Posted on 01/09/2015 1:14:34 PM PST by dontreadthis
Edited on 01/09/2015 2:38:17 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Article VYou can bet there will be a fight as we get closer to a Convention of States. Check it out:The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Rep. Steve Stivers’ (R-OH) amendment to the House Rules passed by a vote on the House Floor this week, according to a press release published by Rep. Stivers’ office. The rule will provide a system with which to track, count, and organize Article V applications to Congress.
“I am pleased my colleagues supported my addition to the House Rules this week,” Stivers said. “I believe a Balanced Budget Amendment is the only way to stop out-of-control government spending. I hope the passage of this rule will put us one step closer to fiscal responsibility and the inclusion of the BBA in the United States Constitution.”
Rep. Stivers’ press release went on to explain the rule in detail:
“Specifically, the rule creates a process for the intake of the petitions through the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and gives the Clerk’s Office the responsibility of making the petitions electronically available and organized by the subject, state of origin and year of receipt. This will allow Congress, as well as the American people, to better track the progress of specific Article V efforts. Prior to Stivers’ rule update, no formal process for cataloging the petitions existed.”
Again, let me express my gratitude to you and all others contributing to these threads. Your discussions, even disputes, are always clarifying and stimulating, and encouraging to those of us who may be able to contribute, if in lesser ways, in the long run.
I've been on this situation since 1998 when I spent two years editing Bill Walker's brief in Walker v. US, which was filed in the 9th Circuit in 2000. The federal courts refused to grant cert to Walker, which was frustrating. A better judge would have treated the case like a law seminar for professionals, but Judge Coughenor didn't see it that way.
I later came to understand why. The late John Armour, our old FReeper friend "Congressman Billybob", taught me basic law school thinking in an e-mail correspondence. As Professor Kingsfield said in "The Paper Chase", "You come into this room with minds full of mush, and if you survive, you'll leave thinking like a lawyer." John taught me how that worked. I owe him a hell of a lot.
> “Throw away the IRS Code and replace it with a flat 17% tax on income...no deductions, same rate for corporations and individuals. Yeah, I know it won’t happen, but it would be a hell of a lot better than the crap we have now.”
The original income tax of 1913 had a code that was 14 pages long and was flat with 7% on wealthy persons who made up less that 2% of the population. The rest were subject to a flat 1% on net disposable income. Tax filing was never required if no taxes were due. The result was 98% of the population never paid income taxes, never had to file and never thought about the income tax. There were no deductions as well.
That’s how the income tax was sold to the American people, as a tax on the rich and only 1% on everyone else if they had anything left over. Real slick way to worm in a monster among the public.
A few years back, the father of Bill Gates III Founder of Microsoft ran a campaign initiative to establish a state income tax in the State of Washington. Guess what the rate was? 1%. Sneaky, eh? His initiative failed. Beware of the 1% con artists.
How many flat taxes have been passed in American history? The first was a 1% flat tax no deductions in 1861 under Abraham Lincoln. Within a few years it started to grow and become graduated with higher rates for higher tax brackets. It got shot down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the late 1860s.
Then a flat tax came back by legislation in Congress in the 1870s and it died later too. There was a 51 year history of flat tax no deduction ideas and laws from 1861 to 1913 when the 16th Amendment grew from a game of chicken between republicans and democrats. It wasn’t supposed to happen but both parties were playing a ‘I double dog dare you’ game.
So do you think you are the first person to think of a simple flat tax no deductions idea? No, you’re just another in a long line of such people.
And why doesn’t it work? Why don’t flat tax ideas and passed laws work out?
It’s because of the 16th Amendment. This amendment provides a license to Congress to do whatever they want in the arena of taxation.
Pass a flat tax no-deduction law in 2015 and you can be sure the next Congress in 2017 will play and tinker with it because they can. Because the 16th Amendment gives then license to tax income from whatever source.
A FLAT TAX NEVER STAYS FLAT!
I invite you to study up on the FairTax which does not require the 16th Amendment:
http://www.fairtaxplan.org/faq.php
> “It’s better than the current system, but the “prebate” scares me, because that is determined by Congress and opens the door to the same crap we have now. The flat tax closes that door.”
