Right Here, Right Now: The Connecticut Project for the Constitution

According to their informational pamphlet, “The Mission of the Connecticut

Harold Schramm addresses the audience at “The Constitution in Our Midst” Project for the Constitution [CPC] is to re-ignite passion for participation in the democratic process. Using the Constitution as a platform, we seek to work with schools and broader communities to engage the public in a dialogue on issues confronting the 21st Century.” The Project certainly met and exceeded this mission at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, CT on May 20. The Aldrich was host to “The Constitution in our Midst,” a viewing of four films produced by students in response to the CPC’s Video Documentary Initiative. The films addressed the interpretation of freedom of speech and search-and-seizure laws as outlined in the Constitution. Following the viewing of the films, the Project facilitated a discussion concerning questions raised by the documentaries.

The Project’s Board of Directors (pictured from left to right) Harold Schramm, Todd Brewster, Daniel Wellers and Peter Bachman The ambitious project is run by an all-star assemblage of individuals, headed-up by Todd Brewster, an award winning journalist and constitutional law teacher who has worked with Time Magazine and ABC News and is now director of the Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution. Harold Schramm, the Project’s secretary, is professor emeritus at Western Connecticut State University, where he teaches constitutional law and criminal procedure – he also holds a PhD in English Literature. Vice President Dan Wellers is a former IBM executive who now consults with nonprofits and early-stage technology companies.

The importance of an initiative like the Project for the Constitution is particularly pertinent in a time where the line between right and wrong seems to be getting increasingly blurry, and when some people even feel that the powers-that-be have violated individual constitutional rights. As stated in the pamphlet: “The questions central to the Constitution are not ‘right’ versus ‘wrong,’ but one essential right versus another essential right,” and according to Harry Schramm, “The constitution is a living document that fills gaps that the framers [of the constitution] never imagined... Imagine asking one of the founding fathers about same sex-marriage...” Involving students is an effective way to disseminate the urgency of their mission to the community at large, and instead of attempting to inundate the young people of the area with what the Project believes, they chose instead to ask the students how they felt about key issues, and it was in this spirit that the Video Documentary Initiative was born.

Dr. Schramm thought it was particularly important that students get involved because he feels as if many young people consider the Constitution to be some kind of dated and archaic parchment rotting in a museum somewhere. “The constitution has an immediate impact and it’s not something in the distance, or far off: It’s right here, right now.” The project is far from being a cut-and-dry political inducement. If there’s one thing a devious and untrustworthy politician hates, it’s actual debate over issues, and especially any sort of interest by his constituency; interest and debate are the corner-stone of the project’s mission.“ We have no hidden agenda,” says Schramm. “Our goal is light, not heat. We seek to build bridges rather than separate, and we hope that from here [the questions raised] will trickle down to the community level without adversarial debate.”

“We’re not just asking people to take their cod-liver oil and read the constitution and be good citizens. We believe the constitution is a vehicle for change,” says CPC President Todd Brewster.

And the video documentary Initiative is only the beginning. “Our next project is the Danbury Immigration Initiative. We believe that the immigration crisis in Danbury shows us a vast mosaic of a difficult and disturbing picture, and that it’s right in Ridgefield’s back yard. This illustrates one of the major issues of our nation as it affects us at a local level.”

The Connecticut Project for the Constitution seems intent on tackling any and all issues that pose difficult and relevant questions to the immediate community, as well as to the entire nation, reflecting the words of President Theodore Roosevelt: “A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy.”