Posted on 05/11/2014 8:25:04 AM PDT by Jacquerie
AP link only.
Group eying Convention of the States, constitutional amendments to meet in Indiana in June.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsbt.com ...
The Article V movement continues! Ping!
Woo Hoo.
Thanks.
I think that this has a certain appeal to leftists. They have always thought that it was a “flawed” document.
Over the last 80 years they have so warped the constitution without formal amendments that for practical purposes, we have two constitutions. Freepers refer to the written, while Leftists and judges refer to the de jure, Frankenstein Constitution.
Since calls, plural, vary for Art V conventions, the Soros backers are not interested in this call, to limit the federal govt. Calls into Congress, of course, are tallied separately dependent on the subject. The Soros-backers are more interested in calls like the one in the last week coming from VT to reign in the Citizen's United decision, or other leftist interests. There is nothing stopping a leftist from trying to take advantage of an Art V, good luck to them. Good for Conservatives that these calls are handled completely separately.
Establish time limits on all constitutional delegations of power to the federal government. Delegations of power can be appropriately renewed.
All eligible voters will be required to pass a basic constitutional law test, a test stressing the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, before actually being allowed to vote. The test can be a handfull of questions and be administered with a written driver's test.
Justice John Marshall's official clarification of Congress's limited power to lay taxes will be enumerated in the Constitution.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Children will be taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers the way that the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.
Voters will have the power to petition to punitively recall / fire bad-apple state or federal elected representatives, judges and government employees, particularly when they don't respect Congress's constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.
works for me
This is the greatest threat to the text of a the Constitution, whose text no longer means anything to the government that has usurped sole authority of enforcement.
The prisoners now run the prison, and thus it is not a prisons but a fortress that now levees war against us and our rights.
I hope that the left will continue to believe that this will not happen until the forces of Good are too well organized and positioned to be stopped in this crusade to restore our republic.
But the fact is we really don’t have any other choice. Without action our Federal Constitution is as dead as it could be with bad action. Our choice is simple, we can try to fix it, or we can accept its loss.
Levin's amendments would not only re-federalize the government, it would more federal, with state (supermajority) power to repeal federal regulations, laws and Scotus decisions.
For 10A, I think restoration of the states to the senate would answer most of your concerns.
I will support the repeal of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment any day. (The 16th can go too.)
However, as a consequence of generations of parents not making sure that their children are being taught the federal government's constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following. Even if 17A was repealed, it remains that state lawmakers can be expected to be as clueless about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the voters who elected them are, regardless who elects federal senators.
Our Framers would have been historic ciphers if conservatives got their way in 1775 and the American colonies joined in union w/Great Britain or perhaps beat Canada to dominion status by 80 years.
Prior to the 17th, State legislators were elected in part on their views of national concerns. Lincoln/Douglas debates.
I think Americans and their state legislators would rise to the occasion if states were once again represented in the senate. We could not only contact our congressmen about national issues, but our state legislators as well.
Maybe not identical, but as a practical matter, effectively Congress needs a “folder” for each call subject to tally up to know when 2/3 of the states have applied. Clearly, states going for Citizen’s United Call, would not be confused with states going for “reigning in the federales”, and would not be confused with states going for the single-amendment Balanced Budget Amendment convention.
In my heart and mind I know he 17th amendment was a major blow to federalism, and arguably invalid in itself given the article 5 prohibition against amendments removing State representation in the Senate.
But your not going to get such an amendment to become popular in the present state of political ignorance about Federalism. We have many steps of education probably requiring a Generation to accomplish before such a thing could be accomplished directly. We have to go about it a different way!
As for a supermajorty veto of States, it can easy take a decade to get even a majority of States to agree on anything. We would be far better off by simply requiring all Acts of congress with Automatic exasperation thus requiring renewal every generation. Such a thing could be argued for under the Thomas Jefferson’s points about the injustice of one generation imposing upon anther. Althou Jefferson was speaking of Debt the same thing is equally applicable to acts of law.
I am inclined to nonetheless do all I can to support your efforts even thou I know they are likely doomed to fail.
“I will support the repeal of the ill-conceived 17th Amendment any day. (The 16th can go too.)
However, as a consequence of generations of parents not making sure that their children are being taught the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers, please consider the following. Even if 17A was repealed, it remains that state lawmakers can be expected to be as clueless about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the voters who elected them are, regardless who elects federal senators.”
I’m not so worried about the ignorance of our State law makers regarding Federal power as I am the people. Politically we could not repeal the 17th amendment with so much ignorance about the nature of Federal power in our country. But Our State law makers are as ignorant as they might be, still politicians and thus driven by an unusual level of lust for power and control which is in itself the asset we need to control Washington if Only we direct it towards Washington.
We ask them to reframe only from Foreign policy and affairs, while they actively seek to retake control of the Domestic legal affairs of the State, and undercut Washington’s illegitimate domestic powers.
“Agree, though from the wording of Article V, I’m not convinced the constitution requires identical applications. I suspect the existing construct is no more than a self-serving congressional roadblock to prevent state amendment conventions.”
I think its quite obvious that Article V nether in form nor substance requires anything in the way of Identical Applications. Just as a resulting convention need not necessarily even be limited to proposing amendments on just such matters.
Our Federal Congressmen are simply looking for any excuses possible to avoid giving up control of the process, and thus risk losing power.
But before we move forward WE MUST have control of more of the State legislators. Right now we have barely half of them.
IIRC, a congressman recently requested the Archivist of the United States to provide a tally of the various state applications.
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