Good highlighting on the similarity of whack-job ideas in Congress as an ongoing convention and the same to be seen in an Article V convention.
The disadvantage now for Article V proponents is the Article V movement is nascent and not yet broadly known among voters.
The good news is that it takes on average 3,000 activists to successfully influence their member of Congress for each congressional District (CD). Assuming that this occurs for both House and Senate members, then a majority 218 of the 435 CDs are needed so 3,000 X 218 CDs = 654,000 activists are needed. That’s certainly doable but it gets better because certain CDs can be relied on already to vote with states for an Article V convention=meeting.
I am without information presently as to how many such CDs are reliably with the states on Article V but assume only 180 CDs need to be targeted for activism, then only 540,000 activists are needed in total but regardless the geographic demographics are such that activists should reside in the targeted CDs, weighted to the population and demographic makeup of those CDs.
Say then that 540,000 activists are needed. How many organizers are needed to organize and maintain 3,000 activists? For discussion say 100 organizers or 1-in-30 are needed for the 3,000. Then 100 organizers X 180 CDs per organizer = 1,800 organizers.
A wild ballpark figure to turn the country around boil down to about 1,800 persons. Throw in slop, treachery and mafia tactics etc. and likely 2000 such people would need to form the core of movement.
How much would it cost? For yearly salaries, travel and media overhead, allocate $250,000 per organizer or 250,000 X 2000 = $250 million. $250,000 per organizer may seem high but I am thinking of media materials, advertising, event promotion, etc. Maybe it’s too low. Certainly some organizers will be very efficient and manage at less than half that level of funding.
Is this insurmountable? Don’t know, but 540,000 committed activists donating about $480 over a year would do the trick. That’s $40 a month, the price of 3 one-pound bargain NY Strip steaks.
Seed money to get the organizer commitment should be no more than about 10% of the total needed or $25 million.
$25,000,000 to start the process of turning the country around, how’s that?
Now the question comes up as to why we should bother to organize state legislators at all if we can influence Congress to observe and respect state-sponsored Article V applications? Why not just petition the members of Congress to propose the amendments?
The answer is because of the the Senate rules. Because a minority in the Senate can tank resolutions.
So this makes the above analysis incomplete. We need funding to overcome Senate intransigence. Now we’re up against K Street and K street is backed by billionaires, even trillionaires such as Prince Alwaleed of Saudi Arabia. But I am overblowing this concern because of the election cycle. Schedule Article V resolution votes in the Senate before general elections and there’s a chance to get the vote from a Senator for fear of losing the general; maybe.
Prospects for passing a resolution in the Senate are lowered by the existence of McConnell as the bagman for K Street. I’m not sure what argument McConnell would use to ensure defeat of an Article V resolution. I know he’s a tricky bastard and will likely argue the 34 Article V applications are to be ‘respected’ and are an ‘admirable’ effort on the part of its organizers but that the Senate body needs time to deliberate as to whether the Article V process is even necessary as Congress itself can take up the proposed amendments.
If the amendments are unknown, and they need not be revealed in an application, someone like McConnell could tie up the process saying the amendments should be known to Congress.
If certain amendments are known, then McConnell can introduce those amendments in Congress itself but then organize behind the scenes to deny cloture.
Article V looks like it’s going to be a prolonged massive fight but the good news is, once people wake up as they did last November and January brought about by Executive Amnesty, Obamacare, Ebola and the skulduggery of Boehner who used his K-street backing to buy member’s votes for him, once people are enraged, the election cycle can bring great pressure to bear for an Article V resolution in Congress and then the matter is settled.
You've pointed out something huge. Today a small movement is pushing for an Amendments Convention. A few publications are covering it, but they're trying to frighten people by obfuscation and disinformation. In some cases, the journalist in question simply doesn't know his facts. The term "constitutional convention" scares people which is why Levin uses Convention of the States and Judge Napolitano uses Amendments Convention.
We need a massive investment in education about this topic. Without it, frightening the people becomes an easy task, and Congress will have a field day in attempting to control the process.