I posted its 1973 report to FR and linked to it in my boilerplate that I usually post to these threads. But after my e-mail colloquy with Dr. Natelson, I removed the link and asked JimRob to remove the keywords so that it could be blissfully forgotten. More recent research has superseded it.
When Phyllis Schlafly fulminates against a Convention of the States, her arguments are drawn verbatim from the 1973 ABA Report. I'm also sure that there are copies of that report sitting in filing cabinets in a government warehouse that looks like the one in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" where the government stored the Ark of the Covenant.
If you examine earlier threads on this topic, you'll see posts where I state that once the 34 state threshold is reached for the COS project, and Congress is forced to set the time and place for the convention, copies of the 1973 report will come out of those dusty filing cabinets and Congress will attempt to hijack the process. This is what Ms. Schlafly fears.
If you examine the Convention of the States project, Dr. Natelson's work, and the results of the preliminary meetings involving the state delegations, you'll see how the states are attempting to occupy that legal ground before Congress can lay claim to it.
But Congress doesn't intend to be blindsided this time, as it was in 1992 with the 27th Amendment. That's why Rep. Stivers (R-OH) wrote that provision that puts the Clerk of the House on the same page as the Archivist of the United States when it comes to tabulating applications for a convention. When the COS project reaches around 30 state applications, expect maneuvering in Congress to authorize Congress to supervise and even hijack the process. I suggest you go back to some of the earlier threads with a huge amount of replies to see the scenarios I sketched. Congress cannot be trusted in this matter no matter which party controls it, which is why the COS project is working with the states to seize the legal high ground before Congress awakens to the threat.
I think the Constitutional argument has to be that Congress already has sole Article V power to propose amendments, so any intrusion on state powers to propose amendments would have been considered by the Framers to be redundant and against the doctrines of separation of powers and checks and balances.
-PJ
Thank you, Publius — I'll do that.