Dirksen's announcement of 32 petitions ignited a firestorm in the Senate.
Senators Daniel Brewster (D-MD) and Joseph Tydings (D-MD) argued that some of the legislatures that generated those 32 petitions were mal-apportioned by the standards of Reynolds, so those petitions could be safely ignored by Congress. Sen. Charles Percy (R-IL) said that Congress should refuse to call a convention because "the convention would be under the control of the worst elements in American politics", by which he meant conservatives.
There was a lot on the nation's plate in 1967, and Dirksen's bill went nowhere. When Dirksen died in 1969, the wind went out of the sails of the movement.
Congress wants to be kept abreast of what is going on, which the current procedures of the Archivist of the United States don't permit. That is what this is all about.
You may remember that when the 27th Amendment, first proposed by Madison in 1789, achieved its 38th ratification in 1992, Congress was blindsided by the Archivist. At first, congressional leadership tried to bully the Archivist into withdrawing his memorandum to Congress on the grounds that the initial ratifications from the 1790's were "stale". The Archivist stood his ground, replied to Congress and listed every Supreme Court precedent on the amendatory process. Congress briefly considered suing the Archivist in federal court to get a definitive reading on the age of ratifications, but 1992 was an election year with a strong anti-incumbent bias. Congress decided that the optics of defying the Constitution in such a year was political suicide. So Congress swallowed hard and passed the Joint Congressional Resolution necessary to accept a new amendment into the Constitution. The resolution and amendment were transmitted to the Archivist, President, Supreme Court and the Secretaries of State of the 50 states.
I've considered what mischief Congress may try when the petitions reach the two-thirds threshold. Because of the bad optics, I don't think Congress will try to weasel out of a convention call, which is its solemn constitutional duty.
Congress is more likely to try to enact legislation which would give it control of an Amendments Convention. I don't see them having much luck at that, either.
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.