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Still, this House bill is about setting up a procedure to track petitions. What is the process for the joint resolution? Don't resolutions have to be voted on? Is this something that Boehner and McConnell just do on their own? Someone else?

I'm asking because I hope there is no way for "Congress" to use this ambiguity to get around actually calling the Convention.

Wikipedia says about joint resolutions:

In the United States Congress, a joint resolution is a legislative measure that requires approval by the Senate and the House and is presented to the President for his approval or disapproval. However, joint resolutions used to propose amendments to the United States Constitution do not require the approval of the President.
Generally, there is no legal difference between a joint resolution and a bill. Both must be passed, in exactly the same form, by both chambers of Congress, and then must — with one exception — be presented to the President and signed by him/her (or, re-passed in override of a presidential veto; or, remain unsigned for ten days while Congress is in session) to become a law. Laws enacted by virtue of a joint resolution are not distinguished from laws enacted by a bill.

What's to stop the House from not passing the resolution? What's to stop the Senate from preventing cloture and never even getting to a vote?

-PJ

The joint resolution calling an Amendments Convention would also not need presidential approval because the language in Article V that governs a convention is identical to the language governing the passing of an amendment proposal to the states for ratification.

Could Congress stonewall an Amendments Convention? Absolutely. Hamilton's language in Federalist #85 is peremptory, but if Congress doesn't want to play, then there is a problem.

Some believe that an appeal to the Supreme Court could force Congress to do its duty. This is based on the Powell decision from the late Sixties when the Court ordered the House to admit Adam Clayton Powell. Others believe that the Court would declare it a political question, saying that if the people want an Amendments Convention so badly, they will vote out the scoundrels that are standing in their way.

But the optics would be ruinous for Congress. Congress would be saying in effect, "We spit at the Constitution. We spit at the states. We spit at the people. We have control, and we're not giving it up under any circumstances. We'll declare martial law and use nuclear weapons on our own people before we'll give up control. So there!"

After a statement like that, implied or otherwise, Congress would have to seek shelter on a military base. They wouldn't be safe anywhere else.

I have a different view of how things will play out. Jacq will probably give me hell tomorrow morning about a post on one of his earlier threads, so I'm going to take the time to write up how I think this is going to play out politically. It will infuriate both sides of the issue.