There are 99 houses in 50 state legislatures. Any leftist amendment would require only 13 of these legislative bodies from 99 to defeat ratification. In other words, three quarters of the state legislatures must ratify or 38 states. If 13 legislatures fail to ratify the amendment is defeated. Since ratification by legislatures requires both houses to consent, only 13/99 are required. That is very close to 13%.
If the Congress of the United States elects to have the ratification procedures conducted by conventions rather than legislatures, the method of selecting the delegates to those conventions would be chosen by the legislatures. If only 13 legislative bodies out of 99 object to the method chosen by the other body because it is considered to favor a leftist amendment, there is no ratification forthcoming from that state.
By either procedure the odds of a liberal amendment getting past so many conservative legislative bodies in so many states is both arithmetically and practically remote.
Finally, this is only the last line of defense, there are innumerable steps along the way which make a "runaway convention" virtually impossible and render the need for the states to fail to ratify very likely superfluous.
By either procedure the odds of a liberal amendment getting past so many conservative legislative bodies in so many states is both arithmetically and practically remote. You are assuming there would be integrity in the voting and legislative processes. I no longer think this can be assumed as a matter of course. Look at how Obama won his primaries in 2008, how he won the election in 2012, how Cochran won his primary this year.
The following is an excerpt from the HISTORICAL EXHIBITION PRESENTED BY THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG
The Enabling Act of 23 March 1933
The political situation in the final stages of the Weimar Republic was confusing and unstable. Changing cabinets and coalitions and political, social and economic crises were the order of the day. . . .
The next step towards the ‘Führer state’ was the abolition of parliamentary democracy and the rule of law. Although the NSDAP-led government had a stable working majority in the Reichstag, the National Socialists aspired to formalise their absolute de facto political power by means of an amendment to the Weimar Constitution. Through the ‘Act for the Removal of the Distress of the People and the Reich’ of 24 March 1933, more commonly known as the Enabling Act (Ermächtigungsgesetz), which consisted of only five articles, the government of the Reich was to be vested with almost unlimited powers to enact laws, even in cases where the legislation encroached on core provisions of the Constitution.
Since the Act entailed an amendment to the Weimar Constitution, its adoption required both a two-thirds majority in Parliament and the presence in the Reichstag of at least two thirds of all its members. The prospects of achieving the requisite number of votes were good, since the mandates of the 81 deputies from the Communist Party of Germany had been rescinded under the Reichstag Fire Decree. Moreover, many Members of the Reichstag had already fled or been imprisoned or murdered. . . .
Only the deputies from the Social Democratic Party of Germany voted en bloc against the bill, in spite of the massive intimidation by the SA and SS, whose troops had moved in to surround the Kroll Opera House, where the Reichstag was now meeting. . . .
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Excerpts from a WND article:
Michele Thomas, a professional photographer in Hollywood, told WND in an exclusive interview that her resistance to the Obama campaign made her a target of intimidation. “I have received death threats from Obama’s people,” she said. “I think I was called a ‘racist’ a thousand times. If you didn’t stand for Obama, you were a racist. It was a way to intimidate you.”
. . .
Thomas’ charges were affirmed by a Hollywood producer who spoke to WND, Bettina Viviano, . . ..
. . .
What [Thomas] witnessed while volunteering for Hillary in the Nevada Democratic Party caucuses eventually turned her into an activist.
“The Obama campaign people were stealing the caucuses – throwing away votes, intimidating people from entering the caucus locations,” she said. “It was very systematic. The Obama supporters got control over the caucus packages and they manipulated the vote.”
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Moreover, even assuming integrity in the process, the 13% argument cuts both ways. It would be just as easy for leftists to defeat any useful amendment as it would be for conservatives to defeat leftist amendments.
Therefore, a convention has no chance of doing any good, and a non-trivial chance of doing great harm.