I truly appreciate your well-worded responses on the CoS issue. Since you, jacquerie, publius, art in idaho and the CoS threads in general explained these in plain English last fall, I am putting feet to this with the best of my ability here in Texas. Thanks because you contributed to our success yesterday.
So happy to hear it was well-received.
That first example Amendment XXVIII ‘Term Limits’ has an interesting evolution.
First, it was Jacquerie that kept prodding me on to somehow get the 17th repeal in there but I hesitated because I thought it would be a tough sell to persuade voters to give up their right to vote for US Senator. The solution to that dilemma was put in the first provision to allow the voting public to vote them out if the legislature won’t.
“YOU CAN’T VOTE THEM IN, BUT YOU CAN VOTE THEM OUT!”
Recall of a US Senator was also ruled in a federal court to be unconstitutional in the case of US Senator Frank Church so it followed that ‘Recall’ needed to be in the amendment. Recall would be left to EITHER the state legislature or the voters. If state legislators would seem too squeamish to fire their US Senator, then the voters could organize to do the firing.
The second provision was written with input by some fine Freepers like Publius, Art, and others who contributed remarks that anything longer than 18 years was too long yet some thought 12 years should be the max. It seemed a good agreement to let individual states decide 12 or 18.
Finally, the third provision repeals the 17th which returns the power to the state legislatures to decide who their US Senators will be thereby giving back their voice and power that were taken away 104 years ago in an episode of poor judgment and sleight of hand. I agree with Jacquerie on that one. The persuasive argument to the voters is as described above, “need to return states the power to decide but give you the voters power to vote them out”. It will still be a tough sell but after it sinks in, people will see it makes sense hopefully.
Please keep Publius and Jacquerie posted on the progress in TX. They have the ping lists. Also, note President Trump wants term limits and should have a liaison for communicating to state groups on the Article V process. Note again, at some point we can expect congressional critters to ‘agree’ to take it up in Congress where they will ‘handle it’. Recommend that play is opposed with maximum effort because it means they will control the outcome and will likely write it in such a way that it fails at a time when they sense the ‘fever’ has passed or they will write it in such a way that it is ambiguous and leaves it for the judiciary to decide.