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I've been waiting with bated breath for news of the July ALEC meeting in San Diego, specifically because they were reputed to address the rules for an Article V Convention of the States in their proceedings. THANK YOU SO MUCH HOSTAGE for your report of same!!!

By way of backgrounder, there are not a few "Chicken-Little, the-Sky-Is-Falling" legalistic types running around these days, trying to panic the public into fearing a constitutional convention for the proposal of amendments to the federal Constitution, on either one or two grounds, if not both: (1) Congress will meddle and corrupt the process; or (2) such a convention would turn into a "runaway convention." That is, any convention commissioner could propose anything, including the total repeal of the U.S. Constitution itself.

As to (2), the principal author of Article V, Alexander Hamilton, acknowledges the right of the people to abolish the Constitution. In The Federalist No. 78, he says,

...that fundamental principle of republican government ... admits the right of the people to alter or abolish the established Constitution whenever they find it inconsistent with their happiness; yet it is not to be inferred from this principle that the representatives of the people, whenever a momentary inclination happens to lay hold of a majority of their constituents incompatible with the provisions in the existing Constitution would, on that account, be justifiable in a violation of those provisions....

Thus, in his wisdom, Hamilton addresses both screeds from the "Sky-Is-Falling" crowd of lawyerly entrepreneurs who are trying to (1) scare us away from an Article V COS on the grounds that it cannot fail but to produce acts of all kinds of public lunacy up to and including repeal of our foundational rule of law; (2) alleging that a COS must be avoided at all costs, on the grounds that Congress would abuse and subvert such a convention to its own twisted ends through its own micromanagement of the proceedings.

In the first place, while acknowledging the right of the people to withdraw their consent to the U.S. Constitution, before such matters should ever come to such a head, Hamilton insists the proper way for the people to register their concerns about the Constitution, and make adjustments to it, is through the Article V process.

Which is understandable: He'd just passed through a bloody war, our Revolutionary war, in which he served as a distinguished, close aide of the commanding general, George Washington. One gathers that, from this experience, Hamilton realized that a civil order should not have to go to war with itself in order to rectify perceived deficiencies in its basic rule of law. Hence, Article V.

As to the other fear being stirred up — (1) congressional meddling — this appears to me to be quite unfounded. Congress is constitutionally COMPELLED to Call a COS upon the application of 34 states, whose applications all bear on the same subject matter. It has zero discretion in this; and after the Call, it has zero legislative authority whatsover. It is simply not a party to the discussion. It has no further role to play until the proposed amendments have been voted in the COS. Then, it has a "dispositive role," reaching only to the Mode of Ratification: State legislatures or State Conventions. Other than that, Congress has nothing to say anywhere along this process.

But if 38 States ratify any proposed amendment, by whichever means Congress specifies, it becomes federal constitutional law.

As to point (1), I agree with several eminent legal scholars who say: There is little danger of effective congressional meddling; because any such interference would be met with resistance in the federal courts. Congress' warrant with respect to the Article V COS — and corresponding lack of same — is well-detailed in Article V. To exceed its clearly-specified mandate here would be a congressional usurpation of the very language of the Constitution itself.

As to (2) — the risk of a "runaway convention" — any close reader of the Proposed Convention Rules as proposed by ALEC can see how the application of these rules would work against political proselytizers of whatever stripe. The proposed rules limit the number of times, and sequence in which, any commissioner from any state delegation can speak; and limits his or her speech to ten minutes.

I think this is a very important rule. Consider this: It only takes 34 states to apply for an Article V Call. That means there are 16 states outside of the application for Call. Such states may be either "neutral," or positively "hostile," to the subject matter of the Call. Thirty-four states is the quorum to conduct business under the Call. That is, only 34 states are required to propose valid amendments. There is no mandate that the other 16 states must attend the convention in order for its business to be constitutionally "proper." Whether they show up or not is entirely up to them. But their presence is not needed to propose valid amendments to the Constitution.

One can envision a situation in which "hostile" states would not bow out of attending the convention. Rather, they might decide to attend, sending, say, 100 or more delegates, each of which is empowered to take up as much time, and create as much confusion, in the convention proceedings as possible.

But the proposed rules (at the top) mitigate against that result, as already described (e.g., limit on frequency, time, and sequence of speeches). The proposed convention rules propound that five delegates per state is optimal; but this is not a binding instruction on the states: Any state can send however many delegates — commissioners — as it wants to.

But the fact remains, the rules stipulate that each and every state delegation attending the convention, no matter how numerous, gets only ONE VOTE; and that vote is determined by the simple majority of its state delegates/commissioners, regardless of their number.

Anyhoot, must wrap up for now. Before signing off, just want to say how deeply HEARTENED I am by the progress of COS rule-making that has proceeded so far, under the auspices of ALEC. Of course, these are proposed rules — the Called Convention must itself positively vote them in before they can be implemented in a duly-called COS.

Thank you ever so much, dear HOSTAGE, for your marvelous contributions!!!