Could Compact For America's Constitutional Amendment Stop The Federal Juggernaut?

The Compact for a Balanced Budget is a well-conceived idea that would give the nation a new amendment putting a limit on the amount the federal government can borrow, a maximum of 105 percent of the current debt. Nick Dranias, who is spearheading the compact, argues in this Freeman interview, “Using an interstate compact to coordinate the amending of the Constitution from the states, which represents perhaps the ultimate problem of collective action in politics, is just a natural solution.”

What makes the state compact approach both appealing and practical is that the key issues would all be settled in advance. Once 38 states have voted to join the compact (at this point, two have: Alaska and Georgia), the application for a convention that would consider only the precise amendment drafted and then either approve or disapprove it becomes operative. Congress would only require simple majorities in each chamber to approve the convention, and that seems within reach, although no sure thing.

Look for a lot of action in state legislatures next year as advocates of restraining federal debt argue for joining the Compact, while interest groups that know a slowing of government spending would hurt them try to derail it with “the sky is falling” claims.

Let’s suppose that the proposed amendment were ratified. Congress would then have to face constraints like the rest of us do. With a constitutional limit on further borrowing (not just the easily increased “debt ceiling”) scarcity and the need for trade-offs would suddenly matter to the president and members of Congress.

FRiend,

does the gov’t need to be hemmed in? yes. I agree.

Expecting those who have helped make it what is to change it? ridiculous, they won’t because they are bought and paid for.

Expecting those polluted by power to do the right thing for the benefit of all: equally ridiculous, they won’t.

If this comes to pass, and it works long term, yeah.
I simply don’t expect it too, because it too will be designed to hoodwink the citizenry into thinking they have gotten what was wanted; when in fact the citizenry got screwed.
This is assuming the process isn’t hijacked and the Constitution isn’t just burnt and discarded by power-hungry politicians.

fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me.

I’ve already been had once; it won’t happen again regardless of the issue.

now you want a law to help: If any politician, at any level, is convicted of a felony crime; automatic death penalty preferable within 90 or so days. the relatives should be hounded until they voluntarily leave the country never to return.

IMO

Would you prefer congress? Because that is the only other legal option beyond doing nothing and tolerating the ongoing Federal Constitutional convention by way of the Federal Employees in black-robes who have already rendered the Federal Constitution all but meaningless.

That really brings us down to the heart of the matter, until Washington loses the ability to rewrite/ignore its own limits thou its hand picked employees all of this is little more than a bandaid.

The basic problem is Washington is no longer bound to any kind of Constitution at all in effect. This is the result of the loss of the 17th amendment and the successful suppression of State nullification efforts followed by a century of progressively more arrogant Federal Courts in combination with a progressively more iqnorant population.

The result is what we have been seeing more and more of, Washington is without practical limits and thus the Federal Constitution is moot.

Without further corrections to restore some mechanism upon which Washington may be contenuely compelled by an outside self-interested party to observe its bounds domestically. There will be no domestic limits, and as a result ultimately no free republican form of government which democratically depends upon politicians not having full control over the population that elects them.

Thanks for the ping. But I defer to Mark Levin’s speech before the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in which he reminded the state legislators there that in forming the Constitution, the Founders were not so much concerned with budgets, rather they were concerned with liberty (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZuV8JnvvA time range 15:45 to 17:03 and time range 25:33 to 28:02). However, there was much serious discussion among the Founders of proper budgeting but nothing of it was included in the original Constitution.

But on reflection I see merit in considering ideas associated with limiting ‘borrowing’ or equivalently limiting how the Federal Reserve creates its monetary notes “soft money” for exchange, i.e. creating money out of thin air (although there are problems in agreeing that what the Fed creates actually is ‘money’). In the larger scheme of things, a study needs to be performed on the proper role and appropriate limitations of the Federal Reserve.

