Posted on 03/18/2014 2:32:32 AM PDT by Jacquerie
The Rules Committee of the Florida Senate will take up SM476 this coming Thursday, March 20th at 10:30 AM.
SM476 is an application to Congress for an Article V state amendment convention:
Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
(1) That the Legislature of the State of Florida does hereby make application to Congress pursuant to Article V of the Constitution of the United States to call an Article V convention for the sole purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States which:
(a) Impose fiscal restraints on the Federal Government.
(b) Limit the power and jurisdiction of the Federal Government.
(c) Limit the terms of office for federal officials and members of Congress.
(2) That these three proposed amendment categories are severable from one another and may be counted individually toward the required two-thirds number of applications made by the state legislatures for the calling of an Article V convention.
Rules Committee:
Chair: Senator John Thrasher (R)
Vice Chair: Senator Christopher L. Smith (D)
Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto (R)
Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla (R)
Senator Bill Galvano (R)
Senator Andy Gardiner (R)
Senator Jack Latvala (R)
Senator Tom Lee (R)
Senator Gwen Margolis (D)
Senator Bill Montford (D)
Senator Joe Negron (R)
Senator Garrett Richter (R)
Senator Jeremy Ring (D)
Senator David Simmons (R)
Senator Eleanor Sobel (D)
I believe you’re right about Art V being silent on that issue. From what I understand, that requirement arose as a result of what some feel was Congress misusing it’s authority to aggregate, or count, the number of calls for a convention.
Unfortunately, it has become accepted practice, over time, to accede to Congress’ refusal to include a state’s application for a call if it differs in any way, material or not, from any others that address essentially the same issue.
According to some sources, there are as many as 400 applications from the several states, all languishing somewhere deep in the bowels of the Capitol basement because someone failed to dot an “i” or cross a “t”...
The two currently popular movements - the call for a Balanced Budget Amendment by the Compact for America, and the call for a Convention of States by the Citizens for Self-Governance - both hope to avoid that trap by circulating identical language to all state legislatures in advance.
Other than that similarity, it seems to me that the two approaches have significant differences, both in procedure and anticipated outcome.
Compact for America
http://www.compactforamerica.org/
Convention of States
http://conventionofstates.com/
OK... Remember that guy who was foolish enough to step out in front of Vice President Chaney while duck hunting? I kinda felt like that! ;)
“At some point, folks might be tempted to think that you aren’t a serious player here, but merely a troll, out on a mission to scuttle a grassroots movement by the people for freedom and liberty.”
You’re starting to sound like a paid operative. Apparently, Hussein’s got DARPA clowns running psyops on social media around the web.
How about this:
#1 Don’t direct me to ‘respond to post #_______.’ I’ll decide if and when I want to respond to things.
#2 Don’t lecture me and pretend you know who I am, or what I’m thinking, or what my motives are. Even if you’re at DARPA or NSA, reading my emails, you don’t know me or my thoughts.
I’ve stated my position twice, very clearly, and I don’t think I can boil it down any further than I have. It’s pretty simple.
Here it is, for the third time. Read it, or don’t, then please leave me alone, and go pester somebody else:
STEP ONE: Clean house (remove moslems + marxists from US gov’t).
After that’s ‘done’ or ‘as done as possible,’ THEN......
STEP TWO: Consider the benefits/risks of Article V.
Again, playing ‘Let’s change the Constitution WHILE OUR GOVERNMENT IS OVERRUN WITH MOSLEM SAVAGES AND MARXIST TRAITORS FROM TOP TO BOTTOM’ isn’t a winning strategy.
They repeatedly CLEAN OUR CLOCK b/c they’ve taken over (either by NSA blackmail or simply by planting themselves in various gov’t positions of power).
Many a weekend I trudged the streets in my area of the state side-by-side with Phyllis Schlafly, her Eagle Forum patriots and local volunteers.
Phyllis is one of the great national conservative leaders of our time. Beware the siren calls and seductive messages and incorrect or incomplete information about a "Con-Con" being disseminated in the media and/or posted here...or the customary attempts to pooh-pooh or to cleverly denigrate Mrs. Schlafly with the objective of enhancing attempts to sell this dangerous initiative.
I can't post a treatise on the dangers of a "Con-Con" without research as I'm under the weather right now and have to ease off a bit. But to start folks off on the right track, you can yahoo "Phyllis Schlafly Con-Con" and start with her article "Con-Con is a Terrible Idea" and take your quest for information from there.
