What grinds my sensibilities is the outrage, that in what was designed as a federal republic, in which the states were equal custodians of our freedoms, the consolidated government has assumed illegitimate power to split hairs over the wording of state applications, in order to avoid calling an amendment convention.
The constitution is silent as to what constitutes acceptable wording of applications. No matter the composition of the applications, if two thirds of the states call for a federal convention to propose amendments, Congress is constitutionally bound to call a convention.
From the wording of Article V, from Madison's notes at the Philly convention, and The Federalist, I'm not aware of any requirement for identical applications. It follows that it is up to the state legislatures alone to determine the scope of their delegates' commissions, and subsequent amendment proposals, not Congress nor a lawyer in the bowels of the Office of the Federal Register.
It is constitutionally irrelevant whether thirty four states call for an amendment convention to propose term limits, a balanced budget or repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments. Congress is constitutionally bound to call a convention when thirty four states apply for a convention, no matter the amendment subject matter.
Yes, I'm sure there is a trail of Scotus decisions that disfavor what I've written. Since the federal courts are little more than the political muscle, the legal arm of the Uniparty, and serve to cast a patina of legitimacy to statism rather than function as unbiased constitutional arbiters, I don't really care.
Events in NV reflect building disgust that can be addressed in one of two ways. Only one of them is peaceful.
Yup.
However, there is nothing to prevent a state from petitioning for a general convention at which any subject could be considered. There are two petitions on record from 1789, although Congress would no doubt say that those petitions were "stale". But even the ABA understands that a general convention is possible. Note, however, that a general convention cannot write a new constitution, only formulate amendment proposals on any subject it pleases.
In Walker v. US in 2000, William Walker asked the federal courts to consider that Congress should have called a convention back in the 1890's when the two-thirds threshold was first reached. Judge Coughenour dismissed the suit stating that Walker lacked standing. No state has gone to court to make the same claim. This is because the states recognize both the Single Subject Standard and the Contemporaneousness Standard. The Single Subject Standard, at least, has roots in settled contract law, and both the states and Congress understand that an Amendments Convention is bound to its subject by longstanding principles of contract law that even predate the Constitution itself.
To prevent Congress from using specious excuses like word difference and punctuation to prevent petitions from being tabulated in the correct column, the ABA went so far to suggest that each state sending a convention petition to Congress say in that petition which states had previously submitted petitions on the same topic so as to force Congress to tabulate them in the correct column. The reason the movement is calling all these preparatory sessions is to work on the wording so as to prevent Congress from refusing to call a convention because of specious excuses about words. They are also working on the ground rules so as to prevent Congress from passing any bill like those earlier written by Dirksen, Ervin and Hatch that would exercise the wide latitude in regulating the amendatory process that Congress got from the Supreme Court in 1921 and 1939. An ounce of prevention in worth a pound of cure.