Coburn: Convention of States Needed Because Washington Will Never Fix Itself

“Washington is never going to fix itself,” said former Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), explaining why he intends to spend the next few years trying to “cheat history” by helping to organize the nation’s first-ever Convention of the States.

The purpose of the convention will be to rein-in a federal “leviathan” that he says has overstepped its constitutional bounds.

Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, two-thirds of the state legislatures can call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution that limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government.

Alaska, Florida and Georgia passed Article V resolutions last year. Two dozen other states are also considering that option.

On January 6, the House of Representatives passed House Rule XII, Section 3(c) ordering the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to keep track of all Article V Convention applications and have the Clerk’s Office make them “publicly available in electronic form, organized by State of origin and year of receipt.”

“It’s a difficult job,” Coburn, who recently signed on as a senior advisor to the Convention of the States project, told CNSNews.com. “You have to get 34 states to agree. But the group is very well-organized and has over 200,000 grassroots activists helping them.”

Coburn admitted that calling a convention of the states is a tacit admission that Washington is unable to solve the huge problems facing the country, but believes the United States has few options left.

“Most people know Washington is broken,” he told CNSNews.com. “Politicians there care about the next election, not the next generation. The career politicians make promises knowing they will be out of office when the bills come due. And I don’t see that there’s any way Congress is going to fix this in the next 10 or 15 years.

“That’s why I left early,” added Coburn, a family physician who retired from the Senate two years before his term expired after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“I identified $400 billion of waste, fraud and duplication, but none of it was eliminated. Nobody had the courage to eliminate it. And that’s why we need a Convention of the States: to diminish the power of the federal government.

“The CBO [Congressional Budget Office] and OMB [Office of Management and Budget] are not using real numbers and are not telling Americans the truth,” Coburn continued.

“We have $144 trillion in unfunded liabilities and we’re $18 trillion in debt. When you divide that by the population, it’s more than $500,000 for each American, which nobody has,” he said.

“Three thousand businesses closed last year. That hasn’t happened since World War II. Who’s going to loan the United States money knowing we can’t pay it back?” Coburn asked.

The U.S. financial system will collapse if something is not done about the federal government’s out-of-control spending, he pointed out. “Nobody knows when this will happen, but it will happen sooner rather than later,” he said. “Unless we unwind this, we’re going the way of the Romans and the Greeks.”

CNSNews.com asked Coburn why his fellow Republicans, who supposedly support limited government, have gone along with the vast expansion of federal power.

“The Republican Party is not the party of small government,” Coburn replied. “I’ve been in Washington for 16 years, when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House, when Democrats controlled Congress, and every combination in between. There is no difference. There’s no difference,” he emphasized.

No matter which party was in charge, the federal government continued to grow and Americans’ liberty continued to diminish, he pointed out.

“They’ve already stolen the future from the next generation,” he said, adding that the current policies will continue “until the power is taken away and given back to the states.”

“It is testament to the wisdom of our Founders to have included the Convention of States provision in Article V in the Constitution because they knew someday government might grow too big, take on too much debt and promulgate reams of regulation that stifle American prosperity. There is no question that is the Washington that exists today,” Coburn wrote in a recent oped.

“Moreover, the Founders trusted the states and the people to step up and defend their own liberty and sovereignty. So do I.”

Coburn dismissed claims that an Article V Convention would open the door to malicious tampering with one of the nation’s founding documents, pointing out that just 12 states can stop any amendment from advancing to ratification.

“What I hear from conservatives is ‘Oh, we can’t do it. We might not be successful. It might be runaway’,” Coburn told Greta van Susteran. “You know, 69 of the 99 legislative bodies in the states are controlled right now by Republicans.

“But forget that. People in the country, outside of Washington, have a lot of common sense. They’re not about to let our First Amendment, our Second Amendment, our Fourth Amendment, our Sixth Amendment rights be taken away in some runaway convention. And besides, it only takes 25 legislative bodies to stop anything that would come out of that,” he said.