Rubbish. The Rebate is a tax cut. The higher the Rebate, the less taxes need to be paid.
The FairTax operates without needing the 16th Amendment. An income tax including any so-called ‘Flat Tax’ needs the 16th to operate. Operating without needing the 16th means the 16th can be repealed.
But in America before the 16th all taxes were UNIFORM among people. There could be no difference in rate or per capita tax.
So a Rebate must be UNIFORM to all people. This prevents any abuse. If the Rebate is increased, it must be increased the same for everyone.
I want the Rebate to be as high as possible because it means a tax cut, more money in my account, not the government’s account.
And I want the FairTax NRST rate to be as low as possible.
The combination of increasing the Rebate and decreasing the NRST can bring about a double whammy to the tax and spenders inside the Beltway.
The FAIRTAX REBATE IS A GOOD THING!
Absolutely! National Sales tax. Repeal the income tax amendment. Outlaw income tax at all levels and outlaw property tax of any kind. The government is NOT our masters and we are NOT their slaves!
Naturally all taxes should be limited. An import tax is a tax on consumption of foreign goods, which is not the great evil current dogma would have us believe. An income tax is a tax on domestic production, which is, in my opinion, both unwise as a national policy and an immoral imposition on each person and renders him a slave. An income tax rate of 100% is complete slavery, 50% a complete slave only half his life, 33% a slave for a third of his life, and so forth. Slavery in any degree is evil.
Income tax is immoral, is antithetical to our founding principles, and is Marxist.
Repeal Amend. 16 & 17.
BEFORE OCTOBER 1, 2015
At present, Georgia and one other state have submitted petitions to Congress using Mark Levin’s language. That’s 2 down, 32 to go.
The Clerk of the House and the Archivist of the United States will synchronize their Excel spreadsheets.
As the year wears on, there will be less and less interest in this topic, and at best I would see 10 states submitting petitions using Georgia’s language. That’s 10 down, 24 to go. Here at FR, we will see fewer and fewer threads on the subject as Phyllis Schlafly and the John Birch Society scare legislators into avoiding the issue. There will be a lot of misinformation and fear mongering.
AFTER OCTOBER 1, 2015
I believe Martin Armstrong to be right. Due to the failure of an ideologue President and Congress to come to terms on the budget, we will see not only a government shutdown, but a default on our national debt. This will set off a worldwide financial panic because our bonds are the collateral of the world banking system.
Obama will cite a clause in the 14th Amendment about the debt of the US not being questioned to assert that he can spend as he wishes without going to Congress. This will be King Charles I versus Parliament all over again. Congress will go to court, and the House will impeach Obama. Some 30 Democrats in the House will vote for impeachment to assert the rights of Congress according to the Constitution. Power will trump party.
In January 2016 when the state legislatures meet for the new year’s session, the states will pile on. By the Presidents Day holiday in February, we’ll see 35 to 39 petitions delivered to Congress from the states for a convention using Georgia’s language. We only need 34.
The debate that broke out in 1967 will break out all over again. Some voices will argue that Congress can refuse to call a convention and nobody can do anything about it. At that point, in a closed meeting in Washington, John Boehner will say the following.
“Fellas, we can’t count on the Supreme Court staying out of this. Remember that gasbag Adam Clayton Powell? The Court forced us to seat him. Besides, the optics are terrible. This is an election year, the economy is in the tank, we can’t sell our bonds, both political parties are on the verge of splintering, and people are about to start shooting. It’s that bad. I say we call the convention for a year from now in a city where the people are dependent on government and are willing to intimidate the delegates. Philly is good. So are New York and Chicago. Let the unions and the black mobs put the fear of God into those delegates. Let the Democrats do some work for a change. Now I want to turn the meeting over to Orrin Hatch.”
Sen. Hatch pulls out a sheaf of papers.
“Gentlemen, back in 1991 I introduced a bill to turn the 1973 American Bar Association report into law. I couldn’t get it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee even though I was the ranking minority member. But I pulled this old chestnut out of a file cabinet in a warehouse yesterday. If you want to read the actual ABA Report, I have a link to a thread on Free Republic – (muttering from the crowd) Yeah, I know, I know. Skip the comments from the whacko-birds and the tea-baggers, and just concentrate on the report. Two Supreme Court decisions give us wide latitude in regulating the amendatory process, and the ABA concluded we could determine the selection of delegates and the conduct of the convention.
