Posted on 08/25/2013 2:36:07 PM PDT by Jacquerie
Amendment to establish congressional term limits. No more than twelve total years combined in house and senate.
Amendment to repeal the 17th Amendment. Governors may fill vacancies to fill out remainder of terms. Upon two thirds vote, state legislatures may remove their senators.
Amendment to establish twelve year term limits on scotus. On three-fifths vote, and within twenty four months of a ruling, congress or the states may override scotus decisions. These overrides are not subject to judicial review.
Congress shall submit preliminary budget to president by first Monday in May for the next fiscal year. Should congress/president not adopt a budget by October 1st, the budget shall be set at 5% less than the last year’s budget. Outlays no greater than receipts and no greater than 17.5% of previous year’s GDP. Congress may suspend the 17.5% limit for one year on a roll call vote of 3/5 of members. National debt to require 3/5 roll call vote. Maximum limit of 15% income tax. Deadline for filing tax returns shall be the day before elections to federal office. Ban on tax of decedent’s estate.
All federal departments expire unless individually reauthorized in stand-alone legislation every three years. A joint committee of congress shall review and approve all executive branch regulations that exceed $100 million in economic burden. There is a six month window. If the committee does not approve within that time, the regulation dies.
Congressional power to regulate commerce does not extend to activity within a state, regardless of effect on interstate commerce. No entity may be compelled to participate in trade or commerce.
Property owners shall be compensated for actual seizure or when a market value reduction of $10,000 or more occurs through regulation, interference, financial loss caused by any governmental entity.
State legislatures, on two-thirds vote, may amend the constitution. Six year limit from first state to ratify. No state may rescind or ratify during the six year limit.
All congressional bills shall be placed on the public record for a minimum of thirty days before final votes. Two-thirds of congress may override. Three-fifths vote of state legislatures may nullify/repeal a federal statute or executive branch regulation that exceeds $100 million in economic burden. Nullification is not subject to any court review. States have two years to exercise this authority.
Photo ID required to register and vote. States will provide them at no cost if necessary. Excepting military personnel, there shall be no early voting more than thirty days prior to the date of the election. More restrictions to reduce third party registration and voting fraud.
Dear Mr. Bachert,
There seem to be a number of posters on this subject who fall into one or more of the following categories:
The willfully ignorant
The terminally indolent
The woefully indifferent
The pathologically negative
Let’s go one by one: You repeatedly refer to a Constitutional Convention. Please hear me on this, one and all: There is NO, repeat NO Constitutional provision endorsing or providing for a Constitutional Convention of any sort, nor is one under discussion here. Your insistent use of the term “Con-Con” reveals your willful ignorance.
Your reference to the complacency and inattentiveness of others is sadly reflective of your own complacency and inattentiveness, and reveals your terminal indolence. While you cavil about the abuses of government, it has fallen to me and my like-minded brothers and sisters (Georges and Georgettes) to actually DO something about it. Please enjoy your armchair while you can.
Your equation of the present effort with something that occurred during the Carter years (and IIRC there was an actual proposal for a Constitutional Convention floating around back then) is stunningly disingenuous, and reveals your woeful indifference, in this case an indifference to the truth.
Finally, I note that you argue that the present effort’s chance of success lies somewhere between slim and none, as if the success of a venture must be determined before the process is engaged. That attitude reveals your pathological negativity.
It is obvious to me from the number of people making posts such as yours that many people are suffering from one or more of the maladies mentioned. I chalk that up to years of living under the statist yoke. I hope that these folks will be encouraged by the coming debate and process - maybe even you.
On the other hand these posts could be plants by DU types terrified that true Americans might just actually succeed in taking the country back, and are trying to spread FUD.
I’m not sure which you are.
An excellent response.
PLEASE, please everyone, cease and desist referring to a “Constitutional Convention”. This is misleading too many people into false thoughts - it’s so lazy, inaccurate and dangerously deceitful that I have concluded that its usage here is probably a statist tactic to divert and derail the debate.
Please call it a “Convention of the States” or a “Convention for Proposing Amendments to the Constitution”. Anything but what it is not.
And what is it not? It is NOT NOT NOT a Constitutional Convention, nothing like it at all.
As for the first ten amendments, how many are respected and enforced today?
Most of the first, fourth, fifth, ninth and tenth amendments are in various stages of decay or practical nonexistence.
The ones that are at least somewhat in force, have champions outside the consolidated government to protect them.
Until recently, the press was ready to pounce on any pol who threatened their freedom.
The second amendment is mostly in force only because of gun rights groups.
The sixth to eighth are protected by lawyer groups.
Which of the above are actively secured and protected by congress, by the people sworn to protect the constitution?
Ditto.
I used to use the term "Article V Convention" until somebody asked me what Article V was.
I now use the term "Amendments Convention" because Judge Andrew Napolitano uses it and because it is succinct and to the point.
