Posted on 09/23/2015 1:42:37 PM PDT by Jacquerie
If I wanted to surreptitiously prevent an Article V State Amendments Convention, I would plant a seed in the media that state legislatures must submit to congress, identical or near identical applications that deal with a particular topic. For instance, should ten states apply to balance the national budget, and another ten applied to enact congressional term limits, while another ten sought repeal of the 17th Amendment, I would inform congress and the media that only ten of the required thirty-four (two-thirds) applications had been presented.
Obviously, this is an easy sell to congress; there is little reason for congress to be concerned when only ten applications are in the tally rather than thirty, which is uncomfortably close to thirty-four, the requirement in Article V.
If this strikes you as a normal and proper reaction from congress, that congress should rightly fear or do what it can to prevent a state amendments convention, then you’ve been dimwitted into believing the Uniparty apparatus should reign supreme over you and your state. It means you are uncomfortable with an earthly power above Obama, his trusty enablers John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and at least five gods from Harvard and Columbia Law Schools on the Supreme Court.
Article V speaks for itself. Congress shall call a “Convention for proposing amendments,” and not a convention for consideration of a single predetermined amendment or topic. For counting purposes, an application, no matter the wording, is like any other and must be tallied. In Federalist 85, Hamilton wrote " . . . national rulers, whenever nine states concur, will have no option on the subject. By the fifth Article of the Constitution, the Congress will be obliged on the application of two thirds of the States, to call a convention for proposing amendments . . . " "The words of this Article are peremptory. The Congress shall call a convention. Nothing in this particular is left to the discretion of that body." Oh.
Thus, there is no single topic requirement.
The convention has power to consider multiple issues and submit various amendments to the states. Subject matter to be considered is not the concern or control of congress or any court.
In an interview on C-Span’s Washington Journal on August 17th, Michael Farris of the Convention of States project said (1:30 to 3:00) that four single topic state applications (AK, AL, FL, GA) to limit the size and power of the national government have been recently submitted. Likewise, he acknowledged over four hundred existing total applications have never triggered a congressional call to convention. He also said the convention may consider any topic it wishes, which rather negates the point of identical applications. Congress is clearly, and institutionally hostile to the exercise of Article V by we the Sovereign People and states.
Consider this scenario: Let’s say the number of applications to a single topic approaches thirty. Is there any doubt that Uniparty operatives will work quietly in the background to offer carrots and sticks as necessary to the remaining state house speakers or senate majority leaders to prevent passage of further applications? When this happens, when less than 34 state legislatures apply, and no more are in the offing, count on the Uniparty and Leftist media to trumpet the wisdom of the people. They will boast that by refusing to let their states convene, it shows the people actually support Obama’s policies and the overall trend of the government. Should this occur, Obamunism will be cast in stone.
Further, and worse, such a scenario will set the precedent and future requirement for identical applications. The end result will be effective repeal of the state application process of Article V. We the People and states that created the national government in the first place will, for practical purposes, be denied a God given right to live under a government of our design.
By all means, if I wanted to abort the people/state Article V process, I would demand the states submit identical applications.
Suckers.
“Okay; I’m not a fan of state nullification.”
Uh yeh I think we all knew that. LOL! Why take the fast road when you can wait 25-30 years for an Article V Convention? Okay I get it. :-)
I would respectfully submit that an article 5 convention once enacted by the states, Congress has no choice, whatsoever they have to hold it.<.p> The good news is there 65 million guns outside of Washington DC. Which means for you non-chickensh!t cowards we win.
You might not be a fan of nullification, but the Founders were. In Federalist 32-36, Hamilton discusses taxation. In his view, the largest concern was the states squeezing out the national gov’t on taxes.
He conceded that the one situation where the feds could get an upper hand on states was if it could get an upper hand on taxation (the 16 amendment didn’t exist then, obviously). He did not think this could be the case (the feds besting the states in tax collection) because the states were closer to the people.
The Founders considered that the states would have an upper hand in these types of disputes. To the extent they were concerned, they were concerned the national gov’t would be too weak to hold its own.
You can call that nullification of you like. The Founders considered that the states would naturally hold such power over the feds. More to the point, they considered the states exercising that power as an essential element of creating a balance of power.
You’re right to suggest that the 16th Amendment represented a huge power change. I don’t know what the proponents were thinking was going to happen.
No such thing as a ConCon in article five.
Liberal is to Progressive as ConCon is to Art V.
You can change the words too reboot your case, but being annoyed about “ConCon” is a function of you wanting to control the language of the debate.
See below, where I’m seriously discussing the issue, I’ve used your term, “Art V”.
But for annoyance sake, I throw in ConCon every now and again.
