Posted on 05/02/2015 1:35:55 PM PDT by Jacquerie
A couple of prominent conservatives have expressed concern over the possibility of a ‘runaway’ Article V state amendments convention. Such is their anxiety that runaway tyranny from Rome-on-the-Potomac pales in comparison to the possible horrors of the states getting together to relieve their people from oppression. Are these concerns fact based or irrational or somewhere in between?
An important, and likewise extra-congressional vestige of the federal system of 1787, and quite similar to an Article V state amendments convention in its constitutional foundation remains in force today. It is the familiar Electoral College (EC). Like the state amendments convention, the EC is also a specific grant of constitutional authority distinct from congress, courts and presidents. Both the EC and Article V convention are temporary, and neither can be made subservient to any branch of the government. This renders the EC and state amendments convention separate from, and superior to the three branches of government. The state amendments convention process is created by Article V; it is not a component of any of the three branches of government created by the first three articles. The limits to congressional involvement and duties are in Article V. Congress must call a convention upon applications from two thirds of the states, and determine the mode of ratification. That is all.
The EC is also loathed by liberals. Witness the National Popular Vote movement. The EC and state amendments convention processes represent end runs around liberals’ wholly owned government in Washington DC and media. The EC and an Article V convention are federal and therefore anti-democratic, which is why libs despise the EC and are working toward complete nationalization of presidential voting. Libs love democracy. Recall the 17th Amendment which turned ambassadors from the states into three-term, democratic and demagogic congressmen.
The EC and state amendments convention processes are federal remnants of a more perfect union that placed liberty preserving institutions ahead of fuzzy pablum populism, and democracy.
If you oppose a state amendments convention, do you also fear the Electoral College?
The EC is extra-congressional and completely controlled by the states. If the states are so wild and politically insane, why haven’t we had ‘runaway’ sessions of the EC? For whomever the states cast their votes is entirely up to the individual states. They can split their votes between Uniparty candidates or cast votes for Joe Blow down the street. States can modify their statutes such that their legislatures may determine for whom to vote with zero input from their citizens. The EC confab is a one-day event. Isn’t that dangerous? There is no subsequent meeting that requires approval of three fourths of attendees to implement the results. Why haven’t we experienced a runaway Electoral College?
Why hasn’t congress set down the rules the states and EC must follow? Answer: Congress has no more authority to participate in the deliberations of the EC than it does to participate in, or set the rules for an Article V state amendments convention.
No state EC delegation ever ‘ran away’ because the simple fact is that the duties of electors are defined by state statute. Replace the term ‘elector’ with ‘delegate,’ and you have a situation identical to that of an Article V amendments convention.
Delegates will serve their states. They will have no attachment to any statutory authority under the US.
Article V now, while we can.
> “Our assets are their collateral”
US Treasury debt in the form of bonds is ultimately held in ownership by the Fed. If the Fed calls the zero or negative interest loan directed towards purchase of those bonds, they receive the bonds as the US government does not have the money to buy back.
The Fed then simply extinguishes the debt and their bank intermediaries will look at other bonds to invest in if they can get the cash.
Nothing to do with Article V; nothing at all.
> “I don’t want secret negotiations over a “package” of amendments, “take it or leave it.” I want Amendments proposed and ratified one-by-one, each on its own merits.”
There is nothing secret about some so-called “package” of amendments. You have an amendment you want considered? Call your state legislator.
> “If we can’t get agreement over a simple item like treaty ratification by 2/3 of the full Senate (never mind repealing the 17th), the rest of it is a very dangerous pipe dream.”
I see. If you don’t get “what you want”, then the Hell with everything else.
Did you click the Indiana statute link?
Not yet, but I will. My overall point is that liberals constantly do what they want, without consequence, and R’s play along, and we end up with these fictional, but ostensibly binding liberal laws, that everyone is expected to treat as if they were valid, or else be punished. Hopefully something like that would not occur with the assent of the delegations from conservative states.
You’re right. That’s a great segment of Levin’s address to ALEC.
It is indeed the duty of our state legislators to relieve their people of a tyrannical national government.
The electoral college is ultimately under the control of the 50 states (plus DC). The legislatures determine how the electors are to be chosen and how and when to certify them, provided that they’r required to meet (in their respective state capitals) on a given date across the country. (This is what liberals refuse to understand about the 2000 election.)
The original design was for the electors to elect the president, and while they nominally still do, they have become subservient to the public will. Originally, they met and voted for the candidates they found best without necessarily being pledged to any particular candidate.
This is similar to how Senate elections got corrupted, except that in the case of the Electoral College, it didn’t take a constitutional amendment.
The electors are required by the Constitution to meet on a specific date for the purpose of casting their votes, and the only power Congress has is to determine when Congress will get together and count the electoral votes.
> “I’ve said nothing that is any way misleading, and the headline on this thread was an invitation to those who have fears about this plan. I’ve expressed quite succinctly what my fears of this are. And nothing that has been said here has changed my mind. “You’re stupid” doesn’t count as an argument.”
