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Push for Constitutional Convention Gathers Steam
Chicago Tribune ^ | November 30, 2014 23:20 GMT | Albert R Hunt (Bloomberg)

Posted on 11/30/2014 3:28:43 PM PST by Up Yours Marxists

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To: Publius

And who compels the Archivist of the United States to do this?


101 posted on 11/30/2014 5:04:56 PM PST by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
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To: ThunderSleeps

> “I believe that such tactics have worked for obama and crew before. I believe that they quite probably would work again. While I am no mind reader, I am reasonably sure he and his cohorts believe that.”

You seem unable to absorb the fact that this is a process that takes place at the STATE LEVEL only. Obama had no success at the STATE LEVEL. His democrat party just got blasted in a way they haven’t seen since 1924.

Yes, I agree with you that Obama had/has power inside DC. But Article V is OUTSIDE DC and is in the grassroots!

If Obama has or had power in the grassroots his party would have swept this last election. But they were crushed. So your remarks are baseless. There is no evidence that Obama has the ground game to overcome Conservatives in 38 States.

Resorting to Article V is very much a Seminary Ridge tactic. Because of the position there is no doubt as to who the victor will be. This is why liberals can’t stand the idea of an Article V conference and why they are twisting everything they can think of to make it seem dangerous.

With Article V, Wyoming neuters California, Alabama neuters New York, and so on. And all other Red States run down field with no opposition.


102 posted on 11/30/2014 5:07:16 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: ThunderSleeps

Just how do you propose that we go about “constraining the government” to abide by it? Maybe when pigs fly. The government is rogue and out of control - there is no constraining them if the Republicans don’t do their jobs, and it looks at this point, like they won’t.


103 posted on 11/30/2014 5:08:05 PM PST by Catsrus (al)
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To: Revel
They no longer know what it takes for a nation like the USA to survive.

I have run across statements like this at FR for some time. If you are correct, then the American people are no longer capable of self-government. If that is true, what is left? A king and a theocracy? A military dictatorship? The dissolution of the Union?

What do you see as our future if you are right and people cannot govern themselves?

104 posted on 11/30/2014 5:08:25 PM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: Revel; Publius

> “Watch what they do in congress.”

Why should an Article V conference be worried about what is done in Congress?


105 posted on 11/30/2014 5:08:42 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: ThunderSleeps

You do not understand Article V. The reps in DC wouldn’t have anything to do with the convention. The STATES are in control and they choose who is going to attend.


106 posted on 11/30/2014 5:09:16 PM PST by conservativegranny
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To: Publius

Nailed it!

It would put Congress on notice there’s a new sheriff in town.


107 posted on 11/30/2014 5:09:46 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

The Judicial Legislation tradition is deeply enough ingrained that it is not inconceivable that a future Court that is say, 6-1 liberal will declare a portion of the Constitution to be Unconstitutional. Colorado has, I believe, already experienced that with the State Supreme Court overturning an amendment to the State Constitution as Un(State)constitutional.


108 posted on 11/30/2014 5:13:50 PM PST by arthurus
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To: Publius

I’ve read your boilerplate innumerable times. The Constitution is mute regarding any State Ratifying Convention. It merely says that it may be a mode of Ratification, nothing is said about the method of its formation or of its composition.

The same effort and thought that has gone into constraining Article V Delegates and the Amendments they may consider needs to be given to the Ratification portion of the process. Don’t undo that work by overlooking the final steps in the process.


109 posted on 11/30/2014 5:14:27 PM PST by Ray76 (Who gave the stand down order? Benghazi? Ferguson?)
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To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Current law compels the Archivist to perform his duties.

The Archivist tallies petitions from the states for an Amendments Convention, and the Archivist tallies ratifications of amendment proposals passed by Congress to the states for ratification, as he did for the 27th Amendment, proposed by Madison in 1789 and finally ratified in 1992. The Archivist notifies congressional leadership via written memorandum.

Congress then writes a Joint Congressional Resolution to call an Amendments Convention, or in the latter case, a Joint Congressional Resolution to "accept" a ratified amendment into the Constitution. This part of the process is simply parliamentary procedure.

110 posted on 11/30/2014 5:14:55 PM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: Hostage

I don’t know. What good does burning down their hometown do them?


111 posted on 11/30/2014 5:16:09 PM PST by clintonh8r ( BRILLIANT, WITTY (but incendiary)TAG LINE REMOVED BY MODERATORS.)
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To: Greysard; Publius

Read the history of the 17th Amendment. If anything an Article V Assembly of States compels, intimidates and panics the Beltway class to try and take control of the ground game.

Based on history and human nature, as soon as 30 states are onboard with Article V and the count is trending towards 34, watch then for every Congress member to come out of the woodwork and try and steal the spotlight. The media will not be able to ignore it. It will be news around the clock 24/7 and that news will feed the frenzy of WE THE PEOPLE to be heard. Because this is very much what happened with the 17th Amendment (research it) and will happen again.

I also predict that the amendments proposed that will have support of at least 34 States will be very few in number, like 1,2, or 3.

But as Publius posted in #100, even if zero amendments pass the proposal test of 34 states, it will be a success because it will put Congress on notice that there’s a new sheriff in town and in the final analysis, that is the will of WE THE PEOPLE, that Congress take note.

