Pollster1,
I totally agree with your summary of what a “called convention” would be.
A question that also comes to my mind is, “Who decides who gets to attend such a thing?” I assume it would be state legislatures, which would tend to be somewhat less entrenched to the DC culture - but, when I think how it is nearly every state’s major cities that control how that state’s politics go, I’m not too certain that a Article V Convention would be much less liberal/marxist that what we have already.
I DO believe that state governors and certain state legislators could refuse to follow federal mandates in a lot of areas - like EPA mandates, Dept of Education money and mandates, and a host of others.
This is happening now with the so-called Obamacare insurance “exchanges” - some states are refusing to create them, thus causing a major wrench to be thrown into the mix - hurrah!
But, something like a Constitutional Convention would bring out the leftwing like you’ve never seen. You don’t think they would realize all the potential crap they could pull with something like this? Yes, it would take 3/4’s of the states to ratify - but, that’s just not enough protection in my opinion.
Does Article V state who attends such a convention? If not, then each state would determine its own qualifications, right? If I’m wrong, fine, but I just think a convention is opening a can of worms.
Stop federal intrusion by governors and state legislators just refusing the money, refusing to obey - force the feds to invade. Make them show their totalitarian face to the world.
to mitigate the consensus of fears expressed, it should be noted that the States are fully within their right to apply to Congress with the expressed purpose of calling a Convention of States for well-defined purposes. It would not be prudent to call a convention for the broad purpose of amending the Constitution. States are able to, and many should be willing to, apply for a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution TO LIMIT THE SIZE AND SCOPE of the federal government, for example. Those States on board with this intent would thus attend.
The other side of this is that a Constitutional Convention would bring out the Tea Party like you haven't seen since the ObamaCare townhalls. I suspect we would swamp the left at such a convention. The problem is that I can't imagine what we could add to the existing Constitution beyond "and we really mean that . . . and we really mean that too" that would help.