ABSTRACT
The Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations has described itself as "the first official" 'federal' body created since the constitutional convention itself. A decennial convocation might also dramatize to the nation oft-hidden issues of federalism: gross inequalities between our rich and poor states and the case for a representative tax system; the dilemmas of governing metropolitan areas that sprawl across state lines; proliferations of special districts that undermine budgeting causes for the states and localities. The president might well designate federal executive branch representatives, majority and minority congressional leaders might choose persons from their ranks, the chief justice delegates from the federal judiciary. The amendment's text leaves the question open; one possibility is eighteen persons from each level of government, plus a chair appointed by the president or elected by the convocation. That would add up to the rather neat total of fifty-five, the same number which attended the Philadelphia convention of 1787.
