Right on Track (Convention of States)

Convention of States ^ | 12/18/13 | Anne Reiner

[Baynative]

Earlier this month, Virginia and South Carolina became the first states to pre-file our application, and Florida followed soon after. We hope to put more states on the list soon!

So far, we have legislative sponsors in ten states:

Arkansas Colorado Florida Iowa Montana New Mexico South Carolina Virginia West Virginia Wyoming

[Baynative]

But it doesn’t end with legislative sponsors. The COS Project has the honor of working with 63 state leaders in 37 states, and over 3,000 volunteers across the nation.

State Directors: 28 Legislative Liaisons: 19 Coalitions Directors: 22 District Captains: 250

States with volunteer leaders include: Florida, South Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin

It’s a big list, but we only want it to get bigger. Join your fellow Americans in supporting the COS Project, and let’s make history!

[Baynative]

WA Ping

YES- even Washington State is in the mix!

[upchuck]

South Carolina, among the first. Smile!

South Carolina Ping
Send FReepmail to join or leave this list.

Keep up with what our Congresscritters (House and Senate) are doing. Sign up for the free MegaVote email service here.

[Baynative]

Keeping the ‘mo’.

[Sybeck1]

Where in the heck is the Magnolia State?

[M Kehoe]

Bttt.

5.56mm

[balch3]

Everybody’s all excited about this, but we have know way of knowing what would come out of this convention. It could be literally anything. Be careful what you wish for.

[goodnesswins]

Listen to Mark Levin....he’ll explain it to you

[rhinohunter]

It’s too bad we need 3/4 of states rather than 2/3.
At 34, you can get there with a coalition of red and purple states. At 38, you’ve got to steal a few blue states. That may be a monumental challenge.

[SC_Pete]

Mark Meckler was on The Glenn Beck Show last night.

http://conventionofstates.com/news/meckler-beck-%E2%80%9Ccould-cos-occur-early-2016%E2%80%9D

Excerpt:
“Under Article V, the states, via the state legislatures, have the right to call for an Amending Convention,” Meckler explained. “And it’s important that we get our language right. It’s not a Constitutional Convention. It does not open the whole Constitution up. This is an untruth that is stated by those people that are against it … It is an Amending Convention which must take place under the rubric of the Constitution itself. And the way it happens is, 34 states issue a call for a convention.”

“What we expect is, somewhere between 15 and 20 states will pass this in 2014,” Meckler said. “We expect to finish off to 34 in 2015. And the goal is to hold the convention in 2016 — great year, presidential year.”

THE ONLY WAY TO STOP WASHINGTON IS THROUGH AN ARTICLE V. MOVEMENT.

[Psalm 73]

"It could be literally anything."

It's a gamble - but may be the only way to prevent the awful "Plan B" - our VERY last resort.

[bigfootbob]

Mississippi.

[bigfootbob]

Yes it is! Thanks for posting this link.

[Jacquerie]

Roger that.

Article V ping!

[Eva]

WA State has been one of the states calling for a constitutional convention to do away with the electoral college. As I understood that issue, they only needed one more state to sign on.

[Publius]

You understand incorrectly. There is little movement among the states to get rid of the Electoral College.

[dontreadthis]

however, there is a movement to have states place all of their electoral votes in the column of the winner of the national popular vote. From my recollection, several states have already adopted this, which is de facto negation of the electoral college.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

bkmk

[SC_Pete]

IT’S NOT A GAMBLE. If we don’t have 13 states that would oppose tyrannical amendments, we are through as a nation anyway. The real risk is doing nothing.

[TEXOKIE]

I spoke several days ago with the secretary in the office of Representative from Oklahoma, Gary Banz, (R), who attended the conference at Mt. Vernon.

The meeting was devoted to process, not substance. That means that they were discussing means to make sure that at future meetings, the procedures and rules would be fair and allow everyone in attendance a voice, but would keep the outcome on our Constitutional rails.

The Article V amendment process IS CONSTITUTIONAL, and is NOT an open Let’s-Throw-Out-the-Present-Constitution “Constitutional Convention” that many fear, including Phyllis Schlafly - and rightfully so! Indeed, THAT could be a disaster.

The Article V effort is a Constitutional means for the state governments themselves to PROPOSE amendments to the Constitution, as a means to side-step an out-of-control Congress. They would NOT have the authority to simply vote out the present Constitution. They can ONLY PROPOSE AMENDMENTS.

According to Banz’s secretary, while it was not focused on at the recent Mt. Vernon meeting, apparently Banz left with the understanding that while there are a lot of amendments we would like to see passed, the consensus is to focus at future meetings on presenting a Balance The Budget amendment, something that has a LARGE prayer of being supported in large numbers by both Republican and Democrat grass roots people and their state legislators.

I believe the thinking is that if we can once get a single amendment passed using this method, then in the future, using that as a template, other amendment proposals could be considered. Nothing is decided; that just seems to be present thinking by many of the participants.

Indiana has passed some legislation (which I have not looked at) which reportedly could serve as prototype legislation enabling a state to participate and outlining the authority under which a delegate would be commissioned.