This is a draft of mine from those dark days before we became fixated on Ukraine…..
Or as we use to call this thing….a Constitutional Convention….
A Convention is the mechanism used to amend our US Constitution……or as some call it exercise the Article Five of the Constitution…..
For those that are ignorant of this article…..
Article V Convention, amendatory convention, or a convention of states, applied for by two-thirds (currently 34) of the state legislatures, is one of two processes authorized by Article Five of the United States Constitution whereby the United States Constitution may be altered. Amendments may also be proposed by Congress with a two-thirds vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate…..
Article V of the Constitution says how the Constitution can be amended—that is, how provisions can be added to the text of the Constitution. The Constitution is not easy to amend: only twenty-seven amendments have been added to the Constitution since it was adopted.
Article V spells out a few different ways in which the Constitution can be amended. One method—the one used for every amendment so far—is that Congress proposes an amendment to the states; the states must then decide whether to ratify the amendment. But in order for Congress to propose an amendment, two-thirds of each House of Congress must vote for it. And then three-quarters of the states must ratify the amendment before it is added to the Constitution. So if slightly more than one-third of the House of Representatives, or slightly more than one-third of the Senate, or thirteen out of the fifty states object to a proposal, it will not become an amendment by this route. In that way, a small minority of the country has the ability to prevent an amendment from being added to the Constitution.
Article V does potentially provide a way for the states to bypass Congress, although it has never been used. Article V says that “on the Application of two thirds of the Legislatures of the several States, [Congress] shall call a Convention for proposing amendments.” The convention can propose amendments, whether Congress approves of them or not. Those proposed amendments would then be sent to the states for ratification. As with an amendment proposed by Congress, three-quarters of the states would have to ratify the amendment for it to become part of the Constitution.
Article V also allows Congress to choose between two ways that the states might ratify an amendment. An amendment can be ratified by the state legislature—the part of the state government that enacts laws for the state. But Congress can provide instead that the states must call conventions for the single purpose of deciding whether to ratify an amendment. So far, though, with one exception (the Twenty-First Amendment), every amendment has been ratified by state legislatures.
Now the Civics lesson is over let’s move on…..
The last attempt to ratify was the Equal Rights Amendment…..and that was a clusterf*ck……
I have been saying for decades that we need a convention to clarify the Constitution…..the Founders did a helluva job in being vague which in my mind leads to all the confusion and chaos around our Constitution.
Let me return to the thought of the day……
The latest attempt to ratify is going to be the same chaotic mess as the ERA…..
Conservatives in states have put together a campaign of ratify the Constitution in their favor…..mostly it deals with money……
Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas, Missouri, Arkansas, Utah and Mississippi have also approved resolutions of their own.
It will take 34 states to trigger a Convention of the States. COS organizers said “momentum” is on their side.
For me there are several problems with this attempt by conservs……
Calling a Constitutional Convention is very dangerous. If Congress called a Constitutional Convention, or attempted
to do so, the country would be thrown into great turmoil, a period of extraordinary tension and deep anxiety, and
likely find itself quickly mired in momentous, lengthy legal and political battles of great consequence to the nation’s
future.
States cannot limit the agenda of a Constitutional Convention. A Constitutional Convention would open up the
Constitution to whatever amendments its delegates chose to propose, just as the convention that produced the current
Constitution ignored its original charge, to amend the Articles of Confederation, and instead wrote an entirely new
governing document.
A balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution would be a highly ill-advised way to address the nation’s longterm fiscal problems. By requiring a balanced budget every year, no matter the state of the economy, such an
amendment would raise serious risks of tipping weak economies into recession and making recessions longer and
deeper, causing very large job losses. That’s because the amendment would force policymakers to cut spending, raise
taxes, or both just when the economy is weak or already in recession — the exact opposite of what good economic
policy would advise.
This is just another attempt to exclude portions of our society from the government….a typical conserv ploy that goes back for decades…..the same trivial games these conservs always play.
I say if you call for a convention then the attempt should be made to clarify all the vagueness in the Constitution….not pick and choose what will be addressed.
Any thoughts?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
