Posted on 02/14/2015 11:21:12 AM PST by Publius
A state-level campaign to rein in the federal government by calling an unprecedented convention to amend the U.S. Constitution is gaining steam, picking up support from two high-profile Republicans as more states explore the idea.
Coburn, a legendary government-waste watchdog, announced this week that he has joined the effort by becoming a senior adviser for the group Convention of States Action, which wants states, not just Congress, to pass constitutional amendments.
Article V of the Constitution states amendments can be ratified either by Congress or by states if two-thirds of them petition Congress to call a convention. Then, any amendment proposed at the convention must be ratified by three-fourth, or 38, states.
So far, the Alaska, Florida and Georgia legislatures have each passed a resolution in support of a convention, and 25 more are considering one, according to group.
“Our founders anticipated the federal government might get out of control,” Coburn said Tuesday. “And they gave us a constitutional mechanism to rein it in.”
Meanwhile, Ohio GOP Gov. John Kasich, a potential 2016 White House candidate, has recently concluded a six-state tour in which he has asked legislators to support the convention, largely to push the balanced budget idea.
“Who the heck thinks we should keep spending without any regard to the consequences?” Kasich, a fiscal hawk and former House Budget Committee chairman, asked in South Dakota. “I don’t care if you’re a Republican, a Democrat or a Martian. This is not what we should be doing as a nation. It’s irresponsible.”
Kasich, who claims credit for crafting a balanced federal budget before leaving Congress in 2000, gave a similar pitch week last month in Utah, urging state lawmakers to pass a convention resolution, which has failed there in past years.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
When they call a con con we will lose our guns. What kind of morons think this is good? For heavens sake, they couldn’t even get rid of boener and we trust them with a con con? It doesn’t even take a single brain cell to figure this out. The Libs want a con con and we are playing right into their hands... You can kiss religion guns and speech goodbye.
This is good. I believe this is a no lose situation. Either we improve the constitution or we end up with a way to peacefully dissolve the union.
Yeeeeeeess.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Since the corrupt feds have shown that they’re not willing to police themselves with respect to complying with their constitutionally limited powers, including respecting their limited power to lay taxes, the Constitution needs to be amended a follows. The states need to give themselves the power to recall or impeach out of office any bad-apple federal lawmaker, executive, judge or justice. The states could do so on a 2/3 majority state vote.
The ill-conceived 17th Amendment also needs to be repealed, the states also giving individual states the power to recall their own bad-apple lawmaker, general voters being able to recall representatives, state lawmakers being able to recall senators.
Since the Founding States made Sections 1-3 of Article I to clarify that all federal legislative power are vested in the elected members of Congress, so-called “independent federal regulatory agencies” have no constitutional bases to exist and should disappear.
Domestic federal spending programs need to be limited mainly to delivering mail (1.8.7) as the Founding States had intended.
Candidate state and federal lawmakers need to be constitutionally required to pass a basic constitutional law test before actually being allowed to run for office, such a test emphasizing the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, including the federal government’s limited power to lay taxes.
Voters need to be constitutionally required to pass the same test before being allowed to vote in state and federal elections.
States who fail to economically sustain themselves need their stars to be removed from the flag.
Today the federal government observes the United States Constitution to the letter. Unfortunately, it's the Living Constitution, the Constitution symbolized as a Tree, the Constitution that evolves and changes even when its words don't change, the Constitution of Penumbras and Emanations, that it observes. The Constitution of Original Intent has fallen by the wayside. Only the states can pick this standard off the ground and carry it forward.
Post #18 please. Your hysteria is unwarranted.
No, any amendments proposed by a convention must be approved by 3/4 of the states before becoming effective. Most people forget that. I know lawyers who aren’t aware of it.
I disagree. If a convention decides to adopt a whole new Constitution and 3/4 of the states agree, it could happen. Emphasize, “could”. A convention might also declare me to be Queen of the May. There’s a big difference between “might” and “will”.
Makes you wonder why the framers proposed to include this option then, huh?
Is Article V in Our Future?
http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/column/article-v-future.html
The only power the states have under Article V is the opportunity to submit an “application” (petition) humbly beseeching Congress to call a convention. Hundreds of such applications have been submitted over the years, with widely different purposes and wording, many applications were later rescinded, and some purport to make the application valid for only a particular amendment such as a federal balanced budget or congressional term limits.
Article V states that Congress “shall” call a convention on the application of two-thirds of state legislatures (34), but how will Congress count valid applications? We don’t know, and so far Congress has ignored them anyway.
If Congress ever decides to act, Article V gives Congress exclusive power to issue the “Call” for a convention to propose “amendments” (note the plural). The Call is the governing document which determines all the basic rules such as where and when a convention will be held, who is eligible to be a delegate (will current office-holders be eligible?), how delegates will be apportioned, how expenses will be paid, and who will be the chairman.
Article V also gives Congress the power to determine whether the three-fourths of the states required for ratification of amendments can ratify by the state legislature’s action or by state conventions.
The most important question to which there is no answer is how will convention delegates be apportioned? Will each state have one vote (no matter how many delegates it sends), which was the rule in the 1787 Philadelphia convention, or will the convention be apportioned according to population (like Congress or the Electoral College)?
Nothing in Article V gives the states any power to make this fundamental decision. If apportionment is by population, the big states will control the outcome.
Article V doesn’t give any power to the states to propose constitutional amendments, or to decide which amendments will be considered by the convention. Article V doesn’t give any power to the courts to correct what does or does not happen.
Now imagine Democratic and Republican conventions meeting in the same hall and trying to agree on constitutional changes. Imagine the gridlock in drafting a constitutional plank by caucuses led by Sarah Palin and Al Sharpton.
Everything else about how an Article V Convention would function, including its agenda, is anybody’s guess. Advocates of an Article V convention can hope and predict, but they cannot assure us that any of their plans will come true.
If we follow the model of the 1787 Convention, will the deliberations be secret? Are you kidding? Nothing is secret any more. What are the plans to deal with protesters: the gun-control lobby, the gay lobby, the abortion lobby, the green lobby, plus experienced protestors trained by Obama’s Organizing for Action, at what would surely be the biggest media event of the year, if not of the century.
It looks like it was put in there ... and then ... they saw what a disaster it was, but the deed was done.
One more liberal justice on the Supreme Court and we will lose our guns. What recourse will we have then?
According to "Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law", only after a revolution may a new political society throw off its old organizing document and create another.
Article V bump! Take it back!
While Schlefly and the Birch Society have their hearts in the right place, neither of them know what they’re talking about.
No, Madison ended up voting for it.
Article V also gives Congress the power to determine whether the three-fourths of the states required for ratification of amendments can ratify by the state legislature’s action or by state conventions.
— — —
From Post #30 ...
Too much in the way of political machinations for me to be messing with it.
Those who oppose the Con Con because they think the liberals will hijack it are wrong.
If they thought they could do that they would be the first ones screaming for it.
The fact that liberals are against it makes me all the more sure it is a good idea.
Will McConnell and Boehner and Sen Grahamnesty be in charge of a Con Con? You know, these reliable conservatives.
But there is a school of thought that Article II, Section 6, would apply to a convention. Just as sitting federal officeholders cannot be presidential electors, neither can they be appointed to represent their state at a convention. But that's not 100% sure. The American Bar Association disagrees. Check my two links in that long, pedantic post I put out earlier in this thread.
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