Venezuela’s 1999 constitution always contained a press-here-for-dictatorship button

Francisco Toro has an excellent translation of Venezuela’s political crisis into an American context in today’s Washington Post. Read it!

It does have one flaw, however, which is that it intimates that the 1999 constitution prohibits Maduro from trashing the constitution. That’s not quite right.

Part of Toro’s translation of Venezuelan events to an American context runs as follows:

President [Trump] is not out of the woods yet. He’s still massively unpopular, protests rock the streets of Washington every day,and he still has to face the voters in November 2020. Realizing he can’t win — his approval rating hovers around 20 percent — he opts for a radical course of action: He invokes Article V of the Constitution to convene a Constitutional Convention, and signs an executive order setting out an unprecedented method for selecting members of that convention.

Article V of the constitution of the United States is pretty clear: the president has nothing to do with calling a convention. That power resides with state governments:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808 shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Articles 347 to 349 of the constitution of the Bolivarian Republic are rather less clear. In fact, if read literally, they contradict each other. First click the link and read the Spanish. Now my translation:

Article 347: The original constituent power rests with the people of Venezuela. In exercise of this power, it may call a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of transforming the State, creating a new juridical order and drafting a new Constitution.

Article 348: A National Constituent Assembly may be called by the the President of the Republic in consultation with the Cabinet; the National Assembly via the approval of two-thirds of its members; by the county councils in open session via the vote of two-thirds of same; or by 15% of the voters inscribed in the civil and electoral registry.

Article 349: The President of the Republic shall not have the power to object to the new Constitution. The existing constituted authorities shall not be permitted to obstruct the Constituent Assembly in any way. Once the new Constitution is promulgated, it shall be published in the Official Gazette of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela or in the Gazette of the National Constituent Assembly

Some lawyers claim that Article 347 implies that a referendum is needed in order to call a constitutional convention. Maybe it does, but it sure doesn’t say that. And the next article, Article 348, explicitly says that the President can call up a constitutional convention by his or her very own lonesome, limited only by the cabinet.

It seems like old Hugo Chávez knew what he was doing back in 1999 by including a reset button in his constitution. I have no idea when or if he might have thought it would be needed, but it was there. Press here for dictatorship, indeed.