How to Make Mark Levin's Vision of Constitutional Reform a Reality

American Thinker ^ | August 16, 2013 | Jeffrey W. Barrett

[dontreadthis]

But fortunately for Levin (and us all), there is a solution to the runaway convention problem, and his "natural allies" could find reason to hop on his Article 5 bandwagon. There is a group based in Washington DC of highly influential constitutionalists who call themselves the Madison Coalition and who have found a workable solution to afford states the right to propose single Constitutional amendments while avoiding the dangers of a runaway convention. The first article in the nation to report on the Madison Coalition was published on these pages. Very briefly, the Coalition's strategy is to first have the states draft carefully crafted legislation that would eliminate the possibility of the delegates in an Article 5 convention from "going rogue."

[Jabba the Nutt]

Bingo! Runaway Convention is really ignorant and a distraction. The proposed amendments have to go to the States for ratification. Will we worry about runaway legislatures? Runaway brides? Runaway songs?

[hosepipe]

“Ok I have a question, What if we DO get some(or all) of these Amendments passed and the then Illegitimate Federal Govt flips us the “bird” and refuses to leave, then WHAT do we do?!”

---

1)Seize all Federal property in your State..
2)Deport ALL loyal federal employees with their Union..
3)Stop all revenue leaving the State for the Federal Givernment..
4) Recall ALL State citizens serving the federal givernment..
5) Escort out of the State all federal military personnel unless they sign primary oaths to your State.. and take lie detector tests to verify/confirm..
6) Do the same with ALL State Militia personnel.. and Law Enforcement.. Fire Fighters.. and Civil Servants...
7) Arrest and De-brief all known leftist organizations..

---

**Day one.. and then start a conversation on how to get even more serious about it.. Televised and on the internet..

** Possible other scenarios seize all broadcasting outlets de-briefing all their top personnel..
** Possible other scenario de-brief all other news outlets.. including cable providers..

** and many other boring but needful things..

[entropy12]

May be Mark Levin needs to get the Kardasians get involved in this effort. 85% of Americans know the Kardasians.

[Publius]

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.

The Congressional Method requires the House and Senate to pass an amendment by a two-thirds majority.

The Amendments Convention Method requires the legislatures of two-thirds of the states to petition Congress to call a Convention for Proposing Amendments. The states may request a single-subject convention or a general convention open to all subjects. Mr. Levin's suggested amendments would require the states to request a general convention. Once the two-thirds threshold is reached, Congress is required to set a time and place for the convention.

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 State Legislature Method or the State Ratifying Convention Method. 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-quarters of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.

[mazz44]

Right on! This country has always been a Rebuplic. It was designed as such, based in part on the failures of democratic and majority rule. If America falls, it will be because of the majority of Her people allowing their lazy minds to be coerced into believing otherwise and not taking the time to understand the difference.

[depressed in 06]

Mark Levin’s second amendment process is excellent, but, it suffers from one severe drawback, dumBO and the Bolshies will have destroyed country in much less time than getting a Constitutional convention completed.

That leaves the Second Amendment process.

[wintertime]

We have a Constitution now that is being ignored. Any new amendments will also be ignored.

Fundamentally, rule of law and the Constitution depends upon the **good will** of HONEST citizens! Unfortunately, nearly all Dems and many Repubs have absolutely no allegiance to upholding the the rule of law and are not honest people of good will.

Laws and constitutional amendments will NOT NOT NOT coral evil. Evil will leak through every time.

[montanajoe]

I have often thought its the messengers not the message that makes conservatism such a hard sell to the general public (or at least those who are under 65 and are not life long members of the GOP).

I know little of this Cardasian you are talking about but [’m sure she would have far more impact at 85% name recognition than Levin would with 5-10%...

I personally think Perry could do will if he had smart people making fun of the debates and using that energy as a positive rather than a negative..the same goes for Palin

IMHO talk radio is marginal at best in moving voters in presidential elections and may or not be a factor in the 2014 elections, it should not be relied on in 2014 as its time has probably come and gone..the name of the game now is targeting individual voters not a small group of true believes... Its a shame but the Conservative philosophy has become victim in many cases of the Libertarians. Libertarians are Liberals in conservative sheep's clothing. They will stand by and let our enemies destroy the country as well those on the left.. /p>

/p>

[wintertime]

Mr Levin is one of our second set of Founding Fathers. Rush is also one.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Both **KNOW** that Obama posted fake birth documents, fails e-verify, claimed on the jacket of his own book to have been born in Kenya, and is using another man's social security number, yet, their response has been near silence.

