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Heritage Foundation Engages Article V -But What About the Six Founder Quotes? February 22, 2016 | Nick Dranias
In a very neutral piece covering the Article V movement generally, the Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm recently spotlighted the Balanced Budget Compact effort! You can read it here.
Overall, the policy brief is carefully crafted to please and offend no one. It is a view of the state-initiated constitutional amendment movement from "Olympus."
Significantly, to maintain that vantage point, Heritage offers no discussion of the Six Founder Quotes, discussed below, that unequivocally vindicate state control over an Article V convention through the call-triggering application.
But this omission is actually fortuitous. It positions Heritage Foundation to serve in a very important role: as neutral arbiter. In this role, Heritage could finally force a real debate and discussion of the original meaning and purpose of Article V among both opponents and supporters.
We urge Heritage to seize the day.
And to start that debate, we lay down a challenge to Professor Michael Paulsen, as well as the good and honest people at Eagle Forum and John Birch Society, to address what they never address in their attacks on efforts to organize the states to use their power to propose amendments by convention. We also challenge our fellow travelers in the Article V movement who prefer organizing a convention without any specific amendment in mind to grapple with the Six Founder Quotes as well.
Specifically, we dare them to explain how the following Six Founder Quotes are consistent with a view that an Article V convention was meant to be uncontrolled by the states' call-triggering "application" or that the application cannot limit the deliberations of the convention to one or more specific amendments:
They never do.
But it is easy for Compact for America to do this. As discussed in A Guidebook for Deploying Article V as the Founders Actually Intended: The Application & Convention Mode of Proposing Amendments, the Six Founder Quotes confirm that Article V means:
In other words, we take the Six Founder Quotes seriously.
The question, laid on the table, is: Who else does?
If you want to support the only Article V effort that appears to take the Six Founder Quotes seriously, please consider a donation!
Source; http://www.compactforamerica.org/#!Heritage-Foundation-Engages-Article-V-But-What-About-the-Six-Founder-Quotes/c213a/56c9e1c50cf24743244c1c4d
Overall, the policy brief is carefully crafted to please and offend no one. It is a view of the state-initiated constitutional amendment movement from "Olympus."
Significantly, to maintain that vantage point, Heritage offers no discussion of the Six Founder Quotes, discussed below, that unequivocally vindicate state control over an Article V convention through the call-triggering application.
But this omission is actually fortuitous. It positions Heritage Foundation to serve in a very important role: as neutral arbiter. In this role, Heritage could finally force a real debate and discussion of the original meaning and purpose of Article V among both opponents and supporters.
We urge Heritage to seize the day.
And to start that debate, we lay down a challenge to Professor Michael Paulsen, as well as the good and honest people at Eagle Forum and John Birch Society, to address what they never address in their attacks on efforts to organize the states to use their power to propose amendments by convention. We also challenge our fellow travelers in the Article V movement who prefer organizing a convention without any specific amendment in mind to grapple with the Six Founder Quotes as well.
Specifically, we dare them to explain how the following Six Founder Quotes are consistent with a view that an Article V convention was meant to be uncontrolled by the states' call-triggering "application" or that the application cannot limit the deliberations of the convention to one or more specific amendments:
- Federalist law professor George Nicholas’ June 6, 1788 statement at the Virginia convention that state legislatures would apply for an Article V convention confined to a “few points;” and that “it is natural to conclude that those States who will apply for calling the Convention, will concur in the ratification of the proposed amendments.” Notice how Nicholas’ conclusion is only “natural” with the expectation that the states would typically organize a convention with a narrow and preset agenda, and only after first agreeing on one or more amendments specified in their Article V application.
- Political economist and Virginia delegate Tench Coxe’s representations on June 11, 1788 that: “If two thirds of those legislatures require it, Congress must call a general convention, even though they dislike the proposed amendments, and if three fourths of the state legislatures or conventions approve such proposed amendments, they become an actual and binding part of the constitution, without any possible interference of Congress.” Coxe further explained, “[t]hree fourths of the states concurring will ensure any amendments, after the adoption of nine or more.” Notice that these statements clearly indicate that two-thirds of the states would specify and agree on the desired amendments in their Article V application.
