Truth!
Historically this always ends with a tyrant.
Pray it is a good one that wants to restore the Republic.
Posted on 08/12/2017 8:52:52 PM PDT by Neil E. Wright
Next month delegations of state lawmakers will travel to Phoenix, Arizona, to attend what organizers say will be the first formal convention of states since the Civil War. They’ll gather at the capitol, inside the turquoise-carpeted House chamber, and draw up rules for a hoped-for future meeting: a convention to draft an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
No “amendment convention” has taken place since the Constitution was written over 200 years ago. But the idea is gaining steam now, stoked by groups on the left and right that say amendments drafted and ratified by states are the last, best hope for fixing the nation’s broken political system and dysfunctional — some even say tyrannical — federal government.
“We have a Congress in the United States made up of two bodies — House and Senate — that are incapable of restricting their own power,” said Texas state Sen. Brian Birdwell, a Republican. With the conventions, he said, states are stepping in to clean up the mess.
The current push for a convention began in the early years of the Obama administration, mostly driven by Republican lawmakers. Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott are big supporters. So are former presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio. Although many amendment topics have been proposed, the most popular would require the federal government to balance its budget.
Twenty-seven states have passed resolutions in favor of a balanced budget amendment since the 1970s, observers say. The Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, the main group currently pushing the idea, says it could get to 34 states before the next presidential election.
But to get the two-thirds of states required to force Congress to call a convention, the task force and its supporters will need to win over skeptical lawmakers and beat back opposing groups that say a convention called to discuss a single issue could end up rewriting crucial parts of the Constitution or scrapping the nation’s founding document altogether.
The two sides don’t even use the same words to discuss what they’re fighting over. Those in favor talk about an “amendment convention,” implying that only one amendment will be discussed. Those opposed say “Constitutional convention,” suggesting that the whole text could be rewritten.
The Arizona planning event, championed by Republicans and the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, will focus on the balanced budget proposal that’s closest to triggering a convention.
Arizona state Rep. Kelly Townsend, a Republican who heads the committee organizing the event, said she hopes it will reassure people that delegates to a convention won’t do anything crazy. “There will not be a quote-unquote runaway convention,” she said. “That’s not going to happen.”
This is an excerpt. Click the link above to read the while article.
I found some mistakes in this article.
First off, the meeting in Arizona is not a Convention of the States. It's just a meeting to work on possible rules for a future Convention of the States. To actually be a Convention of the States, Congress must call it when the number of applications from the states reaches 34. We're not there yet.
The second mistake is the statement that 27 states have applied for a Convention of the States to address a balanced budget amendment. The actual count is 29.
The third mistake is a general misunderstanding of what a Convention of the States does and what powers it possesses. There appears to be a misunderstanding of the various pieces of Article V. For that reason, I'm going to insert my usual Article V boilerplate next.
***
The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps: Proposal, Disposal, and Ratification.
Proposal:
There are two ways to propose an amendment to the Constitution.
Article V gives Congress and an Amendments Convention exactly the same power to propose amendments, no more and no less.
Disposal:
Once Congress, or an Amendments Convention, proposes amendments, Congress must decide whether the states will ratify by the:
The State Ratifying Convention Method has only been used twice: once to ratify the Constitution, and once to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition.
Ratification:
Depending upon which ratification method is chosen by Congress, either the state legislatures vote up-or-down on the proposed amendment, or the voters elect a state ratifying convention to vote up-or-down. If three fourths of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.
Forbidden Subjects:
Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and one implicitly forbidden subject.
Explicitly forbidden:
Implicitly forbidden:
Reference works:
Frequently Asked Questions About a Convention of the States
Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers
State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters
NO.
Following the one we have is.
We have ceased to be a nation of laws.
The only laws that will followed and enforced will be the ones the left likes.
“The monopoly power to make the laws, enforce the laws, decide what the law means, and how it applies to specific cases, can and will be used to make Constitutions and democratic elections irrelevant. “
Very true. The constitution is just a piece of paper. The people that interpret it (rewrite it to suit their purposes) and enforce it (usually the same people that rewrite it) are the real constitution.
How citizens can compel their “public servants” to do their bidding, instead of the other way around, remains an elusive quest, one that has baffled humankind forever.
Constitutional Republic Corrupted Beyond Repair: the elected wolves won’t eat the elected lambs if they go along with the wolf plan to eat all of the other lambs. Of course the elected lambs turn traitor and serve the wolves.
The Constitution has been completely marginalized by the elected wolves and ass-kissing lambs. Wolves and lambs working on changes will only benefit the wolves.
But re-arrange deck chairs on the Titanic all you want if it makes you feel better. The problem is NOT the Constitution.
