[wny]

to those who have been advocating a convention of states...be careful what you wish for. think of some of the fools and hacks that could be involved. there's an endless list of imbeciles on the left - and the right for that matter. they'd produce some EU like 500 page monstrosity that would make transgendered toilets a human right.

the Constitution we have is just fine. we should try using it again.

[Publius]

Here is the boilerplate I post to these threads. You'll see why this "500 page new constitution" business is a legal impossibility.

***

The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps: Proposal, Disposal, and Ratification.

Proposal:

There are two ways to propose an amendment to the Constitution.

• The Congressional Method requires the House and Senate to pass an amendment by a two-thirds majority.
• The Amendments Convention Method requires the legislatures of two-thirds of the states to apply to Congress to call a Convention for Proposing Amendments. Once the two-thirds threshold is reached, Congress is required to set a time and place for the convention.

Article V gives Congress and an Amendments Convention exactly the same power to propose amendments, no more and no less.

Disposal:

Once Congress, or an Amendments Convention, proposes amendments, Congress must decide whether the states will ratify by the:

• State Legislature Method, or the
• State Ratifying Convention Method.

The State Ratifying Convention Method has only been used twice: once to ratify the Constitution, and once to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition.

Ratification:

Depending upon which ratification method is chosen by Congress, either the state legislatures vote up-or-down on the proposed amendment, or the voters elect a state ratifying convention to vote up-or-down. If three-quarters of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.

Forbidden Subjects:

Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and one implicitly forbidden subject.

Explicitly forbidden:

• No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning slavery or capitation taxes until 1808. We’re past that deadline.
• No amendment may be added to the Constitution to change the principle of equal representation in the Senate unless every state deprived of that right approves. If California wants five senators, every state must have five senators. To permit violation of this principle, every state would have to ratify the amendment, not just three-fourths.

Implicitly forbidden:

• The Constitution of 1787 may not be abrogated and replaced with a new document. Article V only authorizes "a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution;" therefore, the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place forever. Congress and an Amendments Convention have exactly the same Proposal power; therefore, neither Congress nor an Amendments Convention can start over. Both bodies can only propose amendments.

Reference works:

Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers

State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters

[Cold Heat]

the Constitution we have is just fine. we should try using it again

That ship sailed as legal interpretations were bastardized.

We need to set those interpretations back to where they belong and that takes additional amendments, and perhaps some tweaking of current ones.

As to the approval of some sort of nonsense, it is important to understand that normal amendment rules apply. You still need a 3/4 majority for final approval.

Thus I doubt any extraneous crap would make the grade.

[TomGuy]

The repreentatives to an Article V come out of the same pools of local political parties as those who end up in DC.

How anyone thinks that the A-V representatives would be of higher purpose is unbelievable. Most of those calling for the A-V claim that the problem is with the political party members in DC.

Once an A-V closes its doors, what kind of compromising and deal-making will take place? No one knows. Defenders claim that the states could reject their results. Why would states reject the result from the political representatives they sent?

Even so, the state legislatures would then vote on the resulting amendments.

Notice that ‘the people’ or ‘the citizens’ have no bearing on this. The only involvement they have is in the state legislators they elected. They have no say in the contents of proposed amendments or in the final state votes on the results.

The advocates seem to think a better set of politicians will represent them in an A-V than the ones they send to DC, when both sets come out of the same political party cesspools.

[Cymbaline]

Any amendment that came out of the convention would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the states, same as any other amendment.

[central_va]

The Constitution is a dead letter. We need a CoS Art V ASAP. Deleting the 16th and 17th amendments would be a good start.

[Mr Rogers]

In a convention of states, Barbara Boxer could be sent by California to amend the US Constitution. So could Chuck Schumer. Or Bill Clinton. or Mitch McConnell. Or Paul Ryan.

I find that scary.