Perhaps there are some Illinoisans here who remember the anti-Con-Con campaign in '08 and who also recall the earlier campaign mounted by the Eagle Forum when Mrs. Schlafly almost single-handedly led the nation-wide drive to defeat the proposed notoriously left-wing-promoted "ERA Constitutional Amendment" which, if successful, would have transferred untold power from local and state governance to the clutches of the Federal government (among other bad results).
Take care, freepers, you know the liberals and lefties take over just about everything today including the media, the courts, the legal system, entertainment, certain religious denominations, schools, academia, campuses of colleges and universities, medicine, the Boys Scouts, next on the agenda the Girls Scouts....on and on, ad infinitum.
Don't let the socialists and commies get their clutches on a contemporary "Con-Con"...because they'll find a way to dominate and control it. You KNOW they will.
As they say...be careful what you're asking for, you might get it!
Do your own research and reject incorrect information posted here or anywhere.
Just enforce the CONSTITUTION AS WRITTEN by the founders....needed change can and must come through knowledgeable citizens using the POWER of the vote, the polls, the courts, the conservative media, the streets, the purse, the internet, the talk shows, etal....and if needed, inspiration from the words about the Tree of Liberty spoken to us by the prescient Thomas Jefferson.
Look his words up.
Leni
No one is talking about a Constitutional Convention here... no one but you. There has only been ONE such convention, and that was in 1787. There has never been a need for another one, there has never been a CALL for another one, and so help me God, if I have anything to do with it, there never will be.
But the facts don’t seem to slow you guys down one bit... you keep running from webblog to forum like chicken little, crying and moaning that the sky is about to fall... that we must trust government and fear the people... that only Congress and the Establishment clones that we keep sending there know what’s best for the nation, and that we, the people, are simpletons, dupes and fools... we, the ones who you say must just keep voting.
Well, how’s that worked out so far, MinuteGal?
Like the other fear-mongers using scare tactics here on FreeRepublic and just about every other place where freedom-loving conservatives hang out, your outright lies and misrepresentations are old and transparent.
What you fail to grasp, or what you intentionally ignore, is the simple fact that nowhere in our Constitution does it allow for the calling of another Constitutional Convention. Now, do you subscribe to our Constitution or do you not? You cannot have it both ways. Either you believe in the document as written, or you don’t. The only purpose of a Constitutional Convention is to create a constitution, so why in the world would it do so? We already HAVE a constitution!
It does, however, in Article V, allow for the states, as well as Congress, to call for a convention of states for proposing amendments.
That’s all.
Proposing amendments.
That’s what it actually says.
You think I’m kidding? You and Phyllis take a moment or two and go read it, please. It’s only 143 words. I know you’re under the weather, so much so that you cannot even support your own arguments, but you are apparently able to regurgitate what they’ve told you - the irrational, thoughtless gibberish of the chickenheart. So, humor me... gin up your energy and Yahoo the Truth, and if you can find ONE WORD in that entire document that gives anyone - man, state or nation - the authority or the right to call for a Constitutional Convention, I’ll eat my hat.
You can quote all the politicians, all the philosophers, all the activists, all the editorial writers, and all the fear-mongers and “conservative” talking heads that you want, and all of their words taken all together in their force and veracity will never outweigh or even approach the calm certainty of the words of the Father of the Constitution himself, James Madison, in Federalist 43, where in arguing in favor of ratification against the fear-mongers of his day, he assured the people that the federal government would have to rely on the states to pass amendments, and that the states themselves would be able to propose and pass amendments at their choosing.
“This Constitution... equally enables the General (Federal) and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side, or on the other.”
Nowhere did he nor any other patriot ever contemplate the need for another Constitutional Convention... but then they were men of vision and courage and faith... not merchants of fear.
> “An Article V Convention of States cannot amend the Constitution.”
Could not be stated more clearly.
As someone once said, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Please, pardon my oversight. You are definitely NOT driven by fear.
Make that fear and paranoia.
So, at your request, I’ll leave you alone, but will also leave the invitation on the table. Any time you want to discuss specifics - not bumper stickers - I’d be more than happy to oblige.
And those names were only in your FIRST post. And those names don't include your nasty, snarky attacks on other posters on this thread who just want to debate, as I plus all freepers want to do.
So those of us who oppose YOUR way of thinking are all of the above....just ignorant nobodies....including, I presume Phylis Schlafly, one of our most venerable, respected national conservative leaders....and who, by the way was a special guest at the Freeper DC banquet where we honored the House members who successfully managed the Clinton impeachment.
