Posted on 08/17/2013 9:25:57 AM PDT by JOHN W K
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I was somewhat disappointed after listening to Hannity`s Friday night special dealing with calling an Article V convention as proposed by Mark Levin. There was no informative discussion concerning the vagueness of what the rules are after two thirds of the State legislatures apply for an Article V convention, and Congress calls for it to convene. Should these rules not be fully understood before a discussion occurs on what particular amendments ought to be proposed which are believed will restore our constitutionally limited system of government?
For example, how many delegates does each state get to send to the convention? Will each state be entitled to an equal number of delegates, or will each State’s number of delegates be determined by a rule of apportionment in which our “progressive” states like California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and a few others will have an overwhelming representation at the convention because of their large population size? And if each state is represented by the rule of apportionment at Mark’s convention, could our progressive crowd not steamroll their agenda through the convention and force it upon the entire united States by adopting a rule for ratification in which a simple majority vote in the Senate is all that is needed to effectuate their alterations to our Constitution?
Another question not addressed Friday night is, could the delegates sent to the convention change the rules for ratification that are now stated in our Constitution? This questions is important because under the Articles of Confederation, the only precedent we have, a unanimous consent by the States was necessary to alter the Articles of Confederation, but the Delegates to the 1787 Convention ignored that rule and required a mere nine states to ratify the new government they created for it to become effective.
And, what happens if several states refused to send delegates to Mark Levin’s convention? Could the convention proceed to do business without these States and then force their doings upon them? And why couldn’t the convention decide that a mere majority vote of our existing Senate members is sufficient to ratify the convention’s doings?
What I’m driving at is, an Article V convention is unchartered waters, and it would appear that our existing federal government, meaning its three branches, would be in charge of deciding any questions which may arise, i.e, the fox would be in charge of protecting the hen house, figuratively speaking. Do we really want to give our federal government the “legal” opportunity to fundamentally transform our system of government and make constitutional, that which is now unconstitutional?
If Mark Levin’s convention sounds too good to be true in restoring our constitutionally limited system of government, it probably is!
JWK
"At a minimum...the Federal Judiciary, including The Supreme Court, will have to resolve the inevitable disputes over which branch and level of government may be entrusted to decide each of the many questions left open by Article V." - Laurence H. Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
Levin has addressed that. The rules can be written beforehand limiting the amendment/s to be considered.
2) that Congress and our Supreme Court would have extraordinary manipulative powers over the rules of a convention;
In a Congressional convention yes but not in a State's convention.
The Founders didn't design Article V of the Constitution?
Because of that, the states regularly gaffed off, by statute, their duties. Their refusal to pay taxes as per the Articles almost cost us our revolution.
By 1787, the confederation was just about dissolved, due to lack of interest.
At the same time, timid freepers cower in the corner when another constitutional option, a return to federalism is proffered.
None of the three options, the purse, impeachment, amendment, were available to colonial Americans. We had little choice back then but to revolt or endure tyranny.
The framers gave us peaceful means to correct mistakes, and a large cadre of supposed conservatives oppose using them!!!
Levin has addressed that. The rules can be written beforehand limiting the amendment/s to be considered.
2) that Congress and our Supreme Court would have extraordinary manipulative powers over the rules of a convention;
In a Congressional convention yes but not in a State's convention.
TigersEye,
Mark is talking about an Article V convention which is mentioned in our Constitution.
Levin has offered his opinion, but his opinion conflicts with notable constitutional conservatives such as Phyllis Schlafly, founder of the Eagle Forum, Howard Phillips, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, and that does not even take into account James Madison who warned us that:
“You wish to know my sentiments on the project of another general Convention as suggested by New York. I shall give them to you with great frankness …….3. If a General Convention were to take place for the avowed and sole purpose of revising the Constitution, it would naturally consider itself as having a greater latitude than the Congress appointed to administer and support as well as to amend the system; it would consequently give greater agitation to the public mind; an election into it would be courted by the most violent partizans on both sides; it wd. probably consist of the most heterogeneous characters; would be the very focus of that flame which has already too much heated men of all parties; would no doubt contain individuals of insidious views, who under the mask of seeking alterations popular in some parts but inadmissible in other parts of the Union might have a dangerous opportunity of sapping the very foundations of the fabric. Under all these circumstances it seems scarcely to be presumeable that the deliberations of the body could be conducted in harmony, or terminate in the general good. Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention which assembled under every propitious circumstance, I should tremble for the result of a Second, meeting in the present temper of America, and under all the disadvantages I have mentioned. ….I am Dr. Sir, Yours Js. Madison Jr” ___See Letters of Delegates to Congress: Volume 25 March 1, 1788-December 31, 1789, James Madison to George Turberville
And let us not forget what Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote to Phyllis Schlafly in 1988, regarding another convention: “I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like the agenda. The meeting in 1787 ignored the limit placed by the Confederation Congress ‘for the sole and express purpose.’ “
JWK
"At a minimum...the Federal Judiciary, including The Supreme Court, will have to resolve the inevitable disputes over which branch and level of government may be entrusted to decide each of the many questions left open by Article V." - Laurence H. Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
I know and I agree. However it’s early. As other posters have noted; Hannity and Levin were just breaking the ice for a dialogue about this this week. Criticizing the lack of details at this stage is ridiculous.