So I am reticent to dive into ‘Balanced Budget Amendment’ proposals without having acquired to my satisfaction an adequate view of the bigger picture, its historical evolution and trending paths. Alternatively I would be satisfied knowing a great mind or minds have already covered this ground and have defined the most sensible courses in which to proceed.

As for this Forbes piece there is one disturbing remark that I read in it and it is this:

“Congress would only require simple majorities in each chamber to approve the convention, and that seems within reach, although no sure thing.”

I do not believe Congress has ‘approval authority’ over a Convention of States (COS) convened under Article V. In fact I am sure they have no such authority. Their role is ceremonious only.

I pinged Jacquerie to these comments because my focus is one of a person that has transported their thinking into the future and then who looks back at us in our present time to seek where matters of the 17th Amendment might fit. When I say matters of the 17th I mean what Mark Levin refers to as the ‘systemic structural transformation’ that the 17th caused in American history.

Supposing, even presuming that a COS successfully proposes (with a minumum 34 states) a modest number of amendments, say three, what then would those amendments address? What would a future view looking back say about what we (present American society) were thinking with these three amendments? What would be the impact and how would the amendments guard against human misinterpretation and abuse? How could the human desire for power and money, extreme ambition seeking influence over these three amendments be treated? What possible thought experiments could be engaged to predict unforeseen consequences of these three amendments?

The first scribblings in these sands of thinking are:

AMENDMENT 28: BANKING AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

People of the Future: Americans wanted clear lines of authority defining relations between banking and government and restrictions of banking power on individual and states rights.

Subject Matter: Reform of the Federal Reserve to include reform of federal budget and spending creation, acceptable definitions of money and flexibility under extremis or in times of war, preservation of individual rights regarding wealth and wealth creation including safeguards to erosion of wealth (e.g. inflationary actions), abolishments of the Federal Income Tax Code, prohibitions and controls against usage of created Federal Reserve soft money volume in political elections.

AMENDMENT 29: STATE AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BALANCE OF POWER

People of the Future: Americans wanted to correct imbalances of powers between states and federal branches, repairing much damage and abuse caused by shortsightedness of the effects of the 17th amendment.

Subject Matter: To address a resurrection and reformation of the political and power balance between the federal government (particularly the US Senate) and state legislatures. Here would be contained matters that address the severed cord action of the 17th Amendment, the Mark Levin suggestion that 2/3’s of states have the power to override Congress, language that leaves unequivocal control by the states to ensure election integrity procedures (such as Photo ID) subject to federal laws of non-discrimination and a mandatory 10 year review to coincide with the Census conducted by the states regarding federal compliance with all elements of the US Constitution.

AMENDMENT 30: PRESERVING CHECKS AND BALANCES

People of the Future: Americans wanted more assurance that its federal government would act under a systems of checks and balances.

Subject Matter: To address balance of powers at the federal level with mechanisms to minimize the influence of entrenched interests in the affairs of the federal centralized government, to include term limits, to devise mechanisms that impede federal branches (Executive, Legislative and Judiciary) from reinforcing each other while promoting these branches in checking each other, to include carefully crafted amendment clauses that require the Federal Judiciary to refer to and respect COS resolutions and referendums that underlie these amendments (mechanisms to impede judicial misinterpretation and judicial activism) so as to maintain concise Constitutional language, and along the same line as the previous a requirement that Congress reference appropriate authorities under the US Constitution in every law that it passes.
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Many of the issues embedded in the subject matters above appear more suitable for federal lawmaking versus Constitutional Amendment making. But, the concern is a lawless federal government. Any proposed COS Amendment should be crafted with the presumption that the federal government will ignore or act in a lawless manner; this is a fundamental design criterion.

The duty of Congress, upon receiving petitions from at least two-thirds of the states for an Amendments Convention for a given topic, is to set a time, place and purview for that convention. The parliamentary tool for this is a Joint Resolution of Congress, which requires a majority vote in each House.

