The COS Project Timeline: Phase One (Convention of States)

Convention of States ^ | November 19th 2013 | Anne Reiner

[Jacquerie]

The Convention of States email account has been flooded with inquiries about our projected timeline:

“How many states have applied?”

“When will the convention happen?”

“We need this now!”

We love these questions, but we’d like our volunteers to understand something first: this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. The Convention of States Project is following a carefully planned process, and each step must be given an appropriate amount of attention. The state legislatures have to be in session, our applications needs to be sponsored, and we need volunteer leadership in every key state.

This doesn’t mean we’ll sit around spinning in our office chairs for the next 10 years. But it does mean we will march ahead with a sure step, knowing where each foot will fall.

With that said, we’d like to give you our timeline for the first phase of this process:

- By the end of 2014 we hope to pass applications in 10 to 20 states

- By 2015 we hope to reach 34 state applications (the minimum needed to call a Convention of States)

Should a Convention of States happen now? Yes. Will it? No, but it WILL happen. It will happen because, when all is said and done, people don’t want the government to control their lives. They realize, as our Founding Fathers realized, that when D.C. is broken the best way to fix it is by going back to the basics.

As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 43, “The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the Constitution.”

Join the Convention of States Project today, and fight to regain the “authority of the people alone.”

[drbuzzard]

And yet none of that rebuts what my objections.

A) They are extremely unlikely to do a better job than the founders
B) If it won’t be enforced like the current one, why waste the energy?

[Jacquerie]

The goal is to return to the federalism of the framers.

The changes will hopefully be structural, such as repeal of the 17th and term limits.

[CPT Clay]

Bookmarked

[Lurking Libertarian]

There have been changes to the original intent that need to be undone, i.e. the direct vote of Senators.

Of all the proposed amendments, this, IMHO, is the most quixotic. You will never get people to vote in favor of taking away their right to vote.

[Baynative]

"You will never get people to vote in favor of taking away their right to vote."

Yet, a great many people are willing to simply give away their vote either to an influx of illegal new citizens through amnesty, or a President who simply feels that the representatives elected by the people are nuisances to be ignored or passed over by Executive Order.

A diligently conducted COS can be the tool to remedy this trend as the founders intended.