Posted on 09/23/2015 1:42:37 PM PDT by Jacquerie
If I wanted to surreptitiously prevent an Article V State Amendments Convention, I would plant a seed in the media that state legislatures must submit to congress, identical or near identical applications that deal with a particular topic. For instance, should ten states apply to balance the national budget, and another ten applied to enact congressional term limits, while another ten sought repeal of the 17th Amendment, I would inform congress and the media that only ten of the required thirty-four (two-thirds) applications had been presented.
Obviously, this is an easy sell to congress; there is little reason for congress to be concerned when only ten applications are in the tally rather than thirty, which is uncomfortably close to thirty-four, the requirement in Article V.
If this strikes you as a normal and proper reaction from congress, that congress should rightly fear or do what it can to prevent a state amendments convention, then you’ve been dimwitted into believing the Uniparty apparatus should reign supreme over you and your state. It means you are uncomfortable with an earthly power above Obama, his trusty enablers John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and at least five gods from Harvard and Columbia Law Schools on the Supreme Court.
Article V speaks for itself. Congress shall call a “Convention for proposing amendments,” and not a convention for consideration of a single predetermined amendment or topic. For counting purposes, an application, no matter the wording, is like any other and must be tallied. In Federalist 85, Hamilton wrote " . . . national rulers, whenever nine states concur, will have no option on the subject. By the fifth Article of the Constitution, the Congress will be obliged on the application of two thirds of the States, to call a convention for proposing amendments . . . " "The words of this Article are peremptory. The Congress shall call a convention. Nothing in this particular is left to the discretion of that body." Oh.
Thus, there is no single topic requirement.
The convention has power to consider multiple issues and submit various amendments to the states. Subject matter to be considered is not the concern or control of congress or any court.
In an interview on C-Span’s Washington Journal on August 17th, Michael Farris of the Convention of States project said (1:30 to 3:00) that four single topic state applications (AK, AL, FL, GA) to limit the size and power of the national government have been recently submitted. Likewise, he acknowledged over four hundred existing total applications have never triggered a congressional call to convention. He also said the convention may consider any topic it wishes, which rather negates the point of identical applications. Congress is clearly, and institutionally hostile to the exercise of Article V by we the Sovereign People and states.
Consider this scenario: Let’s say the number of applications to a single topic approaches thirty. Is there any doubt that Uniparty operatives will work quietly in the background to offer carrots and sticks as necessary to the remaining state house speakers or senate majority leaders to prevent passage of further applications? When this happens, when less than 34 state legislatures apply, and no more are in the offing, count on the Uniparty and Leftist media to trumpet the wisdom of the people. They will boast that by refusing to let their states convene, it shows the people actually support Obama’s policies and the overall trend of the government. Should this occur, Obamunism will be cast in stone.
Further, and worse, such a scenario will set the precedent and future requirement for identical applications. The end result will be effective repeal of the state application process of Article V. We the People and states that created the national government in the first place will, for practical purposes, be denied a God given right to live under a government of our design.
By all means, if I wanted to abort the people/state Article V process, I would demand the states submit identical applications.
Suckers.
And if enough states put out the call Congress still gets to determine the location, timing and length of the Convention.
Hence I would expect a one-day meeting in Nome, Alaska on December 25.
This may well be the next to last tool at our disposal to effectively push FedGov back within the confines of the Constitution.
The fact that establishment politicians in the UniParty are fighting it is evidence enough that they are scared of the potential impact such a convention could wreak on their cushy fiefdoms.
IBTP
(in before the ping)
I would like to see a pre-convention convention. They don’t have to wait for congress to do that. The states that have applied already could start today.
Congress isn’t afraid of a ConCon. It’s another tool in their belt for the establishment to get what it wants.
When the time is right.
Hard tyranny isn't conjecture; it is here and will get worse if we do not reclaim powers and rights stolen from us by the Uniparty apparatus. The Uniparty needs to realize there is an earthly power above them, and that is We The People when we meet in our sovereign capacity.
I am certain that congress will never call a convention.
Like the right to trial by jury, we have the societal right to frame our government.
Article V, like the Second Amendment is not a grant; both are acknowledgment of preexisting rights.
It is therefore the duty of the states to just do it. Exercise a societal and constitutional responsibility; meet in convention to turn back tyranny.
Time is slipping away.