Interesting. The part in bold is what Levin said. It seems that Schlafly contradicts herself by saying they can set the rules but nothing can limit or muzzle their actions.
At the same time, timid freepers cower in the corner when another constitutional option, a return to federalism is proffered.
None of the three options, the purse, impeachment, amendment, were available to colonial Americans. We had little choice back then but to revolt or endure tyranny.
The framers gave us peaceful means to correct mistakes, and a large cadre of supposed conservatives oppose using them!!!
Jacquerie
And Mark ignores one of the remedies our founders specifically wrote into our Constitution!
The root cause of our present miseries is a tyrannical federal government which ignores our written Constitution and the documented intentions and beliefs under which it was adopted. Adopting an amendment into our Constitution, e.g. “The Tenth Amendment shall henceforth be enforced” would be meaningless to a tyrannical and despotic government! We must admit the root cause of our miseries and address it head on!
The question is, how did our founding fathers respond to the tyranny of King George? And the historical fact is, they began by addressing the root cause of their suffering by petitioning King George for a redress of grievances in a number of documents, prior to taking a more direct and forceful approach e.g., see: Journals of the Continental Congress - The Articles of Association; October 20, 1774
I believe our first step in correcting our problem ought to begin with representatives of our nation’s true patriots, especially trusted Tea Party Activist from each of the United States, to meet and unite in forming an official document stating our grievances. This was one the first steps taken by our founding fathers and it takes the moral high ground by officially listing complaints which must be remedied. Is the right of the people to petition the Government for a “redress of grievances” not contained in our Constitution and one of the specific tools given to us by our founding fathers to be used under existing circumstances? Has Mark Levin forgotten this important part of our Constitution, a process which our founders took and eventually led to ending the tyranny of King George? Should our nation’s true patriots not put our federal government on notice in a good faith effort and be united in articulating a list of particulars describing our grievances, and the corrective remedies which must be taken so no further action is necessary?
My thinking is, after thoroughly researching and evaluating this issue during the 1980s [calling an Article V convention] there were too many unanswered questions involved. In the end I concluded these unanswered question would be answerd by the very tyrants who now cause our miseries! Do we really want to give them the “legal” opportunity to fundamentally transform our country forever and make constitutional that which is now unconstitutional?
JWK
?If the America People do not rise up and defend their existing Constitution and the intentions and beliefs under which it was adopted, who is left to do so but the very people it was designed to control and regulate?
The possibilities involved with State procedures under Amendment V is well taken as much of what goes depends on what the States do. However. if there are no hitches at the State level and assuming that all is cut-n-dried at that level, I would be concerned about a real possibility. That possibility is that the Congress has the final say in calling for a Constitutional Convention. At the present time with the present Senate I would guess that Harry Reid would just ignore need for any action as he has been doing with other matters. This brings to the front that the people should not tolerate one or two persons deciding what actions or matters the Congress takes action on. Priorities need to be recognized but holdups by whims should end.
There is NO ONE in Washington that I trust with with a re-write ( well , maybe 4 or 6 Congresscritters)
but we already have TOO MANY POLITICIANS.. and TOO FEW STATESMEN !!
Too few Congresscritters are looking out for the good of the Country and
TOO MANY LOOKING OUT FOR THEMSELVES !
Consider the legislation, agency 'guidance directives' and Executive Orders that have come out these last few years. Enough said !
Correct. Begin with repeal the 17th Amendment. Restore federalism. The 17th was no minor tweak. It fundamentally altered the balance between the states and our now consolidated government.
Do we really want to give them the “legal” opportunity to fundamentally transform our country forever and make constitutional that which is now unconstitutional?
One more time. States will not send reps. They will send delegates with commissions, with specific authority.
I think the apprehension regarding the original convention is a red herring because we didn't have the existing Constitution in force at that time.
Our Constitution today says that it can only be changed by amendment, otherwise EVERYTHING in it now is "supreme law of the land."
You can't have a convention of delegates change the way the amendments are ratified when the rules for ratification are laid out in the Constitution.
You can't have a runaway convention decide to rewrite the Constitution unless they do it one amendment at a time, such as "Amendment XXVIII: The Constitution as written is abolished and replaced with the following..." then get the delegates to vote for it, then get 3/4ths of the states to ratify it.