“First off, the ABA said that the “One Man/One Vote” decision would apply and that delegates would have to be elected by the people, not appointed by the state legislatures. They recommended that each congressional district elect one delegate to the convention. We’ll have those delegates elected in this year’s presidential election. The primary process will permit the two parties to ensure that only good, sound men will go to Philadelphia or Chicago or New York. No constitutionalists or tea-baggers need apply. If somebody we don’t want looks to be elected, we’ll just pick up the phone and send someone in to block and tackle, and get our man into the end zone. A few paid political announcements and biased reports in the Mainstream Media, and we’ll have the people so scared, they’ll be sure to elect moderates to the convention. Then the Democrats get the mobs prepped, and the rest is easy. Nothing will change, and nobody will ever want to do this again.
“If something we don’t like comes out of the convention, we’ll use our disposal rights under Article V to send it to state ratifying conventions. A few paid political ads, and we’ll kill it at the state level.”
A voice rises from the other end of the table. “What if the convention decides to ignore us and go with their own rules?”
“Well, Lindsay, that would make it an outlaw convention, and anything that would come from it would be an invalid amendment. We would be within our rights under Article V to refuse to dispose of the amendment by making that decision for the states to ratify by legislatures or ratifying conventions. We’re the place where the buck stops. If the convention tries to do an end-run around us and the states actually try to ratify, we’ll direct the Archivist to return those ratifications to the states with a cover letter saying that they ratified an invalid amendment, and their ratifications are null and void. To accept an amendment into the Constitution after ratification, the parliamentary tool is to wrap a Joint Congressional Resolution around it, and if we don’t do that, the buck stops there. We’re in control, and it’s all perfectly legal.”
Another voice is raised. “What if the states go to court?”
“Mitch, that could be a problem. This is all uncharted territory. But we have to claim it as quickly as we can. Possession is nine-tenths, as they say.”
This is where the path bifurcates.
PATH #1
Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Louie Gohmert are unable to rally the people to stop this travesty. Hatch’s 1991 bill is enacted into law and signed by Obama.
Within hours, the attorneys general of all the states that submitted petitions will go to federal court charging that the Dillon and Coleman decisions do not give Congress this kind of latitude. Congress has exceeded its authority and trespassed on the territory of the states. After conflicting decisions from the various circuit courts, the Supreme Court takes the case and makes a 5-4 decision. I don’t know which way it will go.
PATH #2
Congress is stopped by the people and good constitutionalists in the House and Senate. By default, the states decide on their own rules, to include the state legislatures appointing delegates, and the convention is conducted on a “One State/One Vote” basis.
The Attorney General of California goes into federal court requesting an injunction to stop the convention until the issues of One Man versus One State, and delegate appointment versus delegate election, are litigated. The convention is put on hold until the Supreme Court decides in a 5-4 decision. I don’t know which way it will go.
The point I am making is that Congress will do its best to sandbag the process. They’ll call the convention but try to control it. It's how power is protected.
BTW, States do not petition. Subjects petitioned George III. A supplicant petitions a higher power. To say the states petition is to render them subservient status, as if they ask congress for favors.
Okay, no hell to offer, but I'll post my response here as well.
Don't be too impressed with the conclusions of Natelson or the ABA. I've read several papers by Natelson and found them informative. However, he is wrong as to single subject applications. I have no regard for the ABA. I am not starstruck by either.
BTW, states do not petition. Subjects petitioned George III. A supplicant petitions a higher power. To say the states petition is to render them subservient status, as if they ask congress for favors.
Our Framers were precise wordsmiths. The iterations of what became Article V dealt with your "gray" areas. See Part I of post #30. James Madison in Federalist 43, and a man you detest, Alexander Hamilton, wrote in support of equal state/congressional ability to propose amendments in Federalist 85.
The Framers purposely set a moderate threshold for the states to meet in convention (Federalist 43). Over two thirds have made applications. They should convene. If their reasons for meeting are too diverse, then the conventions won't have any amendments to pass on to the states. What is the problem with that? None.