The author of the article is anticipating that Congress might not wish to do its duty. Rather than get into a detailed discussion of possible legal recourses if an intransigent Congress wishes to prevent an Amendments Convention or start interfering with its processes, I would look at it from the simple perspective of "optics".

Congress was horrified by the ratification of James Madison's Salary Grab Amendment in 1992, and it briefly considered resisting its acceptance into the Constitution -- until congressional leadership took the optics into consideration. Congress knuckled under and issued a Joint Congressional Resolution welcoming the 27th Amendment into the Constitution.

While I would expect resistance from certain sectors of Congress, I don't see real resistance at calling an Amendments Convention. I fully expect Congress to attempt to regulate it, but even there I don't think they'll be able to make it stick. The organizers of the COS project are already anticipating that and occupying that territory.

Concerning a balanced budget, our money is a fiat debt instrument backed by our national debt. In a fiat money world, you have to constantly inflate -- or your money system dies. We inflate by constant war and expanded entitlements. If we paid off our national debt, the bits and bytes of money would disappear, and the FRN's in your wallet would be just worthless pieces of paper. If we were back on the gold standard, that standard would enforce the concepts of frugality and balanced budgets. However, the world under a gold standard is unforgiving, and things would have to become intolerable before people would be willing to endure its harsh discipline.

< “The ***parliamentary tool*** for this is a ***Joint Resolution*** of Congress, which requires a majority vote in each House”

Thanks for that but it does no dispel the assertion that there is no authority to do what you say they may do.

The words are ***shall*** not “Joint Resolution”.

“The Congress, ... on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, ***shall*** call a convention for proposing amendments”

Congress has no option other than to act as a secretary. If they are derelict, then a fall back is for the Judiciary to compel or authorize Ex Parte instructions to the National Archives which is the actual administrator for Constitutional Amendments.

The route is then for Archives to send the proposed amendments to all 50 states for ratification. Upon 38 states ratifying, the Archivist enters the ratified amendments into the historical record and distributes the ratified amendments to its group list, to include the Supreme Court of the United States. The SCOTUS has no option other than to treat the ratified amendments as part of the US Constitution.

Again I do not know who in the Hell is making up these “rules” but giving an inch of authority or procedural control to any entity outside the states is not going to happen.

I am not opposed to fixing the system.

However, the dangers involved with a constitutional convention and that is what this proposal is, are precipitous.

The individuals making the decisions about what needs to be fixed are the same people who broke the constitution in the first place.
Yet, it seems you expect them to suddenly realize that they are beholden to the people of the US; when, in truth, they do not consider themselves as such and would not care what the citizens want anyway.
you want a con-con to fix a single problem; but it will not stop there.

The danger I am pointing out is the danger of unintended consequences - one of which is that every American looses the protection of the Constitution, and once gone can be regained only through bloodshed.

You are correct to assert that the only way to control the politicians is to limit the power of the purse. I do not dispute that.
Your method of remedying the problem however, is ill-conceived.
the GOP is on the verge of breaking up; let it, a more conservative replacement will emerge.

I apologize if my opinion has caused a quarrel between us, that was not my intent.
Regards,
txnativegop

> “Concerning a balanced budget, our money is a fiat debt instrument backed by our national debt. In a fiat money world, you have to constantly inflate — or your money system dies. We inflate by constant war and expanded entitlements. If we paid off our national debt, the bits and bytes of money would disappear, and the FRN’s in your wallet would be just worthless pieces of paper. If we were back on the gold standard, that standard would enforce the concepts of frugality and balanced budgets. However, the world under a gold standard is unforgiving, and things would have to become intolerable before people would be willing to endure its harsh discipline”

That’s right but the issue is not to do away with fiat currency or the ability to inflate. The issue is the independent actions of the Fed apart from what Congress sees. The Fed only a few years ago came out of the shadows to admit that it would monetize debt for the US Government. There may have been sound reasons for doing so as there is and was undoubtedly a financial war being waged by Chinese government banking operatives (I am a witness).

