I’ve found that Article V opponents typically equate an Article V state amendments convention with congress, an institution in which freedoms and rights are easily traded away today for money, media support, and reelection tomorrow.
This is an erroneous comparison, for congress is popularly derived and thoroughly corrupted from its designed purposes. An Article V convention will be new, fresh, uncorrupted and federal, just like the only other remaining federal institution from 1787, the familiar Electoral College (EC).
Like an Article V amendments convention, the EC is extra-congressional and completely controlled by the states. Not only congress, but the executive and judiciary have no more authority to regulate or participate in the deliberations or parliamentary rules of an Article V Convention than they do to control the EC. Both of these federal institutions derive their independence from discrete sources in the Constitution itself. Like the EC, and unlike congress, an Article V convention is temporary, and neither can be made subservient to any branch of the government. This renders the Article V convention distinct from, and superior to, the three existing branches.
I ask JBS, if the states are so wild and politically insane such that everyone should fear the outcome of a convention, why haven’t we had a ‘runaway’ session of the EC? States do not have to cast their votes for the nominee of any political party. The EC confab is a one-day event outside the control of congress or scotus. Why hasn’t the EC proved to be dangerous?
No state delegation to the EC ‘ran away’ because the duties of presidential electors are defined by state statute. In identical fashion, the states will define the duties and limits of their delegates to an Article V convention. Here, for instance, is the Indiana statute that will govern the commissions of her delegates to an Article V convention. The JBS implication that state legislatures will send lunatic delegates with plenary authority to take away rights that are unalienable, is just silly.
Furthermore, there will be an additional, yet immeasurable factor at work. Within the parameters of detailed state commissions, delegates will be entrusted to use their judgement. These men and women know that history will examine and critique their work. Will the states actually send rogues and miscreants? It is possible, yet what is far more likely is that the delegates entrusted with crafting amendments to save the republic will rise to the occasion. Fame will be their quest. Like the delegates to the federal convention of 1787, they will seek the gratitude of history.
As remnants of a more perfect union, the EC and Article V amendments convention echo the importance of liberty preserving federal institutions ahead of fuzzy populism and democracy. No people, no civil society ever met to frame their ruling institutions in order to sell themselves into slavery. While the American tradition and society are certainly under duress, resistance is in the air. It is time to take advantage of the building wave of opposition to centralized government.
The JBS stance is a curious mixture of respect and mistrust of the American people. We are trusted in the polling place every two years to elect people who are certain to operate outside the limits of our Constitution, yet we are to be denied the establishment of the only institution which may actually reverse the horrid corruption of our once free republic?
Where and how do the people that would make up a decisioning Article V convention come from ?