Caveat: I have not read all of the comments in the thread before posting this.
The ignorance of some people is breathtaking. I cannot believe that something so obvious could be so easily misunderstood. It is NOT a Constitutional Convention! It is am Amendnment Convention, to propose amendments to the constitution. For those who think the constition is a “living, breathing” document, here is where it can be brought back to life.
An Amendment Convention is called by 2/3’s of state legislatures at the same time. It would take 34 states to even get it started. All 50 states get to send delegates.
It only provides for proposing amendments. Proposing! The convention does not cause the amendments to start right then. They have to be ratified. That takes 3/4’s of the states. It could be any or all of the 50 states, not necessarily the ones that proposed the convention. It would take 38 states to ratify them.
The amendments would each, have to be ratified individually on their own. They could propose 20 amendments, and as few as none or as many as 20 could be ratified. 38 states would have to raitify to make them binding on the other 12.
It boils done to a few simple rules. 34 states institute a convention. 50 states send delegates. Amendments are proposed, and presented for ratification by a majority of the delegates. 38 states would ratify them. If any were heinous enough, it would only take 13 states to shoot them down. If any were attractive enough, it would take 38 states to get them added to the constitution. That alone is formidable enough.
Think of how hard it was to create ObamaDemocratCare. They had majorities in both houses, and it was a tough road for them. However, they did manage to do it. Now, think of what a radical change that was to our whole way of life. It was a simple majority of Congress that put our economy in shambles. Even though it was hard for them to accomplish, it was still way too easy. If Congress becomes all Democrat again, we will all be terribly screwed forever.
I do not see the danger in proposing amendments. It is a wisdom of the framers seeing that Congress and Washington could get so big that they could no longer restrain themselves. What would we do short of a bloody revolution at that point? Remember, we are the United STATES of America, and as States, we can go to Washington and spank them.
Our only other recourse, outside of bloody revolution, which I totally don’t want to see, is trying to get enough Conservatives elected to Congress to make laws that would restrain Washington, but that is iffy at best. We are up against a media that calls Tea Party people terrorists and racists. Nobody gets to stand up and say hey we are not racists or terrorists. The media says it and there is no rebuttal.
Then people get elected saying they will change the way things are done in Washington. When they get there, they get to ride in private jets and get taken to dinner every night where the main course is filet mignon, every single day. It is hard to resist that temptation. That’s why Jesus said, lead us not into temptation. We are all only human, and temptation can lead us astray, even when we know better and intend differently. And when he is eating steak every night, hell, even every day at lunch, and getting rid of a department of government might result in the loss of a committee assignment, suddenly we might see a Marco Rubio-type becoming pro of that department. They might have campaigned promising to get rid of it.
So, really, someone might actually propose an amendment eliminating the second amendment. And someone else might propose an amendment getting rid of the 16th amendment. And somebody might propose an amendment placing term limits on Supreme Court justices. And somebody might propose an amendment requiring a presidential candidate to provide a birth certificate before being nominated. That’s four right there. Then, each state would have a vote on each amendment and it would take 38 states to pass any one of them. I doubt if any of them would pass. I would pass 3 of them myself if it were up to me.
The President is elected by only half of the people. After seeing what one President can do by ignoring the Constitution, why would amending that constitution make it any worse? Not to mention the fact that it is only the 27th amendment which will make him leave. It takes a constitutional amendment to end a presidential administration.
Thank you. You’ve pretty much said what Mark Levin is saying.
Thank you ! You explained much better than I did in my posts 180 and 181. This is SO important for everyone to understand before they trash the whole idea.
Can you please clarify how many delegates each state sends? My understanding is one per state , but many on FR think it would be based on population like house of reps or electoral college. Many dismiss the whole idea on that basis alone.(they figure more populous staetes are veryliberal and would skew the amendments towards very bad proposals ).
My understanding is that apportionment for the amendment convention is not specified in the constitution so that can be decided by the states. I think to truly represent the states it should be one for one for one .
Can you clarify?
Once the cork is out of the bottle, it is hard to get it put back in.
Even proposing an amendment will backfire. You will see all sorts of amendments from the other side.
The other thing is that sadly, the Constitution doesn’t matter anymore. Only the Judges do. And we are at least three or four generations away from anything changing there, if we could influence a few law schools today.