Exclusive — Mark Meckler: Constitutional Convention Is How ‘We, the People’ Take Power Away from D.C.

breitbart.com ^ | 9/17/2022 | Jordan Dixon-Hamilton

[rktman]

Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States Foundation, discussed the importance of a constitutional convention of the states on Breitbart News Saturday and said it is the “mechanism” for the American people to “take power away from Washington, DC.”

Breitbart News Saturday host Matthew Boyle opened the show by asking Meckler why a constitutional convention of the states is needed in today’s America.

Meckler said that the constitution provides this mechanism to give the American people the power to amend the constitution instead of only Congress having that power. He also noted that the founding fathers unanimously agreed on the idea.

“So there was no debate on this, everybody agreed this is something that was going to be necessary, it was inserted into the Constitution unanimously. That’s how we get the right as citizens in our states to call for a Convention of States,” Meckler said.

“It takes two thirds of states to call, so that means 34 states are required to call for a convention,” Meckler explained. “So far 19 states have called, only 15 to go, well past the halfway mark, pushing towards the two thirds mark.”

Meckler then discussed his organization’s proposed amendments to the constitution, which are primarily focused on limiting the federal government’s powers.

[Political Junkie Too]

The only Constitutional Convention ever held was in 1787 when the Bill of Rights were approved and in that conventional amendments were approved by the rules setup by the convention.

The Constitution had not been ratified at that point, so their convention was not an Article V convention for the purpose of proposing amendments. It was a "Pre-Constitutional" Convention.

-PJ

[semimojo]

Who do you your state reps or your federal reps? I say the state reps: they aren’t as corrupted with power...

Not necessarily with power...

I think too many have a romanticized notion of what would actually take place.

In my experience state reps are no more honest, principled or wise than the ones in DC.

In fact, many in DC started in their states.

If anything, I think state reps would me more susceptible to pressure from the myriad special interests inevitably showing up.

[Political Junkie Too]

How do you control WHO goes to said convention

That is a good question.

The Constitution only says: 1) "on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States," and 2) "The Congress... shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments..."

My initial supposition would be that Congress, as a part of "calling a Convention for proposing amendments" would include the qualifications for members of such a convention. I suppose they could, in their call, leave the details of each state's delegation to the state legislatures themselves, or they can try to micromanage how the state legislatures select delegates to the convention.

In any case, the Constitution says only that the state legislatures send an "application" for a Convention, but not anything about membership rules for delegations.

-PJ

[bert]

Drivel

The law is destroyed and can not be reinstated.

First there must be war and bloodshed

[mabarker1]

Yes Texas needs to Secede, taking the bulk of the other States with them. Then blockade all the commie liberal cities and surround them by real people and starve the demonratcommieblmantifaterrorscumfeminazipedophilegoatrapers to death, let them kill each other with their gangbangers and the street drugs eventually they’ll run out. If they want abortion let them have at it and thin/deplete their ranks and all the little city trolls. Eventually the words baby daddy will no longer exist. In other words in a decade or so we should be able to sanitize the city area with Airtankers dropping Sodium Hypochlorite Solution, let it air dry and let some of Our people move back in if they want to.

[tsomer]

Think: Soros. Pelosi. Obama. Schwab. Clinton...
Open that lock and you’ll never close it again.
Just don’t.

[BiteYourSelf]

This.👌

[BiteYourSelf]

The term is being used wrongly.🙄

[MileHi]

Great! Let’s put the California legislature in charge of the country.

How would that happen? The ignorance on this thread is amazing.

[Publius]

Article V ping.

[Publius]

This is the usual boilerplate I append to these threads to explain the Article V process. I've had this prose vetted by a retired professor of constitutional law.

***

THE ARTICLE V AMENDATORY PROCESS

The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps:

1. Proposal;
2. Direction;
3. 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 of each house.
• The amendments convention method requires the legislatures of two thirds of the states to pass resolutions directing Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. These resolutions are called applications. 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, except that a convention is limited to proposing amendments specified in the application and there is no such limit on Congress.

Direction:

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 once: to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. A similar procedure was used to ratify the Constitution itself.

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 fourths of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.

Forbidden Subjects:

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

Explicitly forbidden:

1. No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning the slave trade or direct taxes until 1808. We’re well past that deadline.
2. 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:

1. 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;” so the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place.
2. A convention for proposing amendments is limited to the topics authorized by state applications.

Reference work:

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

[Publius]

Then, by majority vote of an ignorant, unwise public...

You raise a point that cuts to the heart of the issue.

Do you believe that the American people are no longer capable of self-government? If so, what choices are left?

[Reily]

Which is unfortunate!
Two different things!

[JesusIsLord]

The current Constitution is not followed. What makes anyone think amendments from a Convention of States will anymore be followed?

[rktman]

Canceling some and adding satanic new ones?

[glennaro]

Do you believe that the American people are no longer capable of self-government? If so, what choices are left?

Therein lies the rub. Far too many Americans are so woefully ignorant of the history of our Republic -- much less, the world history of governments and tyrants -- to appreciate what is at stake here ... and are perfectly willing to be "taken care of" by seemingly "benevolent leaders" (Ref.: "Escape from Freedom" by Erich Fromm, 1941; 11 bucks at Amazon; 3 bucks on Kindle) Cheers!

[newzjunkey]

There are no rules governing the agenda of an article V convention. The Dems will give us all manner of crazy like directly elected presidents.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

“demonratcommieblmantifaterrorscumfeminazipedophilegoatrapers”

Bet you can’t say that 3 times fast.

[Publius]

The current Constitution is not followed.

Oh yes, it is! The federal entity follows the Constitution to the letter. Unfortunately, it’s the Living Constitution, not the Constitution of the Framers, that it follows. (Robert Bork called the latter “the Constitution in Exile.”)

So what is the Living Constitution? It’s what happened to the Constitution of the Framers after 200+ years of case law, some of it good, but much of it bad. The bad case law was mostly agenda-driven. Some of the agenda was “the Constitution of a horse-and-buggy nation in the automobile age” (FDR) to “a Constitution unfit for a modern democracy” (modern progressives).

A Convention of the States permits the states to use constitutional amendments to sharpen the language to make the kind of structural changes that would rein in the federal entity. For example, shouldn’t Congress, the first branch of government and that most representative of the people, have the right to overturn decisions of the judiciary that go too far? How about the states? Shouldn’t Congress be subject to term limits, like the president? Shouldn’t states have the right to nullify acts of Congress that go too far, via a structured constitutional method? You can be sure that these kinds of amendments would never pass Congress. Structural changes that bind the federal entity can only come from the states.

[Texan5]

I agree-secession would be the best way-split it red from blue, let liberals move to blue, conservatives to red-and in red states, trash the alphabet fed entities and start over with a few decentralized ones that make sense-maybe an FDA/USDA, forest service, conservation, etc but no fed cops...

I wouldn’t trust most if these politicians to change the oil in my truck-and I certainly don’t trust them to change the Constitution-they are too corrupted and willing to sell us all out-no thanks-to think otherwise is just being a pollyanna, IMO...