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Convention of States project__ short on facts, big on propaganda!

Let us look at some of the deceptive propaganda put out by the Convention of States project [COS].

COS writes:

"Here are the facts:

1. There is a clear, strong single-subject precedent that would almost certainly be declared binding in the event of a court challenge. There have been over 400 applications from state legislatures for an Article V convention in the history of the Republic. No such convention has ever been called because there has never been an application from two-thirds of the states for a single subject. In addition to this, there is a huge amount of historical precedent that limits interstate conventions to a particular subject.

2. Ratification of any proposed amendment requires the approval of 38 states. It only takes 13 states to vote “no” to defeat any proposed amendment, and the chances of 38 state legislatures approving a rogue amendment are effectively zero."

The truth is, Article V is very clear that when a convention is called, it is for the specific purpose of “proposing Amendments” [that’s plural] see Article V! Additionally, the Convention of 1787 was called for “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation”. The Delegates to the Convention were not authorized to draw up an entirely new Constitution which in fact they decided to do. And after doing so, the Convention decided to also ignore the Articles of Confederation's requirement that a unanimous consent be obtained to alter the Articles. They changed that requirement to an approval by a mere nine states to put into effect the new government and new Constitution they created.

Seems to me the COS project has a very real problem listing “the facts”, in addition to their pure speculation that the number of states needed to approve the Convention’s doings, if one were called, would be 38 and not changed by the Delegates as happened during the Convention of 1787.

The COS project continues:

3. Improper changes to the process can be legally challenged by state legislators. The Supreme Court has held that Congress acted unconstitutionally when it changed the rules of the process in midstream. See, Idaho v. Freeman, 529 F.Supp. 1107 (D.C. Idaho 1981) (vacated on the ground of mootness.) CSG’s Senior Fellow for Constitutional Studies, Michael Farris, was lead counsel for Washington state legislators in that litigation—the last major Article V case in U.S. history.

What the COS glosses over here is, we are not talking about the Supreme Court of 1981. We are talking about our current tyrannical Supreme Court which recently held Obamacare is constitutional, indicating Congress has been vested with a power to enter the States and dictate the people’s medical and health care decisions and choices, which has never been approved by an appropriate amendment to our Constitution.

Finally, the COS writes:

4. There is absolutely no historical precedent for a runaway convention. Many opponents of a convention of the states make the historically false allegation that our Constitution was adopted as the result of an illegal runaway convention. Such an argument was invented by the enemies of the Constitution and is unsupported by historical fact. (See “Was the Constitution Illegally Adopted?” by Michael Farris

Illegal runaway convention, historically false allegation?

The truth is, the convention ignored the agreed upon purpose for which the convention of 1787 was called which was to revise the Article of Confederation and to make them adequate to the exigencies of the Union. There was no call to draw up an entirely new government and new constitution. As a matter of historical fact three of the States [New Hampshire, Connecticut and New York] specifically expressed limiting the convention for “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation”. The States did not authorize drawing up an entirely new Constitution and new government during the convention. These are the historical facts! Was it “illegal” or a “runaway convention”? Those questions are irrelevant and are straw man arguments intentionally referenced to distract the reader from the historical facts and what actually happened during the convention of 1787. It is a stupid debating trick commonly used by dishonorable people when the facts do not fit their agenda!

JWK

"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