Sorry!...If these two really, really, really cared about the Constitution that they claim to love so much, they would have defended Article 2, Section 1, in 2008.

If Levin and Rush can't stand up for the Constitution we have now, I don't expect them to stand firm in defending any perfected Constitution.

[entropy12]

Unfortunately all your points are valid about 2014 elections.
When president Zero was successful in adding 24 million more Americans & Illegals on the food stamp program, our republic is now toast. People will always take the easy way out. When free stuff is available, why get up early and bust your bottom at a job.

[Rodamala]

I actually had picked up that nitwit Larry Sabado’s book with his suggestions to ammend the Constitution a few years ago for $3 fat Big Lots. I stopped at his hare-brained examination of and changes he wanted to make to 17À.

I threw the book across the room at the trashcan.

If you don’t latently fear what the Leftist crowd would do with a CC... you should be.

[RKBA Democrat]

What I find hard to believe is that this idea is getting some traction. It seems that no one has an understanding of the practical hurdles something like this faces. 3/4 of the states have to ratify any amendment. 3/4!! No one has yet discussed how they’re going to get liberal states who make up at least 1/4 of the states to buy off.

Frankly I’m beginning to wonder if this is a push to get conservatives bogged down in an exercise in futility to keep them from doing something useful that might achieve results.

[noinfringers2]

And a final hurdle is that Congress has to set a hearing on what the states do/come up with. This means the Senate gets in the act and Harry Reid can pigeon hole the whole bundle. There has to be control of both Houses by the same party as I see possibility of a done deal.

[Political Junkie Too]

The idea is that, just because they're liberal doesn't mean that they buy into the extremism of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama.

Even liberals have a line they won't cross. The trick is to convince them that a tyrannic dictator like Obama won't care that they're liberal when he doesn't need them anymore.

It's a matter of reminding them that when Obama came for the conservatives, they weren't conservative so they did nothing...

-PJ

[TBP]

Anything they propose still has to be approved by 3/4 of the states.

[nathanbedford]

FreeRepublic is fortunate to have a correspondent, Publius, who is extremely well-versed about all matters constitutional and uniquely well-qualified to comment on Article V. I strongly recommend to all interested conservatives that they review the citations Publius has so kindly supplied to us earlier in this thread.

Publius points out the different methods of ratification, one by state legislatures and the other by state conventions. This distinction is important because it offers a wedge for leftists to sabotage the entire process. If I were a statist in Congress I would opt for the convention approach because there is a strong likelihood that the selection of the convention delegates of each state would have to be made in conformity with the decades-old Supreme Court doctrine of "one man one vote."

This means that the delegates to the state convention would be relatively less influenced by the state Senate. It opens the door to supervision by the court to make sure that minorities are properly represented. There can be huge amounts of election fraud because it is not clear that the federal election laws would apply to this procedure. Nor is it clear that the rules of the legislature of each state would apply to the conduct of the conventions leaving the field open to chicanery. Ratification by convention would be a venture into uncharted territory leaving the entire process open to ambush. It opens the entire process to endless litigation.

Furthermore, the left no doubt will insist that the delegates to the convention for the proposal of amendments (as distinguished from conventions which might be selected by the United States Congress to ratify or reject amendments proposed by the national convention) be selected in accordance with the same one man one vote requirement. If this occurs, the big leftist states of the Northeast and the West Coast will prevail and block conservative amendments from being proposed. They will be able to accomplish this because delegates might not be permitted to vote on a state basis but on basis of representing population. In other words, there will be no winner take all vote controlling a state's support or opposition to a proposed amendment, instead the issue will be decided by individual delegates who will in no way be beholden to their state but only to the concept of representation of population.

I have not done the arithmetic but I assume that conservatives would be better off having a convention for the proposal of amendments done on a state-by-state winner take all basis because, as Levin points out, we have been relatively more successful in winning state legislatures, governorships, and local offices than we have been in winning national elections.

