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.
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.
Let me respectfully disagree with that.
There is an old adage that applies here: "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." A closed-door convention would give our current political power structure in Washington and its Mainstream Media servants the opportunity to cause mischief and scare people.
"Why are the doors closed? A group of right wing whack-jobs and tea-baggers have seized control of 39 state legislatures, they're meeting in secret, and they're going to take away your rights. They may even be plotting to take away your government checks!"
We need two educational efforts. The first is right now, where the people need to be educated as to just what an Amendments Convention can and can't do. The fear factor needs to be reduced, not just to defeat the Washington power structure, but to defeat Schlafly and the Birch Society, who both mean well but don't know what the hell they're talking about.
The second is during the convention. I don't care if Ed Schulz or Rachel Maddow covers the convention for a TV network with less than a hundred thousand viewers. But I do care about C-SPAN, and I care one hell of a lot about Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.
There is one other reason. In 1787, there was a sense of deference in American society. Americans were content to let men they perceived as their "betters" do their thinking for them. If Gen. Washington and Dr. Franklin said the doors to the convention should be closed, then they should be closed. That sense of deference and trust no longer exists. The fact that enough states applied for a convention is proof itself that there is no longer trust, much less deference. There needs to be coverage of the convention, and the process must be transparent, else the lack of trust will envelop the convention itself.