You’ve heaped blame on the States for not doing something about things which they presently have no power to do anything about.
Someone else called you ‘stupid’. The term ‘stupid’ is applied to persons who show no ability to learn. I’ll let the Forum decide on that descriptor for you.
> “Bottom line? My focus is on finding candidates that understand the most basic and important obligations of their oath, and who will consistently keep them, and then doing whatever I can to help them get elected.”
Well, then I guess Congress should appoint you to oversee the oath adhering capacity of every person elected to a federal office. I’ll bet you think you can make men and women act like angels too. In my knowledge base, I understand the Founders were not assuming anything about human nature other than its propensity for greed and power. The Constitution was not designed based on officeholders keeping their oaths, it was designed on completely the opposite.
> “I have no interest in having the Constitution changed by the very people who have proven that they will not keep their oath.”
Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue ......
I suppose there are at most a handful. There will never be enough. If men were angels . . . oh, never mind.
Folks aren't likely to "find out" when their first reaction to honest disagreement is to call people stupid, like has happened repeatedly on this thread.
If you do nothing, nothing changes.
I believe in the old medical dictum: "First, do no harm."
So what is the risk of a convention being / doing the wrong thing?
In my opinion, very high, for all the reasons I've laid out repeatedly on the thread.
First, if the delegates sense that the convention is being disrupted by unserious agitators, they can simply adjourn and disband.
You're assuming these are good, principled, well-intentioned delegates. An assumption I do not make. Fact is, if it ever gets to that (which I seriously doubt), it will be mainly Democrats and establishment RINOs picking the delegations.
If they survive the existential attack, they can prevent amendment proposals from passing out of the convention.
Or not.
If a rogue amendment passes, there are still 13 states that can stop it.
Personally, I do not believe that there is wise, constitutionally-knowledgeable, principled, courageous leadership in even 13 states any more. Not even close.
Doing nothing prevents all of these other fail-safes from ever being given a chance, and enshrines the current dysfunction as the status quo.
Again, the main problem is not with the existing wording of the Constitution. It is that those we keep electing keep failing to do the main things they swore to do, as well as continuing to do a long list of things that they are not constitutionally empowered to do.
Fix that, and then we can start tuning up the Constitution. With the right people in power, folks with understanding and commitment to principle, that will then be a piece of cake.
Congress has no more authority to participate in the deliberations of the EC than it does to participate in, or set the rules for an Article V state amendments convention.
No state EC delegation ever ‘ran away’ because the simple fact is that the duties of electors are defined by state statute. Replace the term ‘elector’ with ‘delegate,’ and you have a situation identical to that of an Article V amendments convention.
Delegates will serve their states. They will have no attachment to any statutory authority under the US.
Article V now, while we can.
First off, your quote of Madison Madison regarding the the powers reserved to the States, in no way addresses or undermines my own statement that Madison has not suggested the writing more Constitution is a remedy for a deliberately corrupt government.
And, no, the ability to “call for” a Convention by each state, is not any sort of sovereign “power”; the two considerations are not related.
What is described in Article V is simply the process(es) by which the Constitution may be amended. That Article V repeatedly indicates that Congress and Congress alone has authority over the process. Furthermore, Court cases such as Coleman vs Miller (1939) specifically indicate that Congress has the “exclusive power” over the amending process and terms of a convention, with neither the States nor the Federal judiciary even being able to intercede.
Quite clearly Article V indicates the Amendment process to be an authority of Congress, not the states.
While Madison does specifically indicate in Federalist #45 that, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite,” nowhere in this recognition does Madison imply that the States have authority over the terms of a convention.
What Madison describes in Federalist #46 is the relative authorities of the States compared to the Federal government. However nowhere therein does Madison suggest the importance of amending the Constitution as part of the power of the States, much less indicate such amendments being the appropriate response to a government delierately in violation of its terms in the Constitution.
The founders were all practical and pragmatic men, and they would not recognize amending and writing more Constitution as any sort of rational approach to a government in deliberate disregard of the existing Constition, which already prohibits government’s actions.
The fact of the matter is that Americans have long tolerated government’s violations, and even called for those violations when they serve each American’s personal interests. This is gone on so long, and to such a great degree, that Americans, generally, no longer have a valid working grasp of the Constitution’s actual terms.
Nonsense, the Convention process is already hijacked by interests that intend to have voting be based on State populations, rather than one vote per state.
This guarantees that the Convention will be runaway, and based entirely founded on populist whim rather than state sovereignty, as was the original intent of any convention among the States.
The claim that worries about a runaway convention are “absurd” is nothing but gross naivete and disregard for actual fact.
And if you’re going to cite Mark Levin as any sort of authority, you should ask yourself why an experienced Washington insider and attorney would write an entire book about amending the Constitution, but nowhere reference the existing Enumerated Powers in those amendments to actually bolster those limitations on government, much less provide any means in those proposed amendments to invalidate the gross overreach of ObamaCare.