Of course, selection of delegates for the convention to propose amendments (as distinguished from state conventions to ratify or reject amendments once proposed) cuts both ways even if they are selected on a population basis rather than on the basis of winner takes all control of the state vote. That is because even in Massachusetts and even in California there remain pockets of sanity which elect conservatives. Indeed, even New York City elected Mayor Giuliani. So the arithmetic becomes very important but so does the process by which the delegates to the convention are selected. Are they to be selected by the legislature, by the legislature with approval of the governor, or by general plebiscite on the basis of one man one vote? If one man one vote, does the would be delegate run statewide or according to a legislative district?

It is also possible that, even though the delegates are elected on a one man one vote method, their vote nevertheless will not be tossed into a pool of all delegates at the national convention to propose amendments but will be counted on winner take all basis to determine how their home state will be voting. We just don't know at this point.

As you can see, the permutations and combinations go on and on and there is no definitive answer forthcoming from the wording of the Constitution. There is guidance in both directions from the Federalist papers, from the history of the constitutional convention, from Supreme Court cases, and from the history of state conventions which have occurred but an agile lawyer will find ammunition on both sides of virtually every issue.

In this uncharted territory the question becomes not only what is required but who determines what shall be required. Much like the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice, once that is done all cases coming before the court are predictable-providing always but that justice being confirmed is a leftist. So the question arises who applies to the United States Congress to call the convention? It is a pretty good guess that that would be the state legislatures. If they do not propose amendments in identical language, is the door is open for Congress to deny the applications if the requisite 34 states have not made identical applications?

Assuming that the state legislatures can be coordinated (a very large assumption), or at least 34 of them can be coordinated, and a coherent and parallel set of proposals of amendments are submitted to Congress, the question arises what to do about Harry Reid if he simply, flatly refuses to act? The Constitution does not tell us it merely says that the obligation of Congress to act is obligatory, the operative word in the Constitution is "shall." But it does not provide a remedy for Harry Reid's recalcitrance.

Incidentally, there is no requirement In Article V that the states propose amendments, only that they apply for convention to propose amendments. So the requirement for the states to propose coordinated amendments is something which does not appear in the Constitution, but which has been claimed by Congress, and would, of course, be claimed again by Harry Reid. Who's to say what is required?

If Congress does not do its duty, to whom do the aggrieved states have resort? Do they go to the Supreme Court which is likely to call this a political question rather than a justiciable question? Do conservatives want to open the door to supervision by the Supreme Court an endless rounds of the litigation? Do the aggrieved states conduct a convention without the imprimatur of the United States Congress? If they have 34 states can they go ahead? Can every stage of this proceeding be delayed by suits through the federal judiciary system which take years to resolve while sentiment changes? Assuming Congress it does call a national convention, what happens if Congress sets terms and conditions of its own making out of thin air without authorization in the Constitution? For example, suppose Congress imposes a time limit, suppose Congress sets quorum requirements, requirements for the certification of delegates, rules respecting the procedural conduct of the convention, winner take all vs. one man one vote?

These issues are raised not to discourage conservatives from seeking this Article V remedy, indeed I agree with Levin that time is running out and the alternative is disaster, these issues are raised to acquaint conservatives with the challenges ahead so that we can marshal our arguments to prevail.

Finally, there is utility in gaining political leverage by pursuing this process. It might put the fear of God in Rinos that their rice bowl will finally be broken and it might just encourage some disaffection in the ranks of the Democrat party. There is a lot of upside and very little downside.

[dontreadthis]

thank you for taking the time to discuss this. As I distill down the various risks and rewards of this process, I can’t help but come away with the conclusion that this action will simply require Faith. Faith in our fellow Americans (i.e. faith that there are more of us than there are them), and faith that those steering the process will receive divine guidance. For me, it’s as clear as that. However, I do find the intricacies of the process fascinating, and I will continue to educate myself and hopefully others as to the process.

[RKBA Democrat]

Thanks for the analysis. Your last paragraph has an interesting thought contained in it: the process itself might have some utility.

I’m of the view that any attempt to add “conservative” amendments to the Constitution will end in failure due to the 3/4 of states ratification requirement. So why bother? But the thought that the process has some value is an interesting take on it. Thanks.

[nathanbedford]

I congratulate you on your perseverance in even getting to the last paragraph.

[RKBA Democrat]

“That leaves the Second Amendment process.”

And those who have the bigger guns will probably win that one. Frankly, much as I am a fan of RKBA, I’m becoming more and more critical of those advocating the remaining box strategy. I’m not interested in seeing large piles of dead Americans, especially when more effective strategies remain that allow everyone to continue breathing.