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

cnsnews.com ^ | March 5, 2015 | Barbara Hollingsworth

[Art in Idaho]

“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.

[Article10]

I would rather the 17th amendment repealed first...use article V as leverage...

The organized liberal political machines on the state level will over ride any conservative agenda..

trust but verify. ..walk before running. I say this out of the fact conservatives cannot unify and time and again fail to organize to win on serious election matters...

[nathanbedford]

I do not understand your post. If the organized liberal political machines on the state level will override any conservative agenda, what advantage does it yield if we return the election of senators to state legislatures?

As to whether we should advance only an article 7 repeal as the purpose of the Article V movement, I think that emphasis would be misplaced. First, there are other more important amendments such as term limits, balanced budgets and review of regulations; second, repeal of the 17th amendment would not be popular, certainly not as relatively popular as term limits or balanced budget and to emphasize that reform to the exclusion of others would be to waste political energy; third, we only have so much political energy much of it will be expended in the first effort and that attempt should be done right, for a very popular cause, and one which has a good chance of working real reform.

I have often posted that I do not believe that state legislators are any more noble than federal legislators, only that they have a different set of motives for veniality which should work in favor of genuine reform for a time.

[nathanbedford]

I do not understand your post. If the organized liberal political machines on the state level will override any conservative agenda, what advantage does it yield if we return the election of senators to state legislatures?

As to whether we should advance only an article 7 repeal as the purpose of the Article V movement, I think that emphasis would be misplaced. First, there are other more important amendments such as term limits, balanced budgets and review of regulations; second, repeal of the 17th amendment would not be popular, certainly not as relatively popular as term limits or balanced budget and to emphasize that reform to the exclusion of others would be to waste political energy; third, we only have so much political energy much of it will be expended in the first effort and that attempt should be done right, for a very popular cause, and one which has a good chance of working real reform.

I have often posted that I do not believe that state legislators are any more noble than federal legislators, only that they have a different set of motives for veniality which should work in favor of genuine reform for a time.

[Hostage]

Repeating here an illustrative example of how the power of Article V can be unlocked by the States to restore federalism:

************************************************
AMENDMENT XXVIII

To redress the balance of powers between the federal government and the States and to restore effective suffrage of State Legislatures to Congress, the following amendment is proposed:

************************************************
Section 1.
A Senator in Congress shall be subject to recall by their respective state legislature or by voter referendum in their respective state.

Section 2.
Term limits for Senators in Congress shall be set by vote in their respective state legislatures but in no case shall be set less than twelve years nor more than eighteen years.

Section 3.
Upon a majority vote in three-fifths of state legislatures, specific federal statutes, federal court decisions and executive directives of any form shall be repealed and made void.
************************************************

If Section 1 above can be replaced with a repeal of the 17th, then that’s even better but it may be a hard sale. Section 1 above gets the job done by making US Senators pay attention to their State Legislators and at the same time requiring both to interact with the state voters.

I would strongly recommend the following must-see video of Mark Levin be watched, consumed and studied:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZuV8JnvvA

And I would strongly recommend all to urge respective state senators and state representatives, and the people that work for them, to view it

[b4its2late]

This needs to happen NOW!

[b4its2late]

“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.

Amen.

[ReaganGeneration2]

It’s my understanding that the states must send to the Article V convention only very specific amendments and topics to discuss and vote up or down. One of the topics that has been moving through some stares, to rein in the Feds, is a Balanced Budget amendment.

Getting all Levin’s amendments to be sent there, all at once, would be very difficult, but possible under the Constitution. Would take a lot of time.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Let’s hope this gets momentum. For those of you who want to see change, maybe this is where your talents should go.

KNOWN: Any freeper who spends time and/or money on any national GOP candidate is wasting his/her treasure.

[Article10]

Having watched multiple important elections at the state level the Liberals are way more organized on important issues. they will not be as organized or motivated if the 17th amendment is repealed. For a convention...they will be out in force...repeal of the 17th, the left will not understand as much, thus the chance to get it repealed.

Conservatives at least have a fighting chance state level for senators being appointed as the founding fathers intended.

Term limits will only produce a permanent class of bureaucracy much like the byzantine empire

Our Founding fathers knew history well

Repeal the 17th first...then ponder the 16th

[Whenifhow]

3:22 Minutes
Should We Have a Convention of the States? | Tom Coburn on “Dana”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPGyF6uNBLw

[charlie72]

“You have to wonder about people like Coburn.”

EXACTLY. Coburn was the leading Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee which refused to vet Obama, but made McCain jump through hoops. He has never explained nor apologized. BTW Hillary and Obama were on that same committee. Obama was even allowed to write the part about others once thought ineligible were actually eligible—a big lie. COBURN CANNOT BE TRUSTED.

[Jacquerie]

<> It’s my understanding that the states must send to the Article V convention only very specific amendments and topics to discuss and vote up or down<>

Actually, that isn't true. It is an American Bar Association construct totally detached from the Framers' Article V design. The ABA wrote that nonsense up almost fifty years ago to prevent the people and states from exercising their God-given and constitutional right to frame our government. The history of Article V is in six parts below.

Congress’ Present Duty to Call a Convention:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

[Jacquerie]

That was good. Coburn is getting the word out. Now, if only a sitting senator . . . say Ted Cruz would get aboard, it would immediately take center stage in all media.

[ReaganGeneration2]

Thanks!

[LaRueLaDue]

Your last paragraph needs repeating:

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.

So true, and so well stated. The way I view it is this: if the convention fails, or is somehow subverted, it will just hasten the revolution that will be coming if the overreach and lawlessness of the federal government is not contained and controlled.

[central_va]

A Constitution ignored is worse than no Constitution at all.

[Da Bilge Troll]

"I wonder which ones?"

There's a list here: Convention of States by the numbers

[Da Bilge Troll]

"I’ll need to read up on Article V."

A good place to start: Convention of States Project

[Baynative]

"I have often posted that I do not believe that state legislators are any more noble than federal legislators, only that they have a different set of motives for veniality which should work in favor of genuine reform for a time.

This is where "we the people" can make a difference and MUST become energetically involved. Read some history about significant battles of the revolution where rag tag groups of citizens stared down organized armies and their cannons. Then look at the turn defending liberty has taken in the 21st century.

The most effort put out by the majority of people is to forward a hand full of email jokes and cartoons to friends every week. When it comes to getting up and showing force against the tyranny of growing government most people shy away.

THAT IS WHY WE LOSE ...and they win. The Article V alternative can work to the benefit of the republic is, as Ben Franklin said: We care to keep it.

[papertyger]

This seems to be our last hope short of bloodshed.