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To: Publius

Unfortunately a CoS can’t be restricted. Better for amending the old fashioned way, one issue @ a time.


1,944 posted on 04/30/2024 3:29:57 PM PDT by xone ( )
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To: xone
Oh yes, it can be restricted. Here is the verbiage I got from a retired professor of constitutional law.

***

Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and two implicitly forbidden subjects.

Explicitly forbidden:

  1. No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning the slave trade or direct taxes until 1808. We’re well past that deadline.
  2. No amendment may be added to the Constitution to change the principle of equal representation in the Senate unless every state deprived of that right approves. If California wants five senators, every state must have five senators. To permit violation of this principle, every state would have to ratify the amendment, not just three fourths.

Implicitly forbidden:

  1. The Constitution of 1787 may not be abrogated and replaced with a new document. Article V only authorizes “a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution;” so the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place.
  2. A convention for proposing amendments is limited to the topics authorized by state applications.

Reference work:

Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers

1,947 posted on 04/30/2024 3:37:41 PM PDT by Publius
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