Last living delegate looks back on 1961 Constitutional Convention

Eugene Wanger helped write Michigan’s current constitution when he was 28 years old. Today he is the last survivor of the 144 delegates who met at the Lansing Civic Center on Oct. 3, 1961, to start drafting what became the current Michigan Constitution, the primary law of the state, which voters approved in 1963.

State voters will decide Nov. 3 whether a new roster of delegates should amend and possibly rewrite our state constitution. This question is put to popular vote every 16 years, and voters have rejected the idea the last three times they were asked: in 1978, 1994, and 2010.

Michigan Capitol Confidential contacted Eugene Wanger this month to talk about his experiences during what he called “the chance of a lifetime,” when delegates chose to wipe the slate clean and start over.

Wanger became interested in the Con-Con because he was a political science major in college and attended the University of Michigan law school. His interest in political discussions emerged early; he was twice the State Champion Orator as a student at the J. W. Sexton High School in Lansing.

He started practicing law a few years before the Constitutional Convention started and won a seat as a delegate.

“We were coming out of a recession, and it hit the auto industry hard,” Wanger said. “It hurt people. And then there had been some mixup in the state finances. We had a short period of time when the state employees couldn’t be paid because the cash wasn’t ready. That was called ‘payless paydays.’ That disturbed the public.”

He said that delegates adopted the new constitution because “it was a good job.”

The news media in those days were comprehensive and had state bureaus staffed by experienced reporters, Wanger said.

“The coverage on various subjects, and especially on state government, was very good and knowledgeable and detailed. A lot of that seeped into the public mind during the course of the convention.”

Wanger wrote the provision in Michigan’s Constitution that formally banned the death penalty — establishing in law what had been longstanding public sentiment since Michigan became a state in 1837.

“Michigan is the only state in the union that has a constitutional prohibition of the death penalty,” Wanger said. “In fact, I wrote it.”

Delegates also discussed state finances and whether the ballot was too long, Wanger said.

Convention leaders established committees for different topics. The delegates chose to appoint some government employees to state office instead of electing them. They also crafted requirements for Michigan’s auditor general to require that person to be a certified public accountant and to audit the performance of state agencies.

Special interest groups sent many lobbyists to the gathering, but “nobody at Con-Con was going to be running for reelection,” so lobbyists had less influence than they do in the Legislature, Wanger said.

“I was never pressured by any lobbyists,” Wanger said. “If a lobbyist had a point to make, he would make it in front of our committees.”

The people serving as delegates were often former government employees, such as treasurers or Senate or House leaders. None of the delegates were current lawmakers, who were not eligible to be delegates. Fred Chase, secretary of the 1961 Con-Con, had been the Michigan Senate’s parliamentarian for about 28 years, Wanger said.

“He was a master at this sort of thing,” Wanger said. “The absence of legislators from the convention didn’t make any real difference because we had the experience of our secretary and parliamentarian there to take care of that.”

Michigan voters approved the state’s fourth constitution two years later in 1963.

Should voters approve the Con-Con initiative next month, that would cost taxpayers roughly $61 million to hold three elections to pick delegates, according to the Senate Fiscal Agency. A statewide election costs about $4,500 per voting precinct, and Michigan has about 4,500 precincts. Delegates would then revise the Constitution and send it to voters for approval or rejection.

Wanger’s advice to potential future delegates? “Be honest and work hard.”