[RitaOK]

This is scary. WTH are they thinking. Sometimes even conservatives suffer radicals and fools among them.

It’s as though no one knows that once the The United States Constitution is opened for discussion, in a Convention of States, that all sides have standing and rights to slash and burn any or all articles, to add and subtract from the great document.

There is an unknown outcome, beginning at the drop of the gavel and virtually no guarantees our little nitpick gets the vote when the universe voting is both Left and Right, ISLAMIC representation and CHRISTIAN.

Yikes. Beware what we wish for, when Pandora’s Box is finally opened.

[Publius]

Please read the following boilerplate which I usually post to these threads.

***

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.

• The Congressional Method requires the House and Senate to pass an amendment by a two-thirds majority.
• The Amendments Convention Method requires the legislatures of two-thirds of the states to apply to Congress to call a Convention for Proposing Amendments. Once the two-thirds threshold is reached, Congress is required to set a time and place for the convention.

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:

• State Legislature Method, or the
• State Ratifying Convention Method.

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:

• No amendment may be added to the Constitution concerning slavery or capitation taxes until 1808. We're past that deadline.
• No amendment may be added to the Constitution to change the principle of equal representation in the Senate unless every state deprived of that right approves. If California wants five senators, every state must have five senators. To permit violation of this principle, every state would have to ratify the amendment, not just three-fourths.

Implicitly forbidden:

• The Constitution of 1787 may not be abrogated and replaced with a new document. Article V only authorizes "a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution;" therefore, the Constitution of 1787 is locked in place forever. Congress and an Amendments Convention have exactly the same Proposal power; therefore, neither Congress nor an Amendments Convention can start over. Both bodies can only propose amendments.

Reference works:

Proposing Constitutional Amendments by a Convention of the States: A Handbook for State Lawmakers

State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters

[SunLakesJeff]

It is tempting, however, to roll back Judicial overreach and all kinds of idiotic legislation.

I think Red states are a slight majority. You are entirely correct about the potentially-spurious process. How do I help my state consider this?

[Blood of Tyrants]

Don’t be so scared. Any proposed amendments have to be approved by 3/4 of the states.

[Fungi]

Nonsense.

[Jacquerie]

Well Rita, you probably needn't worry. Article V has been ignored and contorted like the rest of the Constitution. To borrow from Publius, we are dealing with a living and breathing monster.

As Hamilton explained in Federalist #85, once 3/4 of the states apply, congress is duty bound to call a convention. Applications need not be identical nor address similar topics.

Furthermore, in Federalist #43, James Madison implied that state conventions to amend errors, to fine tune the Constitution were not to be rare occurrences.

"That useful alterations will be suggested by experience could not but be foreseen. It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing them should be provided. (Article V) . . . seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable, and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults. It, moreover, equally enables the general and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, . . ."

In what would probably be a surprise to our Framing generation, this second method of member states gathering in convention has never been used. The states have submitted hundreds of applications without receiving a congressional call to convention in return.

Recall that what passed for government under the Articles of Confederation fell to pieces in large part due to their un-amendability. We are pretty much at the same point; every day we watch the remnants of our republic fall down before our eyes.

While the Uniparty holds the people on a short leash to every clause and comma in the Constitution and much more that isn't even in the Constitution, THEY get to ignore the societal compact that used to be our Constitution. This is a fundamental contradiction that if left unsolved will end in a police state.

So don't worry, Congress will never call a convention. It simply isn't in their interest.

OTOH, it is by the Laws of Nature and Nature's God and not from Article V that We The People have every duty to exert our sovereign authority to restore free government.

Simply put, the states can and should convene as soon as possible.