Getting three fourths of the states to ratify amendments was designed to be much more difficult, yet not so tough as Article XIII of the Confederation. For practical purposes we are at that point in the Confederation, being stuck with an unamendable form of government, this time by those who profit so well from it.
At this moment, our once servants, now masters in Imperial Washington deny us our God given and constitutional right to frame our government. No amount of slick lawyering over 200 years later can change the historical record.
FR certainly promotes research and tight writing.
There is little left in the constitution for leftists to warp and soil. At this moment, Obama is actually playing nice. From time to time he pretends respect for our servants in congress, yet he knows all powers are rapidly flowing into his person.
At some point, we are going to get governmental reform, but probably not for the better and not with our consent.
Perhaps it will happen when Obama or a near successor declares himself president-for-life. He will have overwhelming force to back him up. By this, we complete the (Aristotle?) age old cycle of slavery to freedom, freedom back to slavery.
OR
Do we the people, via our states meet peacefully once again to save ourselves?
Thanks for the ping. Can you post or freepmail a link to Georgia’s petition using Mark Levin’s language? TIA.
Good point, states apply, they do not petition. And upon application of 2/3’s of the states applying, Congress must call a convention for proposing amendments.
Article V does not say states must submit applications WITH amendments attached, only that they apply to Congress and that Congress MUST call a convention for proposing amendments.
So Congress need not even know what amendments are proposed until states convene their convention=meeting, and even then states are not required to let their deliberations be made public although in all likelihood they will make them so.
I agree except if your going to go that far with the constitution you might as well abolish the income tax which only effect Goods and services made by Americans unfairly and go with an income tax.
I agree except if your going to go that far with the constitution you might as well abolish the income tax which only effect Goods and services made by Americans unfairly and go with an sales tax.
It would be pointless to hold a convention that is subject of the edits of the Federal government including its ‘courts’.
If California decides 1 man 1 vote applys to convention rather than 1 state 1 vote as was the rule in every other convention and the nature of our union they can sit the convention out. We will not miss them!
A constitutional convention is a convention of the States not people, just as the federal union is first and foremost a union of States not people. This point is absolute critical to conservative/ republican control of the convention.
California can do whatever it wants in California but California or New York are not of authority to tell other states what to do.
If they get their Federal employees in black robes to issue an edict that edict Must be ignored because Federal Employees HAVE NO JURISDICTION over Constitutional Conventions. NOBODY DOES EXCEPT THE ATTENDING DELEGATES! That is the whole point.
“I say we call the convention for a year from now in a city where the people are dependent on government and are willing to intimidate the delegates. Philly is good. So are New York and Chicago. Let the unions and the black mobs put the fear of God into those delegates. “
I say we do it in NORAD for that matter, or maybe the Alabama State Capital, anywhere but Washington or north of the Mason Dixon line.
If we want to hold true to forum we should put it near the Geographical center in Nebraska or Kansas. Maybe one of those states would be so kind as to donate uses of their State Capital. I assume both of them will be attending.
Congress sits in a near year round convention. Any member may propose amendments at any time. Whack-job ideas go nowhere, and few receive the 2/3 vote necessary to be sent to the states.
A state convention is the extra-congressional equivalent means to the same end, and poses the same imaginary dangers.
Congressional demands for same subject applications is an illegal, unconstitutional attempt to defuse, stymie and deny us our Article V and God given rights.
In the big picture, I don't think the GOPE understand they could take a big step toward reconciliation with the conservative base if they do their duty and call for a convention.
If they continue on the present path, ignore us, and put up Mitt or Jeb in 2016, it will mean president Lizzie Warren or Lezzie Clinton in 2017.
We really need to get our legislators busy organizing and establishing favorable ground rules now for a possible future convention.
* One state one vote (Just like last time) recognizing this is a union of states not people.
* Focus on Reigning in the Federal Government back to a constitutionally limited body
* Restoring Accountability in the Federal ‘Courts’ to the Constitutional interests of our people and their States. So that Federal employees might actually be inclined to actual uphold Constitutional limits upon Federal their appointees rather than simply usurp more rights and privatiges of the People and their States. with out something dealing with the out of control Federal courts nothing else we do will be anything but paper.
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