They would have to do it incrementally, and then form a voting bloc to vote for the liberal set of amendments and against the conservative ones. Then the states get to ratify the amendments that pass the convention, again one amendment at a time.
One thing the convention cannot change is the concept of 50 states. The states predated the Constitution, and the People and the States "ordained and established this Constitution" to create a Federal Government as a body to manage the relations between the states vis a vis foreign governments. The states still remain as sovereign entities. If a radical group tried to create a new constitution that terminates the sovereignty of states and replaces them with a single continental government, I can't imagine that 3/4ths of the states would vote for their own demise.
-PJ
later
BS - that's what the state's militias are ultimately for. Prohibition was abolished; the 16th & 17th can also be abolished. That'll put the federal beast back in the cage.
This gentleman whom you quote's Harvard credentials don't equal spit:
In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,[38] and president of the journal in his second year.[32][39] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as an associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[40] After graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude[41] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.[38] Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention[32][39] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,[42] which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.[42]
“BTW, did you see the great article by David Limbaugh, Rush Limbaugh’s brother?”
David Limbaugh was in the Hannity show and he basically retracted that article during the show.
In his book review of the “liberty Amendments” David acknowledged the risks of an Article V convention. David also seemed to be polite to Mark while on Hannity's show and avoided pinning Mark down as to the risks and uncertainty of calling an Article V convention.
Mark needs to step up to the plate and acknowledge the various risks and uncertainty of calling an Article V convention before he loses his credibility among constitutional conservatives. I happen to like Mark because he is not afraid to use the correct language to identify our federal government’s actions as tyranny and despotism. I have been at this since the 70s and used to be called every name in the book when using “tyranny” and “despotism” to describe the repeated circumventions of our Constitution by Congress, the Supreme Court and President.
Can an Article V convention be limited once Congress calls for it? And, what are the rules once two thirds of the states apply to Congress for a convention and Congress convenes that convention?
"At a minimum...the Federal Judiciary, including The Supreme Court, will have to resolve the inevitable disputes over which branch and level of government may be entrusted to decide each of the many questions left open by Article V." - Laurence H. Tribe, Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
"What about a runaway convention? Yes, it is true that once you assemble a convention that states have called, they can do anything they want." ___ Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli
“I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like the agenda. The meeting in 1787 ignored the limit placed by the Confederation Congress ‘for the sole and express purpose.’ “___Chief Justice Warren Burger
Barry Goldwater said: "[I am] totally opposed [to a Constitutional Convention]...We may wind up with a Constitution so far different from that we have lived under for two hundred years that the Republic might not be able to continue."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, writing an op-ed piece in the Miami Herald in 1986 wrote: A few people have asked, "Why not another constitutional convention?" ... One of the most serious problems Article V poses is a runaway convention. There is no enforceable mechanism to prevent a convention from reporting out wholesale changes to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Moreover, the absence of any mechanism to ensure representative selection of delegates could put a runaway convention in the hands of single-issue groups whose self-interest may be contrary to our national well-being.
And the one quote I will never forget because I was on the University of Maryland's campus at the time it was made was that of Professor Christopher Brown, University of Maryland School of Law, who wrote in 1991 in response to the call for a constitutional convention to write a balanced budget amendment: "After 34 states have issued their call, Congress must call 'a convention for proposing amendments.' In my view the plurality of 'amendments' opens the door to constitutional change far beyond merely requiring a balanced federal budget."
JWK
“Honest money and honest taxation, the Key to America’s future Prosperity“ ___ from “Prosperity Restored by the State Rate Tax Plan”, no longer in print.
“Mark needs to step up to the plate and acknowledge the various risks and uncertainty of calling an Article V convention before he loses his credibility among constitutional conservatives.”
I’ve heard him acknowledge the risks, but he says that keeping going down the road we’re on is even riskier, and I agree.
Right now Obama is acting like a dictator, issuing decrees whenever he can’t get his way through congress, and essentially daring congress to stop him. And in reality congress can’t really do much about it. Impeachment is out of the question with the democrat senate. Suing him and taking it to the supreme court is even more dangerous given Roberts last ruling, and we’re basically one supreme court justice from dictatorship. Just imagine the audacity of arrogance that he would rule with were he to get a fifth reliable liberal in the court.
Only the Republican Establishment would think it could run away. The Constitution states it take 3/4 of the States to Ratify any Amendment and Each must be voted on separately by Each legislature of the States!!! It is either this or Revolution!!! I would rather a States constitutional Convention which the Federal Government has no say in it!!!!
Read Article V of the Constitution it states what can be voted on or not! Yes the Constitution would be changed by Articles but only voted on by the States. Which takes 3/4 of the States To Ratify any Amendment.
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