I don't like the term "Convention of the States" because it is not as clear, but I occasionally use the term "the States Assembled in Convention".
The term "Convention for Proposing Amendments" is right out of the Constitution, but it has too many words.
Check them out.
To be precise in language, "federal government" means Article I legislative offices, Article II executive offices, and Article III judiciary offices, along with Article I-authorized lower courts. Article V conventions derive their authority from the same place as Article I, II, and III office-holders, the United States Constitution.
"Under authority of the United States" also includes the states themselves, since it is the people and the states that ordained and established the Constitution in the first place. I can't imagine a definition of "authority of the United States" that excludes the states themselves from authority. The Constitution has limits on what the federal government can do, and it has limits on what the states can do, but Amendments 9 and 10 made it clear that the states held supreme authority for anything not specifically delegated by them to the federal government.
To the second question, you are correct that there are many clones. So be it. The point is that the currently seated Article I office-holders cannot participate in an Article V convention without first resigning from their Article I offices.
-PJ
Last week, it was stated that Obamacare encroaches on privacy in the home inferred by the 3rd amendment, as it declares that the federal government now has the right to demand inspection of private homes at any time to verify Obamacare health regulations.
Quartering of soldiers during peacetime = agents of the federal government, according to the Supreme Court in past rulings.
-PJ
Thank you.
Marl Levin answers your “concerns”.
http://therightscoop.com/mark-levin-talks-about-his-new-book-with-conservative-panel-on-hannity/
bfl
There is ONE main and important reform to our Constitution needed:
The right to vote is lost upon taking any direct employee or contractor compensation from the federal government, or any form of governments payments such as medicare, medicaid, social security, or any of the myriad other transfer payment programs.
Militory members lose the their right to vote while in the military, but immediately have it restored upon discharge if no longer compensated by the government.
Other non-military people who lost their vote but do not take government funds have it restored two years later.
This is the must reform any constitutional republic needs.
Any money from the government by default sets a terrible conflict of interest and should be BANNED!
I’m on board, and if you are starting a Liberty Amendments ping list - please put me on it!
Thanks for this thread!
I hadn’t thought of that as a third amendment violation, but will take your word for it.
Yes and anyone who calls it a constitutional convention has NOT read Levin’s book, and has no business wholesale smacking down the whole idea if they don’t even understand what he is proposing.
I am all for debate and discussion, I think it is good for people to have hope and engage again, even if they disagree, but I am frustrated with people who are knocking this thing down who obviously have not read the book.
Levin goes into detail explaining what he is and is not proposing, and it would be helpful if posters on threads about the book would READ it FIRST (even just read the first few chapters to get a sense of the overall proposal).
As it worked out, the framers had few complaints against universal suffrage for white males AS LONG AS THE STATES WERE REPRESENTED IN THE SENATE to counter what was expected to be a wildly democratic house of representatives.
Roger that!
I think the term Federalist and Antifederalist can be confusing.
Here is my understanding but I may be wrong.
Federal-ISM - is our designed system in the Constitution whereby one method to restrain power of the (national) U.S. government is to balance the power is between the U.S. government and the States. That balancing of powers and doling out only certain powers to the U.S. federal government with others reserved to the states and individuals is one method of keeping the Federal (or National) government under control.
I think during the time of the Constitutional debates, the Federalists were the ones who wanted to pass the new constitution, and the AntiFederalists were wary of this new Constitution and wanted something closer to the old Articles of Confederation and felt it would lead to tyranny eventually. They weren’t against the states having power, they actually felt they wouldn’t have enough. So the term “antifederalist” as used during the constitutional times is almost backwards from what it should mean intuitively. (Anti federalists were actually for “federal-ism” but didn’t think the Constitution provided enough strength to the states to balance the new government)
It’s also confusing because the term “federal” is now linked to our U.S. Government at the national level, and has become almost a dirty word to conservatives because of the tyranny going on as they trample over state and individual rights, but Federal-ISM as a concept is a good thing as it just means two different parts of government keeping each other balanced and each in its own sphere with its own limited responsibilities and authority!
Don’t know if this is off topic, but the whole concept of federalism (keeping power balanced between US and States) is something people need to be re-educated on. I think most Americans nowadays see a direct line between themselves and the U.S. government, and the states are just this puny little thing off to the side that hands out drivers licenses and repairs roads. We need to get back to the founders vision! If Mark Levin’s book stirs up talk and debate and gets people thinking about this - that is a good thing.
I still get confused sometimes, and hope I’ve gotten this right in this post! Please correct me if I’ve actually gotten it backwards.
The Third Amendment has been invoked in a few instances as helping establish an implicit right to privacy in the Constitution. Justice William O. Douglas used the amendment along with others in the Bill of Rights as a partial basis for the majority decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), which cited the Third Amendment as implying a belief that an individual's home should be free from agents of the state.
-PJ
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