If you grew up in the DC area like I did, where the number one industry is ‘government’, then you would know the people there are tone deaf and only talk in an echo chamber to themselves. An Article V process will blow their ear drums out with a megaphone planted smack against their earlobes.

In all sincerity, the growth and sprawl of DC has created a whole culture of government largess which the class of people there think is their little sandbox and no one else’s. The only way to change their view is to hammer them with Article V.


112 posted on 11/30/2014 5:23:10 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: Ray76
It merely says that it may be a mode of Ratification, nothing is said about the method of its formation or of its composition.

Ah, I misunderstood your earlier statement. I apologize.

Our legal system in based on precedent, and the 1933 precedent of how the 21st Amendment was ratified by State Ratifying Conventions would hold.

The reason Congress sent the 21st to ratifying conventions rather than the legislatures is because the illegal liquor interests were entrenched at every level of government. There was a legitimate fear that those interests could sandbag the seven year clock on ratification until it ran out. The ratifying conventions were elected and held, and they ratified the 21st in record time. It was the people who wanted the end of Prohibition, not legislators who had been bought and paid for by the bootleggers.

113 posted on 11/30/2014 5:24:07 PM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
If it were practical to not just allow but require everybody to vote, that would probably be useful.

An uninformed, uninterested voter who is forced to go and vote will vote either randomly, or - much worse - for those who spent the most on TV and radio ads, or for those who are a familiar face on the political landscape.

I would rather prefer some qualifying conditions for the voter that test for awareness of the issues. That would be democratic enough, as anyone can study those. A simple IQ test could be also involved. For example, "Explain the "Achilles and the tortoise" paradox with multiple choice from 128 possible answers."

114 posted on 11/30/2014 5:24:39 PM PST by Greysard
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To: arthurus
It has been said that every time a federal judge retires to his chambers to write an opinion, he holds a miniature constitutional convention in that room. And I mean "constitutional convention" in the 1787 tradition, not the Amendments Convention concept.

The Supreme Court has never invalidated an amendment by declaring it unconstitutional. It has instead narrowly defined the concept of "standing" to prevent litigation of something that the federal power structure wants left alone. For example, it has been impossible for the 27th Amendment to be litigated in federal court because standing has been so narrowly defined as to make enforcement impossible.

It's the unwritten stuff that is worrisome because it is the core of judicial activism.

115 posted on 11/30/2014 5:32:26 PM PST by Publius ("Who is John Galt?" by Billthedrill and Publius now available at Amazon.)
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To: HMS Surprise

No, I said the MOONBAT GOPe, which in case you missed the past 35 years has been steering the conservative GOP ship towards the iceberg. This includes state Congressional bodies and governors. The GOPe doesn’t give a damn about us peons. Otherwise they’d hop off the hind tit of the feds at the state level.

I think we all need to assess the actual playing field here.


116 posted on 11/30/2014 5:36:14 PM PST by Up Yours Marxists
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To: Publius

A Ratifying Convention is political in nature, it is not a court of law. There is no guarantee that the State Conventions would be conducted as those for the 21st Amendment were.

I do not trust these parties at all. It is their hands that have delivered to us our predicament. The Ratification Conventions are a potential choke point were the parties could thwart the process. Victory loves preparation. A plan to constrain partisan actions to the degree possible is a plan for victory.


117 posted on 11/30/2014 5:46:04 PM PST by Ray76 (Who gave the stand down order? Benghazi? Ferguson?)
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To: Up Yours Marxists; HMS Surprise

> “I think we all need to assess the actual playing field here.”

Already done Ad Nauseum and still in work for secondary and tertiary analyses.

Here’s just one:

Tea Party leaders are celebrating their victories at the polls.

An examination of the results of the 2014 general elections by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights reveals that Tea Party endorsed candidates continued to outperform at the ballot box this year.

National Tea Party groups, most notably FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, endorsed 80 candidates for federal office in yesterday’s general election. Tea Party endorsed candidates ended up winning 58 of those races—a 73% winning percentage.

http://www.irehr.org/issue-areas/tea-party-nationalism/tea-party-news-and-analysis/610-tea-party-election-2014

The bottomline is the GOPe has little control over the STATE GROUNDGAME. Conceded they do have influence over federal officeholders but for state officeholders, they are MIA and the people around the State Officeholders are not in love with the Federales, not by a long stretch.

So indeed, ARTICLE V is a STATE OWNED GAME that scares the BeJeezes out of the Beltway class. That’s a good thing.


118 posted on 11/30/2014 5:51:07 PM PST by Hostage (ARTICLE V)
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To: Up Yours Marxists

It’s not a “Constitutional Convention.”

It’s a Convention of the States for the Purpose of Proposing Amendments to the Constitution.

Worthless article if he can’t get that right.


119 posted on 11/30/2014 5:53:16 PM PST by Arthur McGowan
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To: Up Yours Marxists

Let’s step back and think about this for a minute- a nation that elects, and then re-elects a man named Hussien, but with only a photoshopped birth certificate, seven years after muslims kill 3000 people in one of our largest cities, most of them American citizens, is going to be trusted to reinvent 100% of our governmental foundation? Sounds like a plan....an Alinsky plan maybe.


120 posted on 11/30/2014 5:53:46 PM PST by matthew fuller (Barak Hussein Obama (Benghazi Barry)- the first step into a thousand years of darkness.)
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