- James Madison’s representation in Federalist No. 43 that the power of "state governments" to originate amendments is equal to that of the "national" government, which could only be true if the Article V application had the power to specify and target the convention to desired amendments.
- Alexander Hamilton’s representations in Federalist No. 85 that all amendment proposals under Article V, logically including even those originated by the states, would be brought forth without “give or take” and “singly;” that “nine” states [two-thirds] would effect “alterations,” that “nine” states would effect “subsequent amendment” by setting “on foot the measure,” and that we can rely on state “legislatures” to erect barriers. These statements all anticipate the amendment-specifying power of an Article V application, which alone is entirely controlled by two-thirds of the states through their legislatures; as well as a narrow and preset agenda for an Article V convention.
- George Washington’s representation in his 1788 letter to John Armstrong that “nine states” can get the amendments they desire, which indicates that two-thirds of the states would specify the desired amendments in their Article V application and target the convention agenda accordingly.
- James Madison’s 1799 Report on the Virginia Resolutions, which observed that the states could organize an Article V convention for the “object” of declaring the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional. Specifically, after highlighting that “Legislatures of the States have a right also to originate amendments to the Constitution, by a concurrence of two-thirds of the whole number, in applications to Congress for the purpose,” Madison wrote both that the states could ask their senators to propose an “explanatory amendment” clarifying that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional, and also that two-thirds of the Legislatures of the states “might, by an application to Congress, have obtained a Convention for the same object.” Again, the Application is the stated source of the desired amendment, and the anticipation is that Article V would be targeted to a specific amendment, not a drafting convention with a broad agenda.
They never do.
But it is easy for Compact for America to do this. As discussed in A Guidebook for Deploying Article V as the Founders Actually Intended: The Application & Convention Mode of Proposing Amendments, the Six Founder Quotes confirm that Article V means:
- two-thirds of the states jointly petition, i.e. join in an "Application," through their legislatures for one or more amendments to be proposed by a meeting of state representatives called a "convention;"
- Congress must call the convention in response to the states' petition; and
- the convention's authority is limited to the specific requests made in the states' petition.
In other words, we take the Six Founder Quotes seriously.
The question, laid on the table, is: Who else does?
If you want to support the only Article V effort that appears to take the Six Founder Quotes seriously, please consider a donation!
Source; http://www.compactforamerica.org/#!Heritage-Foundation-Engages-Article-V-But-What-About-the-Six-Founder-Quotes/c213a/56c9e1c50cf24743244c1c4d
Article V: The Real Deal Recap
Thank you for participating in our Tele-Townhall series, Article V: The Real Deal. We had a fantastic time interacting with patriots across the country, and we hope to do it again soon!
You can download all three parts below by clicking on the links below.
Part I – Before the Convention: Mythbusting
Michael Farris, head of the COS Project, kicked things off on February 3 by doing some myth busting. A number of objections have been raised against a Convention of States, and Michael responded to many of them.
Download the entire recording here.
Part II – During the Convention: We Know the Rules
Prof. Rob Natelson, leading expert on Article V, explained how a Convention of States would operate based on previous interstate conventions as well as legal precedent. He also addressed how amendments will be ratified.
Download the entire recording here.
Part III – After the Convention: A Vision for the Future
Finally, on February 20 at 8pm EST, Mark Meckler, President and Founder of Citizen’s for Self-Governance, painted a picture of America after we hold a Convention of States.
Download the entire recording here.
We reached an important milestone this week, and it's all thanks to our fantastic volunteers. Here's what happened:
Georgia became the first state to pass the Convention of States application through both houses.
Arizona is close behind, but we need your help to secure a victory in the Arizona House.
We want to equip our volunteers to follow Georgia's lead, so we've published answers to common Convention of States questions.
As well as a guide to the legislative process.
You can also read inspirational stories of patriots across the country by signing up for our new email series "Making History…One Citizen at a Time."