The only thing Levin’s amendments do is treat symptoms of the problem, while conspicuously leaving the actual problem itself unchecked, doing nothing to stem the assault by government upon us.
In fact Levin’s amending would serve to implicitly validate the existing federal corruption today as legitimate, by leaving it entirely unscathed by his “Liberty Amendments”.
As Patrick Henry said, "... it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."
Over 70% of the Amendments to the Constitution did the “wrong thing” and they still exist!
The 17th Amendment’s populist election of Senators has existed for one-hundred-and-two years, creating the most criminal and unanswerable body on the Federal government. When exactly are they going to “quickly find out and fix” this corruption?
What about the 18th Amendment’s Prohibition of Alcohol? We managed to get that vulgar violation to the Constitution’s structural principles removed from the Constitution only 14 years later!
But what about the legacy of the 18th Amendment Prohibition? While it had no business being in the Constitution in the first place, the 18th Amendment taught Americans that their rights come from the Constitution itself, and that those rights might be denied by merely amending that document. If the authority over what we Imbibe is not a right, then why didn’t Congress just write a law? But they didn’t write just a law, no, they had to amend the Constitution, when that document is nowhere intended to tell citizens what they can and cannot do.
Today’s tyranny by the EPA, and FDA and OSHA, ATF, FEMA, and a whole host of other agencies is all a direct result of the 18th Amendment’s social engineering do-good-ism.
Also as a result of the 18th Amendment, crime rose, and criminals were using automatic firearms, and we are now denied fully automatic firearms by the federal government, despite the prohibition that the right to keep and bear arms shall now be infringed!
Anchor baby citizenship and having dual allegiance to another country were all fabrications of the 14th Amendment in 1868, and people have the audacity today to refer to dropping a child on American soil as “birthright citizenship”. When are we going to fix these inadvertent corruptions, and would even repealing the 14th Amendment reverse the claim of those anchor babies to citizenship? it is seriously doubtful! Some actually believe those fabricated anchor baby citizens are entitled to hold the office of President! And yet it still has not been fixed, I do not believe it can be.
In fact the history of this country’s corruption shows that doing the wrong thing, even for the right reasons, is worse than doing nothing, and is precisely how we have lost this country!
Defending that proposition even at this late hour is unconscionable.
Quite clearly Article V indicates the Amendment process to be an authority of Congress, not the states.
Others have said that Congress has a limited administrative-only role in an Article V proposing convention process.
You make it sound as if Congress has supreme authority over the process.
Article V says that Congress' only role is to call the convention when enough states apply, and to select the method of state ratification of proposed amendments. Everything else in between, is for the convention itself to decide.
-PJ
What a coward you are. Stratus quo fascists abound here.
When the convention is called, I assume congress will attach controlling legislation.
When the convention meets, I hope they close the doors, sequester themselves tighter than a conclave of cardinals to elect a new Pope, and do as they wish.
IOW, ‘Eff Congress.
Boot lickers shouldn't be so proud.
Anything that is dictum is not law, but simply an opinion of the judge who wrote the decision. Coleman did not deliver an Amendments Convention into the hands of Congress, and neither did that 1973 ABA Report, upon which a rather lazy Congressional Research Service based their own evaluation.
The two Supreme Court decisions upon which the ABA and CRS hang their case -- Dillon v. Gloss in 1921, and Coleman v. Miller in 1939 -- gave Congress wide latitude in regulating the amendatory process unless that regulation contravened the clear intent of Article V.
So what does Article V intend?
The Declaration of Independence gave the Whole People, as Madison called them, the right to alter or abolish their form of government. Madison stated that the Constitution and the Union were formed by the Whole People using their separate political societies -- i.e., the states -- as their agents. In terms of contract law, the Whole People were the principles, and the states were the agents through which the Whole People acted.
Extending this line of legal and constitutional thought, the Whole People, via the states, may assemble in convention to alter or abolish their government and its institutions. Article V gives Congress the ministerial duty to set the time and place for such a convention provided that two-thirds of the states apply for one, but Article V gives Congress no other regulatory duty.
Why? Because the Article V Convention represents the sovereignty of the Whole People as exercised through their states. The Framers put this feature in Article V just in case the federal government got too big for its britches.
Why is that piece of dictum in Coleman wrong? Because the Constitution created Congress; Congress did not create the Constitution. During the brief period of its existence, an Amendments Convention is a sovereign body, exempt from regulation by any branch of the federal government.
Why? Because the sovereignty of the Whole People supersedes the sovereignty of Congress.
Why? Because the Union and the Constitution were created by the Whole People via the states, and not by Congress.
Any attempt by Congress to exercise its purported "right" to regulate an Amendments Convention would be contrary to Article V, the Constitution as a whole, and the Declaration of Independence. While the American Bar Association, and the ruling class it represents, would like to control a convention so as not to jeopardize its power, the clear intent of the Declaration, the Constitution and Article V would be violated if Congress attempted to do so.
The bottom line is that an Amendments Convention:
The boot licking status quo fascists are all over this site. Very depressing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.