If you can't change your mind, are you sure you still have one?

One of the key parts of the story of yesterday's Massachusetts Constitutional Convention is the part played by those legislators who changed their minds, and their votes, between January's vote and today's.

In a representative democracy, laws are affected by two separate but equally important groups: the representatives, who serve in the legislature, and the voters, who elect them. These are their stories. (Bomp bomp.)

The nine lawmakers who switched sides on gay marriage yesterday came from both parties, different parts of the state, and they traveled different ideological paths to their decisions . But in interviews yesterday, they seemed to share something in common: a desire to listen to all sides and a concern about hurting gay couples and families who they believed in many cases had experienced discrimination. The lawmakers spent hours, even days at a time during the last five months, meeting gay couples and their friends and relatives. Their personal stories made the difference more than anything else, the lawmakers said.

Voters who had supported the amendment also changed their minds:

Some constituents wrote saying that they had changed their minds, like the elderly woman who said she previously asked Candaras to support the ban.
"But since then, Gale," the woman wrote, as Candaras told it, "this lovely couple, these two men, moved in next door to me, and they have a couple of children and they're married, and they help me with my lawn. And if they can't be married in Massachusetts, they're going to leave -- and then who would help me with my lawn?"

One of the important numbers from yesterday is 151, showing that even with all seats filled and all legislators present there were not 50 votes; the other important number is nine.