[Buckeye McFrog]

THIS was always the danger behind Mark Levin’s idea.

That people like Zoe Loftgren would glom onto it and redirect it towards their own agenda.

[MrEdd]

It is not as though Mark Levin was unaware.
Or that that was not Mark’s purpose.

The mask is off.

[Red Badger]

A Convention of the States can be called by the requisite number of states to PROPOSE AMENDMENTS to the Constitution.

Those ‘proposed’ amendments still have to be ratified by the requisite number of states.

The Convention of States is simply a way to get around the Congress obfuscating the amendment process.

A Constitutional Convention, on the other hand, is a convention to scrap the Constitution as currently written in favor of a new one, from scratch. The old Constitution will remain in effect until the requisite number of states ratify the new one...............

[mykroar]

Considering it takes 38 states to approve an amendment, I don’t see a crazy left-wing rogue amendment gaining much traction.

[Wneighbor]

How can this be Mark Levin’s idea when it was written into the Constitution in 1787? I first learned about Article V conventions in high school civics about 1973. Had to do papers on them in US govt college classes a couple years later. You’re giving Levin too much credit (or age.)

Since the Convention can’t even take place without 34 states aboard the idea of liberalizing the Constitution is a far fetched notion promoted by scare tactics from the left and Rinos. No amendment (change) to the Constitution can even take place without the passage of 38 state legislatures. Look at all that red on those election maps and try to figure out how something outrageous to our Republic would pass 38 states.

The smear campaign about secret votes and the possibility of unauthorized amendments being proposed by an Article V convention is also a blatant lie. There are no “secret” Congressional votes.

Don’t take my word for any of this. READ the Constitution. Read the historical record of law. All delegates and alternates are accountable for their votes. There are felony penalties for violating the mandate given delegates.

[nathanbedford]

The "danger" is so arithmetically remote as to be inconsequential, a reality of which you must be aware since the following reply has been posted many, many times by me and other FReepers since it was first written in 2015:

There are 99 houses in 50 state legislatures. Any leftist amendment would require only 13 of these legislative bodies from 99 to defeat ratification. In other words, three quarters of the state legislatures must ratify or 38 states. If 13 legislatures fail to ratify the amendment is defeated. Since ratification by legislatures requires both houses to consent, only 13/99 are required. That is very close to 13%.

After the last election Republicans control 69 houses of the 99 state legislative houses. Republicans control 31 of the 50 state legislatures. To stop any unwise or imprudent amendment would require only 13 of these 69 Statehouses (from different states) or about 19%, fewer than one in five.

The problem will not be to stop left-wing amendments but to pass prudent conservative amendments which restore the Constitution by invoking the Constitution.

If the Congress of the United States elects to have the ratification procedures conducted by conventions rather than legislatures, the method of selecting the delegates to those conventions would be chosen by the legislatures. If only 13 legislative bodies out of 99 object to the method chosen by the other body because it is considered to favor a leftist amendment, there is no ratification forthcoming from that state.

By either procedure the odds of a liberal amendment getting past so many conservative legislative bodies in so many states is both arithmetically and practically remote.

Finally, this is only the last line of defense, there are innumerable steps along the way which make a "runaway convention" virtually impossible and render the need for the states to fail to ratify very likely superfluous.