“If they go crazy, it’s not going anywhere,” Coburn told CNSNews.com. “Not doing anything is worse than the worst outcome” of an Article V Convention, he added.

The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps: Proposal, Disposal, and Ratification.

Proposal:

There are two ways to propose an amendment to the Constitution.

The Congressional Method requires the House and Senate to pass an amendment by a two-thirds majority.
The Amendments Convention Method requires the legislatures of two-thirds of the states to apply to Congress to call a Convention for Proposing Amendments. The states may request a single-subject convention or a general convention open to all subjects. Once the two-thirds threshold is reached, Congress is required to set a time and place for the convention.

Article V gives Congress and an Amendments Convention exactly the same power to propose amendments, no more and no less.

Disposal:

Once Congress, or an Amendments Convention, proposes amendments, Congress must decide whether the states will ratify by the:

State Legislature Method, or the
State Ratifying Convention Method.

The State Ratifying Convention Method has only been used twice: once to ratify the Constitution, and once to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition.

Ratification:

Depending upon which ratification method is chosen by Congress, either the state legislatures vote up-or-down on the proposed amendment, or the voters elect a state ratifying convention to vote up-or-down. If three-quarters of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.

Forbidden Subjects:

Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and one implicitly forbidden subject.

Explicitly forbidden:

No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning slavery or capitation taxes until 1808. We’re past that deadline.
No amendment may be added to the Constitution to change the principle of equal representation in the Senate unless every state deprived of that right approves. If California wants five senators, every state must have five senators. To permit violation of this principle, every state would have to ratify the amendment, not just three-fourths.

Implicitly forbidden:

The Constitution of 1787 may not be abrogated and replaced with a new document. Article V only authorizes “a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution”; therefore, the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place forever. Congress and an Amendments Convention have exactly the same Proposal power; therefore, neither Congress nor an Amendments Convention can start over. Both bodies can only propose amendments. To permit the drafting of a new constitution, this provision in Article V would first have to be repealed; it would be a two-step process.

I have two reference works for those interested.

The first is from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative pro-business group. This document has been sent to every state legislator in the country.

Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers

The second is a 1973 report from the American Bar Association attempting to identify gray areas in the amendatory process to include an Amendments Convention. It represents the view of the ruling class of 40 years ago. While I dislike some of their conclusions, they have laid out the precedents that may justify those conclusions. What I respect is the comprehensive job they did in locating all the gray areas. They went so far as to identify a gray area that didn't pop up until the Equal Rights Amendment crashed and burned a decade later. Even if you find yourself in disagreement with their vision, it's worth reading to see the view of the ruling class toward the process.

Report of the ABA Special Constitutional Convention Study Committee

Bears repeating:

The states will bind their delegates with detailed commissions which define and limit their authority. Delegates (not representatives) from the states will be serious men and women who will know the gravity of their task, and they will rise to the occasion. There is no higher honor among statesmen than that of lawgiver.

They will be in convention to reform government, which is composed of the formal institutions and procedures that constitute the framework of legal authority. That means the structure of the government must restored to one of federalism, and I think the delegates will do just that.

Oh, and since Obama is a full-fledged tyrant, there is absolutely nothing to lose. We The People have a God and Constitutionally given right to frame our government. History will not look well upon an enslaved people who had the right power to restore freedom and did nothing about it.

Well said Jacquerie. The actual strict mechanics and procedures of the convention itself are key to its success. If the mandate is to allow only the proposal of amendments to the constitution, absolutely nothing else, I don't see how it can go 'out of control' as some fear. If any state delegate veers from that, they will be in trouble with their respective state, and, as I understand it, maybe even subject to fines or criminal charges. Great care and planning will be needed to set up the convention beforehand with very narrow limited goals, that to propose singular constitutional amendments. Period. Term limits would be a good start and a good 'test' case to see if it can be ratified by 38 states and become part of the US Constitution.

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