But whatever the reasons, some monetizing of the debt was implemented by criminals in the banking system who took advantage. The off balance sheet activities of the fed exceed their US Government financing by 10-fold. Some members of Congress opened those books briefly and oddly they resigned from their long term elective offices within 2 years. I believe there is no coincidence in that.

Regardless of the bad characters involved, the Fed is an organization that can be and has been politicized, and can encroach on individual rights as well as be dangerous to the US Government and Americans in general.

Federal Reserve reform in the way of restrictions, controls and limitations is necessary in order to maintain anything else that COS facilitates.

Return to the gold standard is not an option. Maintaining the Full Faith and Credit basis is the way to go and that necessitates a strengthening of individual rights and freedoms which COS is facilitating. Strength of currency must be based on an attractive force, not a coercive one.

You are correct that Congress has a ministerial duty to call a convention and then butt out. That's what you mean by "secretary", I assume.

If you go back to all those posts on related threads about the history, you'll find one about how in 1967 Congress debated whether they could refuse to call a convention if a mere two more states petitioned for a convention to overturn Reynolds v. Sims, i.e. "One Man/One Vote". That debate was mooted in the Adam Clayton Powell case when the Supreme Court ordered the House to admit Powell. I would expect that if Congress were to attempt to manage the optics of the situation and defy the states, the state AG's would go to the Supreme Court and get it to order Congress to do its constitutional duty. To me, that would be a slam-dunk.

But you're missing one step in the process. The Archivist of the United States will send the fruits of an Amendments Convention to the states for ratification, but the intermediate step is for Congress to determine whether the states should ratify by state legislatures or state ratifying conventions. That decision will be made in a Joint Congressional Resolution that will be "wrapped around" the proposed Amendments as a parliamentary technique. Then the Archivist is free to send the amendment proposals out to the states for ratification.

When the Archivist certifies that an amendment is properly ratified, he sends a memorandum to Congress, and it is the duty of Congress to officially "accept" the ratified amendment into the Constitution. A Joint Congressional Resolution is the parliamentary tool used for this acceptance.

Congress balked in 1992 because it thought that the oldest ratifications of the 27th Amendment were "stale". The Archivist set them straight on that count, and then it became a matter of optics. Congress did its duty.

The Archivist is a collection and distribution point, but he acts upon certain actions taken by Congress. Those actions are merely congressional housekeeping, but they are a part of the process.

> “But you’re missing one step in the process. The Archivist of the United States will send the fruits of an Amendments Convention to the states for ratification, but the intermediate step is for Congress to determine whether the states should ratify by state legislatures or state ratifying conventions. That decision will be made in a Joint Congressional Resolution that will be “wrapped around” the proposed Amendments as a parliamentary technique. Then the Archivist is free to send the amendment proposals out to the states for ratification.”

You’re right I missed addressing that step. So there is some play in the situation whereby Congress can pull some monkey business. But Boehner would have to have sold his soul to delay the will of 38+ states; and that’s possible.

We are dealing with a lawless Executive and a complicit Congress. As Mark Levin said “One side is fundamentally changing (illegally) the United States and the other side is watching them do it”. I don’t think the Founders or any previous generation of American leaders foresaw what we see today.

Let’s hope the COS leadership is getting ready to take on Congressional duplicity when informing Congress to call the Convention.

And for those reading, the word ‘Convention’ does NOT mean ‘Consitutional Convention’. It means simply in the words of Mark Levin a ‘meeting’.

Let me give you all the steps that make up this entire process.

Both houses of a state legislature request an Amendments Convention via a joint legislative resolution to discuss a single topic, a list of topics, or a general convention open to all topics.
The Secretary of State of that state sends the resolution to Congress, which routes it to the office of the Archivist of the United States for safekeeping and tabulation.
The Archivist opens his Excel spreadsheet and tabulates that state's petition by row (state) and column (topic).
Once a minimum of 34 states requests an Amendments Convention for a particular topic, list of topics, or general convention open to all topics, the Archivist sends a memorandum to Congress notifying congressional leadership that the threshold for an Amendments Convention has been met.

