Posted on 11/21/2013 1:50:43 PM PST by Jacquerie
Here's the least you can do. Take the initiative that occasionally compels you to contact your federal delegation, and direct it toward your state representative and senator.
This is a sample letter you can send about the Convention of States Project. Please feel free to personalize it as much as you like!
Dear ______, Almost everyone knows our federal government is on a dangerous course. The unsustainable debt combined with crushing regulations on states and businesses is a recipe for disaster.
What is less known is that the Founders gave state legislatures the power to make changes to the federal structure when Washington, D.C., starts to abuse its authority. Article V of the Constitution authorizes the state legislatures to call a convention for the limited purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution.
Citizens for Self-Governance has launched the Convention of States Project to call a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments that impose fiscal restraints and limitations on the power of the federal government. I support this approach. I want [name of your State] to be one of the necessary 34 states that passes a resolution calling for a Convention of the States. You can find a copy of the draft resolution and a legislator’s handbook (which briefly explains the process and answers many questions) at www.conventionofstates.com.
I ask you to support the Convention of States Project and become either the lead sponsor or co-sponsor of a resolution in the next legislative session. Thanks so much for your service to the people of our district.
Sincerely,
No damn way!!!
The constitution is just fine as written, JUST FOLLOW IT TO THE LETTER AND QUIT SUBSERVATING IT!!!!
Why would I do that? Shouldn't I be talking to my State Legislature? If I sent such a request to my Congresslezzie I would be throwing it down a rathole.
MARK lEVIN CAN GO PISS UP A ROPE!!
You can count on me to never subservate the Constitution.
“...get a laptop with WiFi...”
-
The problem is more about time than technology.
Work assignments run from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Barely enough off-time to sleep, s_it, shave, and shower.
DONE
I doubt that would change if there were no 17th.
BUMP
Sent to Thad Altman & John Tobia.
Will do and I will also pass it along to family on Thanksgiving.
Do you really think that it’s a good idea to have the curren crop of pols making changes to the federal structure?
Not a good time for that right now.
We can elect Republicans into infinity and it won't change the hundred years of progressive rot that dominates the courts and the administrative state. The fact is power in Washington flows from precedent, and Obama has established the power to determine what the laws are. Scotus and the Senate are his b!tch rubber stamp. That is tyranny and no national election cycle will change it.
My state legislators are part time, in session for sixty days/year. Many are businessmen who know very well the heavy hand of our consolidated government in all its forms. Regardless of political party, they know the states and people face increasing oppression.
I'm not under any illusion that a convention of the states is certain to restore republican freedom. It is strictly our last chance.
http://spectator.org/blog/56435/mount-vernon-assembly-constitutional-convention
It isn’t exactly as the title implies, but it is a start.
Thank you.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Marlboro Smith surveyed his desk with satisfaction. The monthly reports were done and he'd responded to all recent requests under the Public Accountability Act. His workload was current once more.
Smith enjoyed being a public employee, even though he knew he should be ashamed of that fact.
He carefully assumed a pained expression and turned towards the omnipresent Public Oversight camera. It was mounted to look over his shoulder so that it could record exactly what Marlboro wrote, read, or filed away. The placard beneath the lens warned:
LITTLE SISTER IS WATCHING YOU.
Smith sensed someone standing just outside his office. There was no door; no government official had worked behind a closed door since the Government Scrutiny Amendment's ratification.
[...]
"I reviewed your present and prior performance. You were demoted after several warnings about a high intrusiveness rating, and one violation of the Limited Implementation law."
"I was just trying to help!" Smith responded emotionally. "There were conflicting rules and the state agencies kept contradicting each other. The disaster victims needed assistance and invoking federal jurisdiction was the only solution."
"So you concluded that a government official had the right to determine the future of American citizens?"
"Not exactly. I was trying to fulfill their requirements of the government."
[...]
"You feel justified then?"
"Yes." Smith froze, realizing that he'd just indicted himself.
O'Brien smiled. "Bureaucrat Smith, you have just admitted believing that official action can have positive results rather than being a necessary evil. I will therefore recommend your immediate suspension pending mandatory attitude adjustment therapy."
