Thornburgh, Dick

Following rather close on the heels of the unsuccessful 1966 campaign for U.S. Congress, yet another Thornburgh campaign got underway. Newly elected Pennsylvania Governor Raymond P. Shafer made constitutional reform a priority for his administration and voters were asked in the May 1967 primary to call a limited Constitutional Convention. Thornburgh's long standing interest in judicial reform and his then developing concerns about local government tempted him to run in his own Forty-third District, although heavily Democratic. Thornburgh's successful campaign for delegate and subsequent participation at the Constitutional Convention are well documented here as well as the workings of the convention. There were four specific areas for which constitutional amendments were to be considered: finance and taxation, the judiciary, legislative reapportionment and local government. The Convention opened on December 1, 1967 and continued for three months during which time Thornburgh commuted back and forth between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg. Following the convention's closing on February 28, 1968, he participated in efforts to enact the resultant four proposals in the May 6 primary, particularly the judicial article, and embarked on a vigorous speaking tour to solicit voter support. Although all four were successfully passed in the primary, unfortunately the next year the watered-down judicial merit selection plan was defeated in a separate referendum. Home Rule is a topic somewhat surprisingly very well documented here, a topic with which Thornburgh has maintained continuous interest up to and including the passage in 1998 of Pittsburgh's home rule charter. His 1969 article "Blueprint for Modern Government: A Home Rule Charter for Pittsburgh" is a "package of recommendations - some of which, years, later, were actually included in the Pittsburgh charter.

From the description of Dick Thornburgh papers. Series VI, Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention, 1967-1968. (University of Pittsburgh). WorldCat record id: 70203429

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