In an ideal world, Congress will honor the Constitution by setting a time and place for the Amendments Convention, plus Congress will extract the wording of the topic (or topics) from the Archivist's memorandum and make that a part of the convention call. For example, a convention call would read something like, "The states shall assemble their delegates in convention on July 1, 2015, at the Corn Palace, in Mitchell, South Dakota, to propose amendments to redress the balance of powers between the federal government and the states."

It should be that simple. If Congress balks at calling a convention, state AG's would go to federal court. Thanks to the Powell decision, there is precedent for the Supreme Court to order Congress to take actions that are consistent with the Constitution.

If Congress attempts to follow the recommendations of the ABA Report and control the selection of delegates and the conduct of the convention, the state AG's will contest that in federal court as an overreach of the Supreme Court decisions in Dillon and Coleman. I expect the states to win.

Congress issues the convention call as a Joint Congressional Resolution, setting the time, place and subject(s). This resolution is communicated to the Archivist who in turn distributes it to the states via their respective Secretaries of State.
The state legislatures appoint delegates to go to the convention.
The delegates assemble, elect officers for the convention, and rules of procedure.
After vigorous debate, the convention produces zero, one, or more amendment proposals which are communicated to Congress, which routes them through the Archivist for safekeeping. The convention adjourns.
The Archivist sends a memorandum to Congress with the proposed amendments.
Congress makes the decision as to whether the states ratify by state legislatures or state ratifying conventions. A Joint Congressional Resolution is wrapped around the proposed amendments with ratification instructions, and the whole package is sent to the Archivist.
The Archivist distributes the packages to the states via their respective Secretaries of State.
The state legislatures vote up or down on ratification, or;
The states call special elections for a state ratifying convention where each district of the more numerous (lower) house of the state legislature elects a delegate who runs on the basis or whether he will vote up or down on ratification. The state ratifying convention meets, debates, votes up or down, and then adjourns.
If ratification occurs, the state's Secretary of State will communicate a Letter of Ratification to Congress, which will route it through the Archivist's office for safekeeping and tabulation.
The Archivist will open his Excel spreadsheet and tabulate the ratifications.
If a minimum of 38 states ratifies, the Archivist will send a memorandum to Congress notifying congressional leadership that there is a new amendment in the Constitution.
Congress will issue a Joint Congressional Resolution accepting the new amendment into the Constitution.
The Archivist will communicate that information to the Supreme Court, President, and the Secretaries of State of the various states.

It has a lot of steps, but each step is predicated on someone doing his job.

There is one other thing about an Amendments Convention that is critical, and that is its educational value.

First off, that first convention will set up the rules that act as precedent for future conventions.

The convention itself will be deadly serious, and I very much doubt that delegates from the 11 liberal states with Democratic legislatures will act in an obstructionist manner. The discussion will be serious, even passionate at times, but I expect complete decorum from everyone. The presiding officer of the convention will see to that.

C-SPAN will offer gavel-to-gavel coverage. The various news outlets will offer digests of daily proceedings with spin to their respective audiences.

The best analysis will occur on talk radio, with Mark Levin and Rush Limbaugh leading the pack. Limbaugh's daily opening monolog will be an analysis of the previous day's proceedings that will put most of the TV news outlets to shame. A brilliant move would be for Limbaugh to move his show to the location where the convention is held and interview delegates.

Once the naysayers have been proven wrong and the convention does its work in a sober manner, then Congress, the political parties, and the vested interests in this country will see that the people have found a way around them by way of the states. (I've pointed this out before.)

Once that first successful convention is out of the way, then I would expect the states to request Amendments Conventions for a variety of topics that Congress is too bought to handle.

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