Very good analysis; actually quite good. Certainly losing suffrage of state legislatures to Congress was a contributor and in my view a critical factor. Influence in the Senate can reverse all the abuses you cite above, even those abuses committed by the judiciary as the Senate has a role in confirming judges and in setting budgets and numbers throughout the judiciary.
Today we have hindsight and we also have Mark Levin’s excellent suggestions for amendments. We also have the excellent members that drive the COS Project and we have ALEC, all of which are quite valuable.
As for Article V, it may be a challenge for people to even find out who their state legislators are but one must do needs to be done and send the state legislators the below amendment proposal. We can be assured that state legislators will like it very much because it’s right up their alley, it’s natural for them with virtually no state level political repercussions.
Here’s what they need to propose as an amendment to the Constitution:
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To redress the balance of powers between the federal government and the States and to restore effective suffrage of State Legislatures to Congress, the following amendment is proposed:
AMENDMENT XXVIII
Section 1.
A Senator in Congress shall be subject to recall by their respective state legislature or by voter referendum in their respective state.
Section 2.
Upon a majority vote in two-thirds of state legislatures, federal statutes and federal court decisions shall be overridden.
Section 3.
Term limits for Senators in Congress shall be set by vote in their respective state legislatures but in no case shall be set less than twelve years.
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If Section 1 above is replaced with a repeal of the 17th Amendment, that may be even better but it may be a hard sale. Recalling US Senators gets the job done for state legislatures and it also requires interaction with the voters as they retain the right to vote for their US Senator.
With the above amendment, there would be no Obamacare, no same-sex marriage nonsense, no Executive Amnesty and so on. Most of the social issue tyranny would go away. And with Section 2. above, all of the abuses you cite could be deliberated and overridden.
This is a form of state nullification but it is critically missing the limitation that states ONLY reject UNCONSTITUTIONAL federal acts. Otherwise that state act and that amendment violates the Supremacy Clause. The rejected federal statutes and court decisions must be deemed UNCONSTITUTIONAL by a good-faith effort by the state legislature or court to apply the original text, intent and understanding of the Constitution.
However, valid state nullification is ALREADY a power of the state. As the Ninth and Tenth Amendments confirm, any power not granted by the Constitution to the feds or prohibited by it from the states, belongs to the state and the people. There is nothing prohibiting the states from BEGINNING IMMEDIATELY to nullify unconstitutional federal acts and decisions. Arizona has just passed such legislation allowing the state to nullify unconstitutional federal acts.
Even though valid state nullification needs no constitutional amendment, an amendment wouldn't hurt as a confirmation of that right which is exactly what the first Ten Amendments do. So, like the first Ten Amendments, the wording should start with something like, "Congress or the federal government shall not abridge the right of a state..."
We must get the Constitution into the center of any national political discussion because it is the Law of the Land, our Rule of Law, the only legal protection of our freedoms and free way of life. If WE the people do not preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, nobody else will, certainly not the government who hates the limitations of the anti-government Constitution.