-PJ
It was an inadvertent error for the Founders to place the calling of an Art V convention in the hands of Congress. They did not conceive how power would go to and corrupt D.C.
Plus. They did not write into the Constitution nor should they have foreseen that the Supreme Cabal would take upon itself sole arbiter of what is Constitutional.
There is no longer a separation of powers in D.C.; there is a collusion of powers. Congress will not play by your rules with an Art V Convention. And. The Cabal will back them up.
The only way you get a Convention is to call one anyway, as you suggest with a pre-convention. Even then, only then, that will require the states to wrest their power back from D.C.
Once the states pick up that mantle, to tell D.C. to go to hell, anything is possible. Everything is possible.
In order to do what it would take to get an Art V convention, the states will have to become the necessary belligerents against D.C. such that at least as much, and far more, would be possible without the need for a convention.
To clarify, the Founders most certainly did conceive of the corruption of power in a federal gov’t. They believed that they had appropriately positioned the states to counter that corruption.
They did not conceive that the states would roll over and play dead.
Please elaborate on your last paragraph. Do you mean we should revolt first?
For example, what if a state, say my state, Texas, declared in the aftermath of the gay cohabitation decision that in fact, it’s Marbury v. Madison that is Unconstitutional. Certainly, marriage has a much longer legal precedent than Marbury v. Madison.
So, Texas’ challenges the Cabal’s Constitutional authority to nullify it’s Sovereign laws.
As such, Texas will not allow enforcement of this extraConstitutional decision within its border. The Gov. calls the national guard, local and state law enforcement to take into custody any federal agent attempting to enforce this illegal coercion against a free state.
It wouldn’t take 34 states to undermine or change the federal regime thusly. It would only take a few to set the example.
I think Article V opponents assume that ambassadors from the states will perform their duties in the same reprehensible manner we know so well from the Uniparty denizens in Washington, DC. Since most congressmen and senators would sell their souls today for reelection tomorrow, opponents expect states to send hacks with no interest beyond their own to an Article V convention. An erroneous equivalence is made between the familiar, and that which we have never seen.
Unlike the wild lawlessness of the Uniparty on display in DC, the Article V state convention process itself is a tremendous safeguard for liberty, for unlike our thoroughly debased and self-serving Congress, those attending a convention will join a fresh and uncorrupted institution. The difference in behavior and demeanor we can expect between congressmen and convention attendees is identical to that between men’s conduct in strip clubs and church.
States will send serious men and women of character and judgment armed with detailed, focused and strict commissions to promote their state supported amendments. State ambassadors to an amendments convention will be unconcerned with that which drives the DC Uniparty; money, personal power, and reelection will not be their focus or interest.
If state commissions do not allow a majority to agree on anything at all, the convention will adjourn without sending proposed amendments to the states. Not a big deal.
Here for instance is the Indiana statute that will govern commissions.
We can have every expectation the states and their ambassadors will rise to the occasion. They will understand the gravity of their assignment and conduct themselves in a manner precisely opposite that of the Uniparty.
I am all in for a Convention, and I agree that there should be a stated purpose and that failing this, belligerency may be the only answer left, but I think we need to go through the step provided to the States.
Having said that, our history seems to indicate that what usually happens is that a minority of States can and will overrule the majority in a way that a Convention cannot take place, nor can any other method other than belligerency be possible, as occurred pre-civil war.
My reading of the tea leaves seems to indicate that a event will occur that will prompt actions by the people. I think this is likely to happen before any Convention can be put on the calendar and that this event will dictate the future more than any legitimate plan ever could.
But everyone has their own tea leaves.
"Is there any doubt that Uniparty operatives will work quietly in the background to offer carrots and sticks as necessary to the remaining state house speakers or senate majority leaders to prevent passage of further applications?"
Why do you think that state delegates will magically be immune from these same forces?
What if a state, say my state, Texas, were to pass a law prohibiting the IRS from acting within its borders, nullifying all legal decisions by the IRS against its Citizens, and directing its Citizens and employers to remit their federal taxes to Austin.
Texas will decide what’s appropriate to forward to D.C.
Who is closer to the Citizens of Texas to enforce its will? The Founders believed the states would always have the upper hand in these kinds of battles and so, the Feds were at a distinct disadvantage in trumping the states on these types of power plays.
Click the link to the Indiana statute.
Okay; I’m not a fan of state nullification.
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