Posted on 02/01/2014 3:48:17 AM PST by Jacquerie
In what is taking shape as a sort of Great Awakening, state legislators have begun to learn that they hold equal status with Congress when it comes to proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, a handful of state legislators from each state, as yet unknown, are destined for the annals of American history the moment the nation's first Convention for Proposing Amendments is gaveled to order.
The process, found in Article V of the U.S. Constitution, requires the legislatures of at least two thirds (34) of the states to pass resolutions demanding that Congress call a "Convention for Proposing Amendments" -- an ad hoc assembly where state legislators, voting state-by-state, may propose (but not ratify) amendments.
The thought of such a thing, while horrifying to Congress, represents the last constitutional method to reform a federal government run amok. And nothing more clearly illustrates the divide between flyover country and the federal city than the remedies that are sure to be proposed and later ratified by the states. To the ruling class, nothing could be more anathema than the prospect of amendments requiring term limits, balanced budgets, single-subject bills, and commerce clause reform.
Few on the Hill seem to be taking notice of the gathering clouds -- a situation that the states would do well to exploit. If anything, the nascent "Article V movement" is little more than a curiosity among the ruling elite. Congress, aware of Article V, has every expectation that the states will continue a 200-year losing streak when it comes to coordinating the resolutions necessary to trigger the process. This is entirely due to the fact that the founders left Congress in charge of counting the resolutions.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
There are 26 states that went for Obama in 2012. You would need 10 of them to agree to an Article V convention and 14 of them to ratify any amendments coming out of it. Good luck with that.
1. The current problem is not the Constitution, it is the willingness to defy the Constitution. How will changing the Constitution help?
2. A Article V convention is a pandora’s box. The Left would love to rewrite the Constitution, so that they could start being Constitutionally correct. Their rewrites will be a long list of group rights and a short list of individual right repeals.
The Electoral College has 538 electors.
Some of the states that reliably vote Democrat include:
California: 55
New York: 23
Illinois: 20
New Jersey: 14
Washington: 12
Massachusetts: 11
Maryland: 10
Total: 145
Number to elect president: 269
Percent of electoral votes of the above states = 145/269 = 53%.
Percent of electoral votes to elect a president represented by California and New York: 78/269 = 28.9%.
Should the States hold a convention to consider amendments to the Constitution as proposed by Mark Levin, the present Constitution requires 2/3 (66.67%) of the states to ratify such amendments.
Number of states required to ratify any amendments proposed by a Constitutional Convention: 34. Number of States required to block an amendment: 16 (33%)
Now compare the disproportion here. The mathematical reality that I want to point out is that in the setting of ratification of any proposed amendment to the Constitution, each state only has one vote irrespective of its size, population or the percent of voters who reliably vote for Democrats.
Since it is the states who have fewer electoral votes who tend to vote Republican, they suffer in the weighting scheme of the Electoral College, but that advantage is reversed when it comes to ratifying a Constitutional amendment.
In short, it now may be far easier to pass a well-debated amendment than to elect a Republican for president.
Several people including Mark Levin and Randy Barnett have suggested and advocated ways to amend the Constitution to repair the relationship that the federal government has with the States and the People. We have the opportunity to redefine the federal government in a peaceful way in order to stop such outrages.
As government expands, private liberty and decisionmaking must retreat. We have allowed government to create a self-funding, privately owned monster and given it the power to create near infinite amounts of money and debt by which to enable near-infinite government. We now give it power to continually monitor every time we spend our money, and now they are even monitoring what we spend it on. Our founding fathers did not debate and ratify a Fourth Amendment so government could be our Big Brother. No, quite the opposite.
Up until now, many have feared that calling for a Convention to amend the Constitution carried a greater risk to our rights than the status quo. By now it should be clear that the trajectory of government is chilling and wise people will see that we must return it to its proper cage and chains before we no longer have the means to do so.
“...Great Awakening...”
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Let it come!
Article V was no accident or afterthought by the founders. They KNEW we would get to this point and provided us a LAST, peaceful way to help ourselves...
Excellent analysis...
A term-limit, balanced-budget and repeal of the 17th set of amendments would go a LONG way to helping the states recover some of THEIR independence and ultimately ours...
http://www.conventionofstates.com/
From the article:
“...
The way forward is for the states, in their resolution language, to simply quote the part of Article V, which compels Congress to call the amendments convention:
The Congress ... on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments[.]
A minimalist resolution basically quoting Article V provides no purchase for legal challenge and is effectively saying to Congress, “The Constitution says we can demand it...so we’re demanding it. Period.” The bonus of taking this path of least resistance is that there are already 18 states with valid resolutions of this type — and those resolutions never expire!
...”
Very well said.
I would love to repeal the 16th & 17th amendements, and maybe even add a couple, but that isn’t the point.
But I’m not at all confident in the outcome of an Article V convention. It would be closed, and it would be made up mainly of RINOs and Democrats.
it many DEM states:
it is easier for conservatives to win the state house than to elect members of congress.
One involves MONEY, the other is more grassroots. And the move for Article V now gives impetus to doing that ... elect conservatives to the state house. A motivation which has not always been there.
Been calling for it for years now. Nice to see some finally waking up.
Suggest you read Mark Levine’s Liberty Amendments. It addresses those issues and more. Conservatives need to pick up on this and run with it as fast and as hard as we can.
Agree. However, I would not say it is to “repair” the relationship, but rather to put the power back into the hands of the states (closer to the people) where it belongs.
I am totally confident that if we don’t try we are forfeiting our nation to liberals and are allowing our nation to go down the toilet bowl of liberalism to obscurity. Failing to do so will leave only armed insurrection as the final option.
>>it would be made up mainly of RINOs and Democrats.<<
What’s the difference? In the last two elections, the “opposing” candidates agreed on health care, amnesty, foreign wars, torture, spending, big government, etc. It was NOT a contest of ideas, it was a beauty pageant.
Hear, hear!
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