Free Republic

By now you've heard about this week's decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court. Conservative Review's Daniel Horowitz sums them up well in a piece entitled, "Conservatives get massacred by fake 'conservative' SCOTUS": Within 35 minutes today at 10 a.m. Eastern, what some thought was the most conservative Supreme Court of all time concocted a fundamental right to transgenderism in the context of labor law, erased the Second Amendment, and interfered with a state death penalty case, but declined to interfere with a California law that criminalizes law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration agents. Taken in totality, the “conservative” legal movement,...

It’s easy to amend the Constitution. It’s been done dozens of times since WWII. Send the right case with the right litigants at the right time to an adequately Leftist-leaning Scotus and voila’, amend the Constitution. Pretty slick, eh? Through their silence, this is the end-run around the Constitution that Article V Opponents defend. When did We The People, through Article V, ensconce abortion and homosexual marriage as rights? We The People never empowered the early Administrative State and later the Deep State which threaten our republican existence. Since the 1950s we’ve witnessed the detrimental effects of Christianity’s absence from...

Little Rock, AR, February 14, 2019 – Convention of States Action, the largest Article V grassroots organization in the country, is pleased to announce that today Arkansas became the 13th state to call for an Article V convention to propose constitutional amendments that impose fiscal restraints on Washington, limit its power and jurisdiction, and set term limits for federal officials. “We are very excited that Arkansas has become the 13th state to pass the Convention of States resolution,” said Mark Meckler, President of Convention of States Action. “This success is the result of incredible grassroots effort in conjunction with great...

The Electoral College quickly became the left’s least favorite part of the American government after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. By 2017, gerrymandering in the House of Representatives was the cause celebre. In 2018, they’re still mad about both of these things—some people will always be mad about something—but the confirmation of two conservative judges to the Supreme Court has banked the fires of resentment even higher against another part of our constitutional structure: the U.S. Senate. NBC’s Ken Dilanian captured the mainstream media zeitgeist when he tweeted: "It may not happen in our lifetimes, but the idea that...

NEW YORK (AP) — Whatever success Republicans have amassed in taking control of all three branches of U.S. government, and whatever fate awaits them as midterm elections near, some on the right are working to cement change by amending the Constitution. And to the mounting alarm of others on all parts of the spectrum, they want to bypass the usual process. They’re pushing for an unprecedented Constitutional convention of the states. While opponents are afraid of what such a convention would do, supporters say it is the only way to deal with the federal government’s overreach and ineptitude. “They literally...

Full Title: Judge Andrew Napolitano Officially Endorses Convention of States to Chain Down the Federal Government. The Convention of States Project announces an endorsement from Judge Andrew Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst, Fox News Channel and author of nine books on the U.S. Constitution. Judge Andrew Napolitano says, “For generations, long before the Convention of States Project, I have joined many of my ideological and political friends in recognizing the need to call an Article V Convention. American history and human nature teach that Washington, D.C., will never actually restrain itself and restore the foundations of personal liberty that the Constitution...

It’s Time: There hasn’t been one since the earliest days of our founding, but conservatives — increasingly alarmed by creeping socialism, Left-wing courts, and Democratic efforts to overturn the 2016 election are now turning their attention more avidly towards a “constitutional convention.” In the days of the Tea Party movement, a book called “The Liberty Amendments” by constitutional scholar, author, talk host and former Reagan Justice Department official Mark Levin sparked a modern-day convention movement that would operate much as the first “con-con” which took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia. “I think we’re three or...

Jefferson City, Mo., June 28, 2018 – A Missouri court has handed the Convention of States Project a major victory. Cole County Circuit Judge Jon E. Beetem has ruled a constitutional challenge to Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 4 (SCR4) is without merit. The SCR4 lawsuit was filed in September 2017. It claimed the Missouri legislature failed to follow its state constitution when it passed the COS Article V Resolution in May 2017. SCR4 is the Missouri legislature’s application to Congress calling for a Convention of States for the sole purpose of proposing amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Calling a Convention...

On his nationally syndicated radio show last Friday, host Mark Levin said that if a Convention of the States does not happen, children today won’t recognize America for what it is in 50 years. Speaking about the Convention of the States on his Friday show, Levin stated, “It’s certainly not gonna happen tomorrow, certainly not gonna happen next year, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m telling you, in 50 years, your children will not recognize this country.” “We had a few calls last night, as I do often, asking, ‘Mark, where do we go with this? Where are we headed?...

Many threads here on FreeRepublic use one of the images I've made in support of a Convention Of States (COS). I'm reaching out to the mass mind here for any ideas Freepers have for pro-Article V graphics. Better yet would be to post some graphics of your own. If you are part of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) crowd please post somewhere else. I'm 100% behind the COS and you have little to zero chance of changing my mind.