From Federalist 45 (Madison). See how Madison submits that even in collecting taxes, the Founders foresaw that the states would have every advantage in confounding the national government:
“Within every district to which a federal collector would be allotted, there would not be less than thirty or forty, or even more, officers of different descriptions, and many of them persons of character and weight, whose influence would lie on the side of the State. The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government. The more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States. If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained. The powers relating to war and peace, armies and fleets, treaties and finance, with the other more considerable powers, are all vested in the existing Congress by the articles of Confederation. The proposed change does not enlarge these powers; it only substitutes a more effectual mode of administering them. The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them. Had the States complied punctually with the articles of Confederation, or could their compliance have been enforced by as peaceable means as may be used with success towards single persons, our past experience is very far from countenancing an opinion, that the State governments would have lost their constitutional powers, and have gradually undergone an entire consolidation. To maintain that such an event would have ensued, would be to say at once, that the existence of the State governments is incompatible with any system whatever that accomplishes the essential purposes of the Union.”
I do think, if they knew the end result, they’d have second thought this gem, “The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.”
Federalist 46 (Madison):
BTW, sounds a whole lot like an argument for nullification to me:
“should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole. The same combinations, in short, would result from an apprehension of the federal, as was produced by the dread of a foreign, yoke; and unless the projected innovations should be voluntarily renounced, the same appeal to a trial of force would be made in the one case as was made in the other. But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other.”
The statute says the delegates have to follow the directions of the general assembly. The same general assembly you just asserted would be unduly influenced by the establishment powers (I think you're right, BTW).
You seem to have a healthy skepticism about politics until the subject is an Article V convention. Then it's suddenly all founding fathers and unicorns.
Ran across a position on the 17th which argued:
“The 17th amendment supposedly amends Article 1 Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution, it does not amend Article 5, which prohibits taking the state’s right to equal suffrage in the senate via amendment and without the state’s expressed consent. As per Article 5, each individual state, all 50 of them, must consent to the 17th, and if only one state withdraws its consent, the 17th is automatically voided.
Article 5 ~ that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.” It doesn’t say, unless three fourths of the other states decide otherwise.”
We have one of two choices: tyranny or self-government.
As you demonstrate, the easy thing to do is kick back and accept slavery.
Buckeye, if the Congress ever DARED to set a one-day Convention in Nome on Christmas, just imagine the outrage that would engender! (Of course, using the words “dare” and “Congress” in the same sentence qualifies me as a comedy writer from the git-go!)
If they tried to pull such a stunt, the next call for a Convention would see 45 States issuing the cslll, not 34, and I dare say it would be all new Congresscritters voting on the measure because we would have hanged the treasonous lot of them.
It's not a fantasy to imagine that it will be serious believers who draft the proposals at the state level, who sponsor and shepherd the bill through the local legislative process, who help to select and even participate as the attendees / commissioners at the convention itself, thus rendering these individuals the least susceptible possible to the corruption some seem to believe is irresistible. You see, that's the whole point.
The "Identical Application" requirement is not a poison pill... it's a bright red line in the sand that, once crossed, leaves Congress no alternative. We just have to keep our heads down and get 'er done.
Ignore him... he’s a troll... once the threshold is met, Congress has the responsibility to call the convention, to name the date, time and place, but not the duration. Should they try such a tactic, a quickly-formed COS Executive Committee could open the proceedings when and where specified, then just as quickly adjourn to a more fitting time and location.
I hope you are right, but after more than 400 applications without a call to convention, I think I'm justifiably skeptical that congress will ever do its duty. Heck, in order to get around the 27th Amendment, congress put its pay on auto-pilot so it doesn't have to vote for pay raises.
For a sense of the Framers’ thoughts on the frequency of Article V conventions, I refer to Federalist 43. “It (Article V) guards equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable; and that extreme difficulty, which might perpetuate its discovered faults. It moreover, equally enables the general and the state governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by the experience on one side, or on the other.”
The horrid shame is that we haven't had any federal amendment conventions since 1787. We should have them regularly, if not every year. They would be terrific, “In your face” notification that the Sovereign People mean business.
Governor Faubus of Arkansas tried that when the federal courts ordered the integration of Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard, then called out the regular Army in case the Guard refused to follow federal orders.
The Feds can’t federalize local and state police. No need to involve the military or guard.
If a state decided to arrest any federal agent encroaching on its sovereignty, what could the Fed do? Federalist #46 addresses this exact scenario and ponders the wisdom of the Feds going to war with one of its states.
Now consider that most routine federal agents within a state will also be citizens of that state. A federal employee that is also a citizen of the state where he works will be especially sensitive to actions that might result in local criminal penalties. It will also force agents of the fed to examine their divided loyalties.
Read Federalist 46. A sovereign state must protect its sovereignty or its not really sovereign at all. Our founders understood, expected, and relied upon the fact that such disputes would be contentious. Power is never given, it’s taken.
This is why we are so furious with Congress. The People’s House has allowed the White House to neuter it just as the States have allowed the Feds to do the same.
It’s time for some pushback on both fronts. It’s time for Faubus to no longer be the relevant citation.
I disagree, that’s the way it should be otherwise it would just be another tool of chicanery. That each State should have the same near identical language for a specific or set of specific changes.
Otherwise we end up with an open ended convention changing willy nilly the things we love in spirit.
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