Gerald Benjamin, 71, will be at the center of the debate in New York state over the next 18 months on whether to stage a convention to propose wholesale changes to the state constitution. The question will be put to voters as a referendum item on the November 2017 ballot.
When introducing Benjamin at the New York State Bar Association's annual meeting in January, Greenberg Traurig partner Henry Greenberg called him the "most accomplished, distinguished practitioner of political science that there is living today in New York and perhaps has ever been." Greenberg, the chairman of a state bar committee studying the pros and cons of holding a constitutional convention (NYLJ, July 28, 2015), also suggested that Benjamin's authoritative knowledge of the state constitution and the historical workings of government and politics makes him probably the most published individual in law reviews of any non-lawyer.