Last week, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois slammed President Trump for using the term, “chain migration.” Like any good Leftist, Durbin never misses the opportunity, no matter how shallow and silly, to exploit racial cracks in our society. He asserted that chain migration conjured images of the white man’s past enslavement of blacks. I will take Durbin’s bait, but will look at slavery from the viewpoint of our Founding generation. Beginning in the 1640s, chattel slavery in English North America eased an agricultural labor shortage in the mid and southern colonies. While slavery was necessary to economic well-being, everyone recognized...

As of June 12th, the evolving senate still had no powers beyond those of the Confederation. Additional powers arrived after delegates determined its institutional shape and characteristics. At issue was the senate’s relationship with the lower house and the executive branch. Governor Randolph reminded the committee “the democratic licentiousness of the state legislatures proved the necessity of a firm senate.” The best model was the senate of Maryland, which consisted of fifteen members appointed to five-year terms by an electoral college of two electors from each county and one each from the cities of Baltimore and Annapolis. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_Senate] Yet, even...

In this series I will relate the debates at the Federal Convention surrounding the structure and responsibilities of the US Senate. We’ll find that the Framers assigned the new government its functions, beyond those of the Confederation Congress, after the convention determined the mode of senatorial elections and the number of senators per state. Like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, the structure and powers of the various pieces of government shaped, and were shaped by, the checks and balances between the three branches and the states. The shape of each piece influenced the shape of adjacent pieces. The pulling of...

THE I’s had been dotted; the T’s were crossed. The 55 delegates to America’s first and so-far-only constitutional convention had hammered out compromises on the separation of powers, apportionment of seats in the legislature and the future of the slave trade. But on September 15th 1787 George Mason, a plantation owner from Virginia, rose to his feet to object. Article V of the draft text laid out two paths by which future amendments could be proposed. Congress could either propose them itself, or it could summon a convention of representatives from the states to propose them. Mason warned that if...

Subtitle: The 15th Amendment. Recall from Parts I & II, and Article I § 2 of the Constitution, the states determine voter qualifications to the US Congress. From Parts III & IV, we saw that the late 1860s Congress differentiated between civil and political rights, and Congress did not regard the franchise as a civil right. Section 2 of the 14th Amendment prescribed the punishment for state discrimination against voting based on race. As opposed to civil rights, which everyone in America (citizen and non-citizen) has from the moment of conception, voting is a political right subject to Federal/State Constitutions...

In his remarks at the Henderson County public library, Mike Faulkenberry, state director of the N.C. Convention of States Project, asked a crowd of about 80 people whether they felt the federal government is “doing just a bang-up job.” None raised their hand to answer yes. He asked whether they felt the federal government gets carried away sometimes, but for the most part does pretty well in areas such as taxes and regulations, and again none answered yes. But when he asked who felt the federal government “is completely out of control,” hands went up across the room. The Convention...

(Hillary joins FreeRepublic Article V Opponents.) While making the rounds on her book tour, Hillary Clinton recently sat down with Vox’s Ezra Klein to discuss her failed presidential bid, President Trump, and the challenges currently faced by the Democrat minority. Among those challenges, Clinton warned, is a “radical change” being pursued by forces on the right: “There’s a big move for change coming from the right that I think would be disastrous for our country. They want radical, ‘pull ’em up by the roots’ change. They want to have a constitutional convention to rewrite our constitution, to make it friendlier...

Subtitle: Voting isn’t a civil right. It began as a simple clause in Article I § 2. Whoever votes for members to the most numerous house in a state legislature is likewise qualified to vote for representatives to the US House of Representatives. States indirectly determined the qualifications of electors to the US House. So, from the start of our Constitutional republic, the Framers and the ratifying states expected diversity in voter qualifications across the states. The state-level civil society determined the extent of the political right to vote. What wonderful simplicity and wisdom. This is federalism. Rather than make...

PHOENIX - The solid rap of a gavel falling at the Arizona State Capitol wasn't lost on the assembled 72 delegates from across the country. "It's pretty historic, really," Arizona State Rep. Don Shooter said. "I think it's the first time since 1861." Lawmakers and observers were in Phoenix for the Balanced Budget Amendment Planning Convention, the very first step in amending the US Constitution. The proposal would force the federal government to only spend the money it has. "This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue; this is an American issue, I think," Kansas State Rep. Blake Carpenter said. But can...

We have a great Constitution, and next Sunday, Sept. 17, we celebrate its 230th anniversary on “Constitution Day.” But which Constitution will we celebrate? Among the ingenious features of our national government’s operating manual are its separation and limitation of powers and its built-in checks and balances. But one often-overlooked virtue of our Constitution is its relative simplicity. Think about it: The blueprint for the most powerful nation on the planet can be easily published in a pocket-sized pamphlet that is lighter than a deck of cards and can be read and understood by the average citizen in the space...