"Following it to the letter" won't quite work if those in power have conspired to act in ways for which the Constitution provides no remedy. What is necessary is for courts to start recognizing that the questions of whether X was legitimate, whether X was reasonably believed to be legitimate, and what remedies are justified as a result of X, are three separate questions and may have three separate answers. Many of the problems that we face stem from courts' failure to consider the questions separately, especially in cases where they effectively decide that if there is no practical remedy for some dubious action, they cannot condemn it as illegitimate (meaning that it becomes de facto legitimate).
Courts also need to somewhat more broadly uphold the principle that people (especially in government) who act illegitimately but scheme to preclude effective remedies should not be allowed to profit thereby. As a consequence of this, the fact that no statutory remedy exists for a dubious action should not allow the court to duck the questions of the act's legitimacy nor the extent to which the actor thought his behavior legitimate.
As a parting note, Courts need to recognize that government actions can only be legitimate if those performing them were making a good-faith effort to act legitimately, and also recognize that a person's claim that he was acting in good faith does not in and of itself imply that he actually was. Judgments of good faith often hinge as much upon assessments of credibility, as they do upon the law; such matters should thus be considered "relevant" in jury trials.
All employment of the scum will cease to exist quickly and they will either go home or they can die in the street!
There are some good reasons to approach an Article V convention with a great deal of caution, and conservatives are currently divided on the subject.
The opposition seems to have settled on two primary issues:
1. The “runaway convention” argument, which the site you link to briefly addresses, but does not put to rest. The issue here is that there is very little reason to believe that the states calling the convention could limit it to the ostensible topic or amendment. This is exacerbated by a number of compounding problems, but this is what seems to make folks exceptionally nervous about the idea.
2. Article V requires that 3/4 of the states ratify the amendments that the convention proposes, but does not stipulate the mechanism that ratification must follow. Proponents of these conventions seem to imagine that the delegates would return home, the state legislatures would debate and the governors would then sign or veto, or perhaps the amendments would be subjected to referendum in some states. But there’s a worse scenario: the convention could adjourn, and the delegates could reform into a ratifying convention and adopt the amendments, state by state.
Finally, considering who the delegates would likely be (SEIU members, OFA aparatchitks, and maybe a handful of out-organized and out-funded conservatives), the skepticism cannot be dismissed out of hand.
But FR would certainly be a good place to have that discussion.
The amendatory process under Article V consists of three steps: Proposal, Disposal, and Ratification.
Proposal:
There are two ways to propose an amendment to the Constitution.
Article V gives Congress and an Amendments Convention exactly the same power to propose amendments, no more and no less.
Disposal:
Once Congress, or an Amendments Convention, proposes amendments, Congress must decide whether the states will ratify by the:
The State Ratifying Convention Method has only been used twice: once to ratify the Constitution, and once to ratify the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition.
Ratification:
Depending upon which ratification method is chosen by Congress, either the state legislatures vote up-or-down on the proposed amendment, or the voters elect a state ratifying convention to vote up-or-down. If three-quarters of the states vote to ratify, the amendment becomes part of the Constitution.
Here is Indiana's: http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2013&session=1&request=getBill&docno=224
Scroll to the bottom for the law in pdf.
Governors have nothing to do with ratification, and a reconvention, as per your worse scenario is not provided for in Article V. One beauty of Article V is its federalism that no d@mn court can touch. CA has one vote, no more nor less than WY.
An Article V amendment convention is no panacea, no guarantee of anything. We may very well be too corrupt to recover. That said, there is nothing to lose. Obama is a tyrant in presidential drag.
Here's what the constitution says:
"The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress"
Since we have never had an amendments convention, and the constitution offers no guidance as to how it should operate there remain serious questions, and associated risks: those proposing these Art. V conventions should acknowledge those risks, and more fully articulate the anticipated benefits if, as the present poster requests, we are to lend our support to the effort.
Why are we to accept that if 2/3 of the states calling a convention for a limited purpose can then prevent ALL of the states thus assembled from proposing additional topics? If the convention did then go beyond its brief, would that effort then be subject to judicial review? If not, is the only safety to reside in the need for 3/4 of the states to accept the proposed amendments?
But more to the point, in an era in which there is much conservative consensus forming, and energy building to restore constitutional principles is this proposal the best way of advancing that cause?
Frankly, I don't know the answers, but the "don't worry, be happy, the convention will be fine" approach isn't going to get many on board.
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