Posted on 02/16/2015 3:37:31 PM PST by Strawberry AZ
After two years of watching how one man presides over the Arizona State Senate, I can no longer withhold my opinion: Andy Biggs lacks the courage of his convictions. I refer specifically to his obstruction of Article V legislation that would add Arizona to the growing list of states applying to Congress for a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution. He claims to fear that state legislators – such as himself and 89 of his closest colleagues - would lose control of the agenda, risking a re-write of the entire Constitution, despite copious and credible evidence dispelling such concerns as little more than warmed-over 1980s paranoia.
To the dispassionate observer, his unwillingness to allow a free and open debate in the upper chamber suggests that he knows that his position is weak, he knows that his arguments have been discredited and are indefensible, and he knows that he would lose.
His inaction is seen by some as an admission that his colleagues have a more finely attuned sense of the public’s opinion than he does regarding what is important for the State of Arizona and for the United States of America. His behavior in and of itself is the perfect example of the primary reason that George Mason insisted on including Article V in the Constitution... as a check against the arrogance of the executive.
Not only is it painfully obvious to the writer that his persistent adherence to the “runaway convention” meme is driven by a career office-seeker’s desperate desire to defend the Establishment status quo, many of his recent remarks at various public speaking engagements have also made it apparent that there may be another major motivator to his intransigence, one no less self-serving and offensive: He is trying to sell a book.
From those remarks, and from the title of the book that he mentioned no fewer than three times at a recent debate on Article V, I feel it safe to assume that its contents will reflect the views that he has voiced publicly, views which are identical, I might add, to those of the John Birch Society, an anachronous organization notorious for its decades-long campaign of spreading lies, distortions and dis-information about Article V and the Tenth Amendment, about the original intent of our nation’s Founders and the legality of the Constitution itself, and more recently, engaging in an attempt to discredit any and all persons supportive of an Article V amendments convention, even going so far as to mount a transparent attempt to conflate the efforts of several Leftist groups with those of The Citizens for Self-Governance Convention of States Project.
I, for one, am wondering how he ignores the shame of tacitly agreeing with such a despicable group.
There are even more important questions, though, that any fair-minded person cannot help but ask... how can he possibly be open-minded to the great body of legitimate arguments that are in stark opposition to his... how can he possibly be impartial when deciding whether or not to allow or to obstruct the effort to advance Article V legislation... and how can he pretend to respect the integrity of the political process when he stands to profit financially from prolonging the fight against Article V of our Constitution?
More succinctly, the proper question that needs to be asked is this: “How can he not recuse himself?”
That is like saying you don’t want your boss to have any say because you are afraid that he might “run away” with his authority to make decisions.
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