The Nation - News from Aug. 10, 1988

After three days of harmony, the 80th meeting of the National Governors Assn. in Cincinnati ended in an acrimonious debate over whether to change the method of amending the U.S. Constitution. Gov. Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee, did not participate in the debate. Approved on a voice vote was a call to Congress to consider amending the Constitution to provide that, if 34 states agreed on a constitutional amendment, it would be submitted to Congress, which could block it by a two-thirds vote or send it back to the states for ratification. The debate, which continued after the vote, was finally resolved when the association chairman, Gov. John H. Sununu of New Hampshire, suggested that all of the governors put their views in writing and promised to attach them to the resolution.