Actually no. The courts have nothing to do with the convention process, and neither does Congress, other than exercising the ministerial duty of calling it, i.e. setting the time and place. If you check the various links I posted a month or so ago, you'll see. If a Convention of the States convened to address Subject X goes "free range" to address Subject Y, the safety valve is the requirement that 38 states ratify. Neither Congress nor the courts can legally step in.
I didn't mean to suggest that the Courts have a role in any of this, any more than Congress does. They are completely "out of the picture" while the "sausage is being made." And completely out of the picture of the ratification process, once the mode of ratification has been stipulated by Congress.
What I did mean was that, any constitutional amendment proposed and ratified in such an undisciplined, sloppy manner would be challenged in Court as having been passed and ratified in an unconstitutional manner. Thus deemed to be NOT a valid constitutional amendment, after the fact.
Do I worry about nothing here?
betty boop's point was that if the COS rules are agreed to talk about Subject X and not Subject Y, then the rules allow for the COS' elected presiding officers to quash any introduction of Subject Y and for members to raise enforcement of such matters in a point of order.
Here is the relevant rule:
Rule 12. A motion made and seconded, shall be repeated; and if written, as it shall be when any member shall so require, shall be read aloud by the secretary or transmitted to each commissioner’s pre-designated electronic device before it shall be debated. (16) No motion, other than a procedural motion, shall be in order unless germane to both the subject matter specified in the state applications on which Congress called the convention and to the subject matter specified in the convention call. (17)
where (17) refers to the following Endnote:
(17) This rule provides that a substantive motion is out of order unless germane to the subjects in the applications and call, whichever is narrower. Normally the subject matter of the applications and the call would be the same. In some cases, however, some of the 34 applications that trigger a convention on a particular subject might mention extraneous subjects. This language makes clear that the convention is to consider only subjects on which at least 34 applications agree, and which are therefore stated in the call.
Rule 3 also provides for enforcement of the rules of order. Should there be an attempted takeover by a faction that seeks to steer the COS to subjects that are not called by the COS, the sergeant-at-arms is empowered, under direction of the president, to secure the good order of the house.
The prospect of an uncontrolled COS is not possible under these rules of order.