Posted on 06/28/2013 10:59:16 AM PDT by Hostage
The Case for a Federalism Amendment How the Tea Partiers can make Washington pay attention.
By RANDY E. BARNETT In response to an unprecedented expansion of federal power, citizens have held hundreds of "tea party" rallies around the country, and various states are considering "sovereignty resolutions" invoking the Constitution's Ninth and Tenth Amendments. For example, Michigan's proposal urges "the federal government to halt its practice of imposing mandates upon the states for purposes not enumerated by the Constitution of the United States."
Article V provides that, "on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states," Congress "shall call a convention for proposing amendments." Before becoming law, any amendments produced by such a convention would then need to be ratified by three-quarters of the states.
An amendments convention is feared because its scope cannot be limited in advance. The convention convened by Congress to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation produced instead the entirely different Constitution under which we now live. Yet it is precisely the fear of a runaway convention that states can exploit to bring Congress to heel.
Here's how: State legislatures can petition Congress for a convention to propose a specific amendment. Congress can then avert a convention by proposing this amendment to the states, before the number of petitions reaches two-thirds. It was the looming threat of state petitions calling for a convention to provide for the direct election of U.S. senators that induced a reluctant Congress to propose the 17th Amendment, which did just that.
Mr. Barnett is a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University and the author of "Restoring the Lost Constitution: The Presumption of Liberty" (Princeton, 2005).
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
For the trolls that use scare tactics to disrupt any discussion of a CC, read the history of when Americans threatened early on in the 20th century to call for a CC. It scared Congress so much that they agreed to take up the proposals of the People.
And that's just what we need now, starting with a marriage amendment and then following with a repeal of the 16th along with enactment of the FairTax, concurrently with a new amendment to allow state legislatures to vote for recall of their wayward US Senators, and an amendment writtne by Barnett above that would rein in abuses of the Commerce clause.
The Left has not a chance to ever get 38 states to ratify their socialist failures on our United States. But we have 38 states that can ratify for many of our purposes.
America is still a conservative country but we have to use a sledge hammer to demolish the socialist apparatus that is transforming our great land into one stinking Detroit.
Amendments may be proposed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a convention.
There is no need for a ConCon.
Your assertion would only work in the affirmative if we had the majorites - or close to it. That's the gamble AND the problem.
a "ConCon" assures it no matter the power balance.
Whose side are you on?
“My assertion” is Article V. Art V specifies how amendments may be proposed.
I think the point is that it is much easier to get 38 states in the current environment than supermajorities in Congress. Am I missing something?
You got it exactly.
Right now for example there are 38 states that restrict marriage to one man and one woman. That’s an amendment begging to be ratified right there.
And the momentum of a marriage amendment effort can be used to do us a lot of good. We have the States, the Left doesn’t.
Yeah, I see how this would work. The Big Goverment loving supreme court just rules that for a compelling government interest, the fedgov need not be bound by that amendment. Think that won’t happen? For the better part of a century they completely ignored “congress shall make no law” and “shall not be infringed.” And need I remind people of roberts re-writing obamacare from the bench in his ruling? We blew right on by being able to fix this with a constitutional amendment a long, LONG time ago.
Still would be a very difficult road to 38 states. I count only 22 sold red states right now, and 13 solid blue states. That means not only would one solid blue state need to flip but ALL purple states would need to go red. The group of states I call purple include iffy ones like MI, MN, WI, IA that have a long history of favoring federal government intervention.
When you are pushing cattle forward you only need to push a smaller herd first and the others follow. But for sure if there’s no push there’s no movement.
We have the numbers to deny then what they want. They don’t necessarily have the numbers to deny us. Ergo we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
What’s the point of another amendment? SCOTUS will just ignore it, like they do the 4th, the 10th, and so on. What’s really needed is secession.
Is this also what Mark Levin is proposing?
Yes but Mark’s suggested amendments are aimed a little differently.
But yes Randy Barnett was ahead of the game in the aftermath of passing Obamacare.
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