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To: John Valentine; Publius
IMO Publius has its exactly right - a convention would propose a limited number of amendments to the states. I add that, once enough states propose a convention Congress would itself propose a few amendments to try to keep the convention from convening.

Once a Convention is in progress, I expect Congress will again try to pre-empt the Convention by enacting some more amendments on whatever issues the Convention seems most likely to address. Congress is deathly afraid a Convention would impose really strict Congressional term limits.

IMO term limits are way overrated. They need to be rather loose, but universal in application to prevent people from burrowing into the federal government. One way to do that is a simple sixteen year limit on service in ANY federal elective or appointive position. The feds do have comparative rank positions covering multiple agencies and even the military used for various purposse, so it's easy to limit the appointment position time limit to the equivalent of flag-rank military officers, and exempt the military.

212 posted on 02/17/2015 7:58:49 AM PST by Thud
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To: Thud
This is what happened in 1912. Enough states requested an Amendments Convention to force Congress to call one for consideration of the direct election of senators. Congress passed its own amendment, now known as the 17th.

You're probably thinking, "But didn't Congress have to call a convention anyway?" Several states had Discharge Clauses in their applications stating that if Congress addressed this issue, their application would be considered discharged. When Congress passed sent the 17th on to the states, enough states had Discharge Clauses to bring the number of applications below the two-thirds threshold. That's how Congress legally dodged our first Amendments Convention.

213 posted on 02/17/2015 11:04:46 AM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: Thud
"IMO term limits are way overrated. "

I agree also. I used to be a big term limit supporter but if you look at actual cases of local gov. where term limits were passed with the intent of curtailing government it hasn't really worked.

I think the reason term limits don't work is they don't address the real problem and that is WHY would anyone want to stay in office in perpetuity in the first place. The answer is POWER. Pass amendments that strictly limit the power of the fed gov to the constitution as written and suddenly the politicians will term limit themselves because it's not much fun when you can't lord over people and do whatever you want. When you actually have to serve the will of the people it seems more like work that you soon want to retire from.

216 posted on 02/17/2015 11:50:54 PM PST by precisionshootist
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