Posted on 03/20/2014 3:17:52 PM PDT by Jacquerie
Today, Florida took another step toward reclaiming federal powers foolishly given away in 1913.
The Senate Rules Committee passed by 8-5, the following resolution:
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; Applying to Congress to call a convention for the sole purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution of the United States which impose fiscal restraints on the Federal Government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the Federal Government, and limit the terms of office for federal officials and members of Congress.
Every Republican voted yea, every Democrat nay.
You might just be over the target when you draw enemy fire.
Today is sine die for the Georgia Legislature.
(we rednecks call it “sign or die” referring to the fate of the various bills in the hopper.)
Will the Left be present at an Amendments Convention? Certainly. An Amendments Convention will be a snapshot of America at that time and place.
But the purview (subject) of the convention is to be defined up front as aiming at reducing the federal government's power and enhancing that of the states. Such an amendment proposal would be ruled out of order by the presiding officer. The Left would be told that they need to start a campaign to petition for their own Amendments Convention to push the matters they wish to raise.
see post 24 below:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3135525/posts?page=24#24
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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.
Forbidden Subjects:
Article V contains two explicitly forbidden subjects and one implicitly forbidden subject.
Explicitly forbidden:
Implicitly forbidden:
I have two reference works for those interested.
The first is from the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative pro-business group. This document has been sent to every state legislator in the country.
Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers
The second is a 1973 report from the American Bar Association attempting to identify gray areas in the amendatory process to include an Amendments Convention. It represents the view of the ruling class of 40 years ago. While I dislike some of their conclusions, they have laid out the precedents that may justify those conclusions. What I respect is the comprehensive job they did in locating all the gray areas. They went so far as to identify a gray area that didn't pop up until the Equal Rights Amendment crashed and burned a decade later. Even if you find yourself in disagreement with their vision, it's worth reading to see the view of the ruling class toward the process.
Report of the ABA Special Constitutional Convention Study Committee
The Left’s victory is nearly complete. We are no longer a self-governing people, perhaps with the exception of Article V. It still exists; it is our last remaining hope to restore freedom.
The attacks will come when the numbers begin to add up.
They will first come from the media.
Every possible lie misrepresentation and misconception will be told as fact.
The low information voters will hang on every word.
Some of them are right here on Free Republic.
It will get ugly.
What a great day for Article V! Our bill here in Arizona just passed out of the House Government Committee with a DO PASS recommendation!!! 4 Republicans voted Yea, all the Democrats didn’t.
Shock.
On to the senate...
Just heard on Mark Levin’s show that Michigan’s state house just passed a Convention of States resolution, 77-32. A state rep (Flowers ?) called in to tell Mark, personally.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140320/POLITICS02/303200137#ixzz2wYHSR15B
Yes, that was terrific!
V
I heard that caller, too.
Absurd; 3/4ths of the legislatures of the States would have to ratify any amendment — if you think that 38 states would willingly and knowingly drink poison then you think that every peaceable means has been exhausted.
Fantastic explanation...
Here’s where we are...
1) Article V Convention
2) Nullification
3) Peaceful secession
4) CW2
I’d like to try the one the Founders actually WROTE INTO THE CONSTITUTION myself...
> “The 2nd amendment would simply be ‘rewritten’”
No one is going to “re-write” anything, not as long as there are still 13 states left standing to block it! Please do the math.
The safety mechanisms are built into the stated subject matter of the convention, and in the numbers that are required to propose and then to ratify any amendments to the Constitution. And let me really emphasize that word: “propose.”
To begin with, the reason for calling the convention in the first place is not to address what the government CAN do, but to address what the government can NOT do. The subject of the convention is specifically limited to proposing amendments that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, that limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and that limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress. Any proposal by any delegate that would fall outside of these parameters would be declared by the chairman of the convention to be “void ab initio,” or dead on arrival, and there would be no further discussion of the matter. You must know, don’t you, that that’s the way conventions work?
Secondly, delegates to the convention will be selected by the various state legislatures. If you look at the numbers of Red state legislatures (26) versus Blue state legislatures (18)*, conservatives have a sizeable majority, and one that only stands to increase in the upcoming election, both in state governorships and chambers of the legislature controlled by conservatives.
Certainly there will be states like California, New York, Illinois, Hawaii and others that will send their flaming extremists, but it’s a one-state, one-vote system. Even if the liberal delegates were somehow able to approach the number of conservative delegates, no leftist proposal expanding the power or scope of the federal government can be passed inside the convention without a 2/3 vote of the states, and that just isn’t mathematically possible.
Lastly, after the Convention of States has done its work and adjourns, nothing will have been changed. Nothing. All that will have happened is that a bill of PROPOSED amendments – there’s that word again - similar in process to the first ten original amendments - our Bill of Rights - will have been submitted to Congress, which then must in turn send them back out to the legislatures of the several states for ratification, either by convention or a vote of the legislature.
Again, math is our friend here. Article V of the Constitution requires that 75% of the states ratify any proposed amendment before it becomes the Supreme Law of the Land, which also means that it would take only 13 states to kill any hair-brained proposal that might have somehow managed to slip through. Remember, the proposed amendments must stand or fall as written - no state can make any changes, not even a single letter. If the states can’t agree in the numbers required, the proposal fails for lack of support.
The bottom line is that there are multiple levels of safeguards in place to prevent a “runaway” convention - we have nothing to fear from those who would “hijack” the process. All of this fear-mongering is nothing more than tired, transparent scare tactics, like the old trope that George Soros is secretly funding the Article V movement, because the radical socialist extremists plan to take control of the convention and not only re-write the Constitution, but do away with conservatism completely.
If that were indeed the case, why wouldn’t liberal Democrats be all over this legislation? Aren’t they smart enough to understand how dangerous such an event would be to freedom and liberty? Why is it that when Article V legislation is passed, it’s done without a single Democrat vote? Shouldn’t we expect at least one Democrat to break with party orthodoxy and vote to repeal the 2nd Amendment, to establish a $25 national minimum wage, and to abolish conservatism, all in one fell swoop?
I submit to you that they would do just that if there were but one single word of truth in the arguments being peddled by the fear merchants of the John Birch Society. There isn’t, so they don’t. The Birchers insist that the Constitution is sacrosanct, that it can’t be violated or tampered with, that it must be followed as written to the letter of the law… all except that part in Article V, that is, where it authorizes the states to hold conventions to propose amendments.
In as many words, they say that they don’t trust the people to have sense enough to conduct a convention properly, that we should trust in our current form of government to correct itself, that everything will be fine as long as we just keep voting for change... us... the idiots, the dupes and the fools too stupid to run a convention... but we should keep voting.
How’s that been working out so far?
Seriously, there is something, indeed, that we DO have to fear, and that’s our current runaway federal government. We should also fear what will most certainly happen to our Constitution if we do nothing.
> “I’d like to try the one the Founders actually WROTE INTO THE CONSTITUTION...”
Brilliant!
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