That's precisely what you're doing—making history. Future generations will look back and remember this movement. Thanks for taking a stand.
- COS Project Team
The Convention of States Project is a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
You can download all three parts below by clicking on the links below.
Part I – Before the Convention: Mythbusting
Michael Farris, head of the COS Project, kicked things off on February 3 by doing some myth busting. A number of objections have been raised against a Convention of States, and Michael responded to many of them.
Download the entire recording here.
Part II – During the Convention: We Know the Rules
Prof. Rob Natelson, leading expert on Article V, explained how a Convention of States would operate based on previous interstate conventions as well as legal precedent. He also addressed how amendments will be ratified.
Download the entire recording here.
Part III – After the Convention: A Vision for the Future
Finally, on February 20 at 8pm EST, Mark Meckler, President and Founder of Citizen’s for Self-Governance, painted a picture of America after we hold a Convention of States.
Download the entire recording here.
We reached an important milestone this week, and it's all thanks to our fantastic volunteers. Here's what happened:
Georgia became the first state to pass the Convention of States application through both houses.
Arizona is close behind, but we need your help to secure a victory in the Arizona House.
We want to equip our volunteers to follow Georgia's lead, so we've published answers to common Convention of States questions.
As well as a guide to the legislative process.
You can also read inspirational stories of patriots across the country by signing up for our new email series "Making History…One Citizen at a Time."
That's precisely what you're doing—making history. Future generations will look back and remember this movement. Thanks for taking a stand.
- COS Project Team
The Convention of States Project is a project of Citizens for Self-Governance.
DO WE EVEN KNOW?
Internet sites seem to have become social groups that have coalesced around a few ideas that the members can agree upon. Most are now into bashing this candidate or that candidate for reason ranging from not being conservative enough to being too conservative.
Many ideas are worthy of exploration but those that are settled and no court or Congress will reverse would seem to be a waste of time and energy. No good will come of these endless reverberations only a continuous drum beat . . . bam bam bam.
The next groups are those that want to Beat up RINOs and leave Democrats alone to do as they please. This has resulted in Obama’s election and reelection. One group would not vote for a Mormon and they stayed home. The next group claims to be Libertarian of Independent and insist on the candidate to represent 100% of their view point or they will vote third party.
It appears that the last chance to keep the Republic might be the many State Legislatures and the Attorney Generals. It is clear that most people feel there are just too many laws and no one is following them. The US Attorney General selectively enforces them as he pleases which then teaches the public that ignoring the laws you do not like is OK.
When the general public decides that the law is not fair they will just ignore that law. This is the case with income tax which millions ignore by operating with cash only. Others function in an undisclosed barter system. This further brakes down the fabric of our governments at the State and local levels as these actions avoid sales taxes.
This rejection of taxes is taking the Federal government and the States down the debt stairs to failure – if a tax is not applied equally to all then it will be rejected by many. Do you think that service people declare all of their tip income? Do you think that flea markets pay sales tax? Do you think that gardeners declare their income? How about home repair people or painters?
No the tax system is voluntary and has collapsed and vast numbers of people have just said no. The IRS cannot go after these folks there are just too many and taking them to court is impossible. The juries do not like the IRS and Nullify many cases. So, the IRS does not take many cases to court as if it get around that juries Nullify amounts owed then more will drop out.
These that drop out and enter the underground economy are growing each year. Now add in that the IRS now has to collect the Obamacare fines the end seems to appear close to the tipping point.
The Federal government is broke and soon will be unable to fund the bribe grants they use to control the State and local governments. When this happens America will see a rapid reduction in our Standard of Living and a true economic collapse will occur.
Our super rich are using their feet to move wealth out of America and in many cases they are giving up their American citizenship to avoid wealth confiscation with super high taxes and a 55% inheritance tax. Like the Corporation have already done they go offshore to tax havens and avoid any taxes through legal methods. One for Corporation is called the double Dutch and the double Irish where all profits move to countries with no tax.
