Richard Labunski is an American journalism professor at the University of Kentucky and newspaper columnist who is an outspoken advocate for reforming the United States Constitution in his book The Second Constitutional Convention. He has been a critic of voter apathy, low voter turnout, and excessive campaign spending. Labunski's book 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."

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 J.D. 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".

Publications: Books

Publications: Journal Articles