Madison's "salary grab" amendment was introduced in 1789 and finally ratified in 1992 as the 27th Amendment.
The business of placing ratification windows in amendments started with the 18th Amendment and has continued ever since. Madison's 1789 amendment did not have a ratification window specified, therefore it was capable of ratification at any time after Congress passed it by two thirds margins, which was in 1789. It took 203 years to finally be ratified.
Congress objected to the Archivist of the United States' decision to accept the final ratifications, but the Archivist wrote congressional leadership a masterly memo that quoted every Supreme Court decision relating to the amendatory process. Congress could have taken the Archivist to court, but 1992 was an election year with an anti-incumbent bias. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Congress backed down and passed the joint resolution officially welcoming the 27th Amendment into the Constitution.
No balanced budget amendment has ever passed both houses of Congress and been passed on to the states for ratification.
29 states have applied for a convention to address a balanced budget amendment, and Congress has never passed a law setting a time limit for applications. Applications for a convention to address an issue are forever unless a state rescinds its application.
Term limits, and enforcement of the existing laws would fix it. 90% of Congress should convene in prison as it is now. If they were doing their job instead of selling influence they would not leave service multi millionaires.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention knew in advance there would be at least a major rewrite of the Articles of Confederation. The AOC were hastily put together while a war was being waged and those that drafted the AOC knew it was not the final say.
The state legislators slotted to attend a convention of states are just as orderly and principled, actually more principled than the current lot that is in Congress today. The state delegates will never allow a free-for-all convention; not going to happen.
The left has a lot to fear from a state convention. They are doomed. Americans are fed up with them. They have power in their urban ghettos but conservatives hold power in states. That’s the essence of republicanism and it scares the crap out o the left, deservedly so.
Since they’re already breaking the law with impunity, exactly what “new” law would fix things? It’s like gun laws that only adversely affect law abiding people while criminals simply ignore them.
Research why Founders used the following words in the Constitution: Posterity, Naturalization and Natural Born Citizen.
Hint: “Yearnings to be with her own natural kind” “were all thy children lind and natural” “the kindly fruits of the earth”
The Founders language was Middle English.
When you figure it...eveyone will know Congress unnaturalized the country after WBTS and it continues,
Edit...”were all thy children kind and natural”
The rule to ratify/change/clarify the Constitution and number of states needed to do it would likely prevent most of the changes from happening.
I’d love to see the 2nd Amendment clarified so the gun grabbers can pack sand forever and a closing and clarification of the anchor baby loophole so at least one parent must be an American citizen.
Term limits would round out my wish list. A drastic reduction in government workers at the federal level would be great too. Drastic; like at least a third gone. Oh; and no more government Unions. There’s no one but an empty chair representing us, the taxpayers, at the table negotiating with Unions. Private Unions are fine if that’s what the people want but no Unions where taxes are used to pay the people working there. No tax money used to kill babies in their mother’s body either.
Welfare and food stamp reform so anyone receiving these would need to work for the local government for at least 9 hours a week for welfare and 5 hours a month for food stamps and not sitting down somewhere. Cleaning offices, washing cars, or picking trash up along the highway would be the kind of things that need doing that towns are paying to get done already.
Wow, it really did. Was not aware of it.
The time limits they have been placing on the amendments is to dela with exactly this situation of having something hang for literally 200+ years. If it takes that long to get an amendment passed it probably is not a good one or by then it’s antiquated/outdated and could actually be considered unconstitutional if scotus rulings have occurred on the subject in the meantime.
You are correct about the Article V convention - but I will go further - it will be the worst thing that could happen to this nation.
Our problem is not our laws, it is our people. Some do not understand our system, many do not understand how corrupt the liberal faction is, and the people that believe in the new convention are fools who believe that a convention of today’s people and press is going to be the savior of this nation.
Our current constitution is not being enforced, so they believe that changing it will result in enforcement? It’s beyond foolish.
"The amendment had been proposed almost 200 years earlier, in 1789. It was written by James Madison and was intended to be one of the very first amendments, right along with the Bill of Rights."
Here's the link to the story: He got a bad grade so he got the Constitution amended.
He started his quest in 1982, and it was finally ratified in 1992. That's OVER 200 years after it was proposed.
It’s ill advised. The problem is not the Constitution - except the 16th & 17th Amend - it is the beastly organizations which have seized control. They trample all over it and appoint judges that tell us it’s ok. Nothing will change until these parties are run out of our governments, federal and state.
If you think that, I do believe you're delusional. It WILL take a Convention of States to propose those limited objectives.
Who will conduct a CoS?
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