Role Columnist Name Richard Labunski | Nationality American | |
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Known for The Second ConstitutionalConvention (2000)James Madison and theStruggle for theBill of Rights (2006) Books James Madison and the S, The Second Constituti, The Educated Student, Libel and the First Amendment, The First Amendment Under Si | ||
Residence Kentucky, United States | ||
Richard Labunski is a journalism professor at the University of Kentucky and newspaper columnist who is notable for being an outspoken advocate for reforming the United States Constitution in his book The Second Constitutional Convention. He has been a prominent critic of voter apathy, low voter turnout, and excessive campaign spending. Labunski's critically acclaimed James Madison and the Struggle for the Bill of Rights (2006) argued that Madison was initially lukewarm to the idea of a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, but later came to energetically support the ten amendments and worked hard for their inclusion. He has called for a Second Constitutional Convention of the United States, and argued that reform will not happen through the current system because Congress would be reluctant to "limit its own powers."
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Career
Labunski received a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a law degree from Seattle University. He worked as a radio and television reporter, producer, and editor at WTOP Radio (Washington, D.C.); KCBS Radio (San Francisco); KGUN-TV (Tucson); and KTVN-TV (Reno). He taught at the University of Washington for 11 years, as well as at Penn State University. He has been at the University of Kentucky since 1995 as a professor in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications.
In The Second Constitutional Convention (2000), Labunski proposed communication via the Internet as a way for Americans to organize a federal constitutional convention with a website serving as a "national meeting spot, a sort of cyberspace town meeting where people can get information." Labunski joins scholars such as Larry Sabato and Dana D. Nelson and Sanford Levinson as well as newspaper columnists such as David Sirota who have called for serious reform of American politics.