In contrast to the spare language of our nation's Constitution stand the volumes of blather crammed into those of most states. New Mexico's charter has been the bane of governors, legislators, judges and our state's citizens, loaded as it is with amendments dreamed up by legislators — too many of them approved by voters at nearly every election.

The state messes, to a great degree, are by design: America's founding fathers left most decisionmaking to the states. And wish though we might that state constitutions could be as sleek as the one beginning "We, the People," local and statewide pressures prompted lawmakers to forsake mere statutes when it came to many policy statements, carving them instead in constitutional granite, con permiso from the voting public.

During four decades since the last constitutional convention, whose efforts were rejected by the Legislature, the need for a new one has become increasingly apparent. In 1995, a constitutional-revision commission began a couple of years' work aimed at reworking the 1912 model by updating and reorganizing it — but without throwing the whole thing out. The group's recommendations largely languished.

Now state Rep. Joseph Cervantes of Las Cruces wants to convene another revision commission. He'd like the group to come up with changes to today's document, with an eye to making government more efficient, effective and ethical. It's a good idea, in that it might stir our state to carry out a constitutional overhaul.

But meanwhile, in an interview with political blogger Heath Haussamen, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, this year's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, figures it's time for a full-blown constitutional convention.

The latest constitutional-change proposal has ethics reform as a main focus, and Denish's Republican opponent, Doña Ana County District Attorney Susana Martínez, responded to Haussamen's question by saying there are better ways to root out corruption. Without disagreeing with Denish, Martínez said what's really needed are having "real consequences for violating the public trust." For good measure, she told him, "we will fix over-bloated bureaucracies by electing strong leaders that can put an end to them."

Both approaches are good ones — Martínez' on the short term, Denish's at much longer range.

As part of her proposed constitutional repairs, Denish says, there's got to be more transparency and oversight in the offices of appointed and elected officials: "We need to build in better controls including creating a strong and truly independent ethics commission, establishing qualification requirements for certain offices, and constitutionally requiring transparency in department operations."

A constitutional convention, she suggests, would provide our state with "an opportunity to think outside the box and build a more efficient and responsive structure for government. We need to examine the effectiveness of certain departments and agencies, such as the Public Regulation Commission or the Transportation Commission, to determine if they are meeting their purpose or should be restructured."

She may be onto something with the PRC — although we're not so sure that a Martínez clean-up approach to that agency wouldn't do the job. The PRC, after all, represents the 1990s reform of the appointed Public Utilities Commission and elected Corporation Commission.

Other areas ripe for debate are a non-elected state Treasurer, as well as getting rid of the elected state Auditor position in favor of an appointed auditor-general operation like our nation's General Accountability Office.

A state constitutional convention would, in the immortal words of the late Gov. Bruce King, open "a box of Pandoras." It could be a circus featuring reformists, with New Mexico's many, uh, interest groups as comic relief. Yet our state is loaded with civic and legal talent capable of wringing order from chaos.

We wish Rep. Cervantes well in his call for constitutional reform — and if Lt. Gov. Denish wins the governorship, we'll hold her to her constitutional convention commitment.