You posted your opinion.....I and others posted ours.....and as a states' constitutional convention movement plays out, our Freepers will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and make their own minds up.
I encourage everyone to do so...and supplied one starting point for research in my original post located at # 64.
BTW, the conservative Eagle Forum is opposing any proposed "constitutional convention", or "Con-Con" as it's commonly being called.
Forewarned is forearmed when it comes to "adding" to the Founders' Constitution in these days of leftist infiltration and control of virtually everything....and especially when it comes to power grabs by the federal government when golden opportunities are opened to them....like a "Con-Con".
Leni/MinuteGal
I have responded to a number of your specific points, just as an example, your use of the term "Constitutional Convention," refuting it to the best of my ability, yet you persist, with not so much as an attempt at a rational defense of the term. You just ignore the rebuttal and repeat the same thing.
I'm sorry, MinuteGal, but that is not a debate. Frankly, it's not even a conversation. I don't know who you're talking to, because it certainly isn't me, or at least you are not in any way acknowledging my responses to you.
You asked me to leave you alone, and I agreed. Now you come back at me with the same tired screed, acting as if you want once again to engage. In the interest of civility, I'll give it one more try, but on one condition: Let's establish the topic.
I propose that we first discuss the difference between a Constitutional Convention (Con-Con) and an Article V convention of states to propose amendments (CoS). That seems like a good place to start, doesn't it? At the very least, we should define the terms we're using, just so that we each know what the other is talking about, and to ensure that we are talking about the same thing.
Who knows... once I understand what you mean when you say "Con-Con" and once you understand what I mean when I say "CoS" we may discover that we agree!
Can we do this?
By the way, I hope this isn’t off topic, but I just received some great news about the Article V legislation currently moving through our legislature here in Arizona.
HCR2027 (a petition to Congress to call for a convention of states to propose amendments to the constitution) passed the house last week on a mostly party-line vote. There were a couple of cross-overs in the House Rules Committee, but in other committees and in the final floor vote, virtually all of the “Yes” votes were cast by Republicans.
Just as an aside, if this idea were so dangerous to traditionally conservative ideals, I wonder why the Democrats are so averse to it? But, I digress.
Having passed in the house, HCR2027 was then referred to the senate, where it suffered the near-death experience of arriving too late to be calendared. Our senators and representatives are part-time citizen-legislators who come to the capitol for four months, then return to their districts to do whatever. So, it looked as though its sponsors were going to have to wait until the next legislative session in 2015 to re-submit!
Today, the bill’s primary sponsor employed a parliamentary procedure known as a “striker-amendment,” whereby another member of the senate, typically a co-sponsor, who has another unrelated bill already on the agenda in a standing committee essentially agrees to sacrifice his bill and allows the late-comer to replace it.
What looked like rather dismal prospects for HCR2027 has now regained steam as SCR1016, and keeps Arizona in the running, at least for the moment, to be the first state to join Georgia in passing identical pieces of Article V legislation.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but should this happen, I can’t overlook the historical significance of Georgia, one of the thirteen original colonies, and Arizona, one of the last states to enter the Union, joining together to apply to the Congress of the United States to call for a Convention of States to Propose Amendments to the Constitution.
If this does indeed happen, all that will be left to do is fill in the blanks!
You’ve managed to call me every name in the book today. I think you ‘protest too much.’
Pick up your Overtime bonus at Valerie Jarrett’s office.
LOL! The three D’s...
Deny (the truth)
Deflect (the question)
Disappear (please)
L8r dood
You asked good questions... hopefully, this may answer some of them:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3134401/posts?page=36#36
And this...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3134401/posts?page=48#48
As you pointed out, the party-line vote reveals which faction stands to lose power at an amendment convention . . . democrats.
The FL Senate Rules committee meets in a few hours, and I can guarantee the vote split will be nearly identical to AZ. My rat state senator, a tool of the Florida anti-education lobby, aka teachers’ union, won't even return my emails regarding Article V.
Leni
Commander Riker? ROFLMAO!
Let me think back... was that LOST in Space or Star Trek - The LOST Generation?
“... one of the ardent promoters for Con-Con posting on this thread ...”
-
Cane you name even one poster on this thread who is promoting a Constitutional Convention?
I see quite a few who are promoting an Article V Convention of the States.
Do you not see any distinction between the two?
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