Posted on 08/11/2013 10:46:57 AM PDT by Jacquerie
Thinking outside of the box ping!
The first is from the American Legislative Exchange Council and is about 90% accurate. It’s available in a downloadable PDF.
Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers
The second fills in some holes from the previous document.
Report of the ABA Special Constitutional Convention Study Committee
Take the two documents together, and you have a good picture of how an Amendments Convention would work.
While the party has become an ineffectual weakling on the national level, it remains an effective force at the state level -- controlling thirty of the fifty states.
Let several of the more important state parties -- say, Texas, Wisconsin, South Carolina -- declare their independence from the national party. Then, see how quickly other state parties might follow suit.
The only states we need to concern ourselves with are the states that lean Republican at the national level. I.e., how the California Republican party reacts is of no consequence.
An intra-party insurrection at the state level is the best way to achieve reform of the national Republican party. There is no need of a third party if such an insurrection is successful.
Here is one of the big problems:
Currently, in the U.S. House of Representatives...
... the representatives from the 4 largest U.S. cities
can out-vote the representatives of 15 states entirely.
... the representatives from the state of California
can out-vote the representatives from 21 other states entirely.
Originally:
representatives were about 2 1/2 times in number as senators (65 vs 26).
Now:
there are 435 representatives vs 100 senators, or about 4 1/2 times in number;
the 2 1/2 to 1 ratio would translate to 250 members in the house of representatives.
Originally:
representatives were 1 per 30,000 in population.
Now:
that would require 10,000 members in the house of representatives.
An Amendments Convention has exactly the same authority as Congress with respect to proposing amendments, no more and no less. Article V states that amendments may only be proposed "to this Constitution" which implicitly forbids the abrogation of the current Constitution and the writing of a new one. Yes, an Amendments Convention could propose 80 amendments to the states for ratification that would reshape the Constitution, but, no, an Amendments Convention could not start all over again.
The decision to restrict an Amendments Convention to a single subject or to open it to all possible subjects is a decision for the states, and the states declare their desire in their petitions to Congress for a convention call. Each document has a different view as to enforcing this decision of the states, which is why the ALEC document should be read first, and then the ABA document as a rebuttal.
This is why Thomas Jefferson and others supported the idea
of a peaceful secession.
Christians and those who believe in a small and limited
government are greatly outnumbered.
Could you imagine 10,000 members of Congress?
All of them with high priced benefits and staff. It’d be insane.
A House of 10,000 members would meet virtually on the Internet, and the congressmen would never leave their (small) districts. It would make bribery and corruption a much more difficult task than it is today where everybody is centralized in one location.
That's ok; the House of Representatives is supposed to be proportional to population [but with a minimum of 1]: so then, a heavily populated state like CA should have more reps. than a collection of sparsely populated states. — the biggest problem with the HOR, I think, is that there aren't enough Representatives as each represents something like 700,00 people. (50k would probably be pushing it.)
lol
The internet would make bribery and corruption harder?
I really doubt that.
The sheer number of them might.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. Bribing 435 congresscritters all stacked in one place is easy. Bribing 10,000 congresscritters in 10,000 locations would be a challenge.
I'm not sure having such a large body would be a bad thing. It would make it easier to hold them to account, as well as making it harder [or at least more expensive] to buy favor.
Nice sentiment, but it's not going to be peaceful. The silver lining is that although we may be outnumbered, but we have three things going for us:
1) God is with us
2) we have the moral courage of our belief in freedom and self governance, and
3) most Americans are lazy, cowardly, and/or believe in nothing but their next welfare check, and therefore will be too worthless to get up off the couch and actively participate.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Roger that.
An additional benefit of many more reps is that each could ACTUALLY represent the views of his constituents. At 1:30,000 or so, you or I could reasonably visit the homes of perhaps most of the people of our district.
It would also reduce the courtroom baloney over racial gerrymandering every two years.
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