When it comes to applications for a convention to address a balanced budget amendment alone, it gets a little more complicated.
For decades, Congress has passed the duty of tabulating applications to the Office of the Archivist of the United States. Likewise, the Archivist has been in charge of tabulating ratifications of constitutional amendments. Recently, thanks to the work of Rep. Stivers, the Clerk of the House of Representatives is now also in the loop regarding applications for an Article V Convention. This came about for two reasons. First was Mark Levin's effort. The second was the confusion over the applications for a convention to consider a balanced budget amendment alone.
Last year, a preliminary count from the Archivist showed that we had reached the magic number of 34 for a Convention of the States to consider a balanced budget amendment. However, a goodly number of states later rescinded their applications, and after that, a number of states that had rescinded later went and issued new applications. The Speaker of the House sent a letter to the Archivist asking for an audit of applications with the assistance of House legal counsel.
The audit showed that there were actually 26 valid, current applications from the states for a convention to consider a balanced budget amendment. This year, two more states piled on, increasing that number to 28. There are 6 to go to reach the two thirds threshold.
The 4 applications for the Levin/ALEC effort are not being aggregated with the 28 applications for a convention for a balanced budget amendment, even though there is a certain commonality of language. The Archivist is tabulating these two efforts in two separate columns.
The good news is that if the Levin/ALEC effort eventually gets 34 states to apply, the resulting convention would be authorized to discuss a balanced budget amendment as part of the "fiscal restraint" clause of the Georgia application. The "power and jurisdiction" clause would open up amendments to establish a procedure for state nullification, trim the ability of unelected bureaucrats and judges to write law, and remove the 17th Amendment. The "term limits" clause speaks for itself.
This is sound legal language to establish the convention's purview that leaves the states a lot of options to put the federal entity back into the constitutional prison that Madison designed for it. It's better and more inclusive than the simple language for a balanced budget amendment to which many states have already signed on.
Whatta surprise.
But I am very heartened by this:
The good news is that if the Levin/ALEC effort eventually gets 34 states to apply, the resulting convention would be authorized to discuss a balanced budget amendment as part of the "fiscal restraint" clause of the Georgia application. The "power and jurisdiction" clause would open up amendments to establish a procedure for state nullification, trim the ability of unelected bureaucrats and judges to write law, and remove the 17th Amendment. The "term limits" clause speaks for itself.Well, it seems to me all those states applying for a COS geared toward proposing a balanced-budget amendment might do best by rescinding their narrowly-focused original applications, and get on-board with the Levin/ALEC effort. The latter, if successful, would certainly address their balanced-budget concerns.
Plus it would give them the chance to weigh in on the other principal matters of the Levin/ALEC proposal: (1) remediating profound distortions in the distribution of "power and jurisdiction" of the federal v. state governments (definitely including the courts), so drastically departed from the Framers' Constitution; (2) term limits of federal office-holders, whether elected or appointed; (3) repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, which relates to (1).
Thank you ever so much, dear Publius, for yet another illuminating essay/post!