

On the anti-convention (con) team, Matt Shuckerow and Joelle Hall are scheming. Politics makes the strangest bedfellows of all – where else might you find the president of the AFL-CIO (Hall) and Dan Sullivan’s 2020 campaign manager (Shuckerow) at the same table? Hall and Shuckerow repeatedly made references to the bipartisan nature of both their team and their backers, a strategy I’ve often lambasted to friends because bipartisan doesn’t at all mean a policy is good, or even workable. The support on both sides of the aisle you might have for a given option doesn’t predicate the option being inherently good. The ACLU and the Alaska Trollers Association both stand against a convention – why might that be?

Rather than recap the debate point-by-point, in a sort of chronological slog, I’d like to reference some of the more notable arguments made (and some of the arguments that were conspicuously NOT made), and then trail off into sort of an unintelligible slurry of word salad, closing it off with an anecdote only tangentially related to the topic at hand. (Just getting ahead of the Facebook comments.)

The arguments made by the pro-side oscillated back and forth between the past and the present, dipping their toes into the future at intervals. Bird made references to the troubled relationship between Alaska and the federal government, and thundered about crooked courts, ranked choice voting, and violation of PFD statutes as “the worst political crisis we’ve ever seen.” Essentially, those advocating for a convention see a swath of problems that can’t be solved by amendments alone, and for that reason, delegates must come to the table and be prepared to take a broader look at the issue.

Shuckerow and Hall argued that the constitution, while perhaps flawed, was not broken enough to warrant a complete overhaul. Caution was their watchword, as they warned the audience of the potential ill effects of a convention. The phrase “lose control of the convention” was used repeatedly, as if a convention were some sort of Frankenstein’s monster with a will of its own, able to break its shackles and roam about the TBD convention location, frightening the public and threatening the integrity of kickback packages for oil execs. Additionally, the con-side made reference to the long history of voters rejecting a convention, appealing to historical precedent and claiming that “Alaskans understand the risks.”

There are issues with both sides, and there are valid points to be considered on both sides. However, perhaps the biggest issue, and the one that was certainly motivating a good portion of this convention debate, was one that was only obliquely referenced in passing: abortion.

The recent Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade has many states scrambling to either ban or constitutionally enshrine abortion access, and Alaska is no exception. It’s certainly not out of the question to imagine an amendment to the constitution that affects residential access to abortion – but on the flipside, this wouldn’t necessarily require a constitutional convention. It could be done, as all constitutional amendments are passed, with a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Alaska Legislature and then approval by voters. If you’re in favor of abortion access, you needn’t fear a convention any more than you would a normal legislative session.

At any rate, for being an issue that sparks so much debate, abortion was referenced only a handful of times on both sides, and often only as part of a list of other potential changes to the constitution.

Another issue both EW and I noticed was the vaguely hysterical rhetoric the con-side continued to use. References to a convention “gone out of control” abounded, and it seemed to me that this was a trifle dramatic. After all, wouldn’t voters have the final say, as per Article 13, Section 4 of the Alaska Constitution? Whatever comes out of a constitutional convention would still have to pass by the voters, as a final check on the hypothetically ludicrous behavior of the convention delegates.

If the voters approve it, then the convention hasn’t gotten out of control – in theory, it’s done what it was designed to do, and it’s been approved by the people it was designed to serve. An “out of control” convention seems to imply hijacking by shadowy interests, millions of dollars of dark money, and illicit backroom dealings that benefit an elusive few – and brother, that’s politics as usual in the 49th state.

But, the con lamented, the cost would be too great. $17 million, at a conservative estimate! And if the proposed changes to the constitution aren’t approved by the voters, then we go back to square one, and we’ve wasted millions on nothing.

This’ll be one of the rare occasions where I advocate for more government spending instead of less, so mark it on your calendars and remember where you were when this happened, but if an overhaul of the constitution is what the voters deem necessary, then hang the costs and damn the torpedoes, let’s butcher this pig like we mean it, goddamnit. If the voters want abortion off the table, or more protections for the PFD, or a better state song, then let’s stop hoping for legislative sessions to get the job done and spend some money to make a convention happen. Personally, I’m hoping for my State-Sponsored Girlfriend and Weekly Voodoo Ranger amendment to make it in, despite its admitted unpopularity with my representatives.

This isn’t intended to unilaterally advocate for the pro-side – I’m still unconvinced that a convention would be the best way to fix our constitutional issues, and Bird and Leman skirted around what they might actually hope to accomplish if a convention were approved by the voters. The PFD was a topic that Bird was unambiguous about, as was the dissolving of the Judicial Council, but some of his more esoteric policies were left by the wayside as Bird claimed the convention would “start a conversation.”

Shuckerow and Hall have a point – cost is never pleasant, and the price tags being quoted for a convention are disturbingly high. As a proponent of the “if it ain’t broke” philosophy, I understand the desire to keep things the way they are. The unknown is, by definition, frightening, and in politics, it’s doubly so. Better, in the view of some, to push amendments through the Legislature and hope for change in its own slow way.

A word on the debate structure itself: UAA Seawolf Debate does this text polling contraption at the end of each debate, where audience members can indicate their feelings on the issue at hand by voting via text, the results of which are displayed on the screen above the stage. As per the crowd makeup, the end results were roughly 25/75 against a convention. But this by itself doesn’t show anything interesting!

When I was debating in high school, and winning some pretty decent 1995 Ford Bronco award money doing it, Seawolf Debate did the same thing but with the addition of a pre-debate text poll. That way, results could be compared at the end of the debate, and whichever side convinced the most people could be considered the “winner” of the debate, as it were. Why this format wasn’t continued, I haven’t the faintest idea, but it helped indicate which team might have been more convincing.

My notes from the debate are scribbled and disturbing, and by Allah, they seem to hint at a truth behind the truth itself – a vast Carcosa of hidden knowledge, the surface of which we have only begun to scratch. Or maybe I spilled ketchup on this page from my post debate burger.

Evan Wright and I sit at a booth in Leroy’s on C Street, watching the rain slap against the window, and discuss our “dream team” of constitutional convention delegates.

“Nick Begich Jr. Finally get HAARP out of here,” I say.

“Ethan Berkowitz,” he counters.

“Good one. The ghost of Jay Hammond.”

“Jewel, bro. Jewel!”

“The Alaskan bush people, all of them – you seen the TV show?” I ask. “It’s pretty bad.”

“Liz Cheney,” he says, taking the hypothetical to a national level. “She’s got some time on her hands now, right?”

We fall silent. I pick at my fries. One America News plays softly in the background on the diner TV. Outside, the rain beats against the window, and politics continues on, silent and sinister.