If we are honest and look at the situation in the real context of equality of payment then we must admit our tax and spending at all levels is out of kilter and will tip over very soon. The only solution might be the “Invisible hand” of Adam Smith – a rapid growing “FREE ENTERPRISE ECONOMY” without Federal Regulations and Rules.
Our economy must return to a very limited permit and license [tax, fee] structure where one can open a business in 10 days or less.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." ~ James Madison
Many ideas are worthy of exploration but those that are settled and no court or Congress will reverse would seem to be a waste of time and energy. No good will come of these endless reverberations only a continuous drum beat . . . bam bam bam.
The next groups are those that want to Beat up RINOs and leave Democrats alone to do as they please. This has resulted in Obama’s election and reelection. One group would not vote for a Mormon and they stayed home. The next group claims to be Libertarian of Independent and insist on the candidate to represent 100% of their view point or they will vote third party.
It appears that the last chance to keep the Republic might be the many State Legislatures and the Attorney Generals. It is clear that most people feel there are just too many laws and no one is following them. The US Attorney General selectively enforces them as he pleases which then teaches the public that ignoring the laws you do not like is OK.
When the general public decides that the law is not fair they will just ignore that law. This is the case with income tax which millions ignore by operating with cash only. Others function in an undisclosed barter system. This further brakes down the fabric of our governments at the State and local levels as these actions avoid sales taxes.
This rejection of taxes is taking the Federal government and the States down the debt stairs to failure – if a tax is not applied equally to all then it will be rejected by many. Do you think that service people declare all of their tip income? Do you think that flea markets pay sales tax? Do you think that gardeners declare their income? How about home repair people or painters?
No the tax system is voluntary and has collapsed and vast numbers of people have just said no. The IRS cannot go after these folks there are just too many and taking them to court is impossible. The juries do not like the IRS and Nullify many cases. So, the IRS does not take many cases to court as if it get around that juries Nullify amounts owed then more will drop out.
These that drop out and enter the underground economy are growing each year. Now add in that the IRS now has to collect the Obamacare fines the end seems to appear close to the tipping point.
The Federal government is broke and soon will be unable to fund the bribe grants they use to control the State and local governments. When this happens America will see a rapid reduction in our Standard of Living and a true economic collapse will occur.
Our super rich are using their feet to move wealth out of America and in many cases they are giving up their American citizenship to avoid wealth confiscation with super high taxes and a 55% inheritance tax. Like the Corporation have already done they go offshore to tax havens and avoid any taxes through legal methods. One for Corporation is called the double Dutch and the double Irish where all profits move to countries with no tax.
If we are honest and look at the situation in the real context of equality of payment then we must admit our tax and spending at all levels is out of kilter and will tip over very soon. The only solution might be the “Invisible hand” of Adam Smith – a rapid growing “FREE ENTERPRISE ECONOMY” without Federal Regulations and Rules.
Our economy must return to a very limited permit and license [tax, fee] structure where one can open a business in 10 days or less.
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." ~ James Madison
15 Nullification bills advance
From East to West. From left to right. Bills to nullify march onward!
In just the past week, we've seen at least 15 state bills advance at various stages of the legislative process. And while all of these bills have a long way to go if they are to become law, we've seen more success this year than any in our history at TAC.
Thanks to the great work and support of you, our Tenther Community - we're getting things done on NSA, gun control, drones, farming, agenda 21, common core and more.
** Scroll down for a list of the latest bills to move forward **
It's working. We're more aggressive with outreach this year, spending from $50-$500 per bill on very targeted online ad campaigns to reach new people in support of the bills. This has helped us generate thousands of phone calls asking for YES votes on specific bills - by people who live in the state of that legislation. Where we have team members available to dedicate time to passing a bill and some finances available to back it - we're seeing those bills pass.
Want to support a specific bill? Anywhere in the country. You name it.
1. Make a contribution here - http://rally.org/tenthamendmentcenter
2. Email us at info@tenthamendmentcenter.com Name the bill, the state, and the amount of your contribution. We'll dedicate that 100% towards ad campaigns to help that bill pass.
*If you want to see more bills, you can find them in our tracking center HERE.
** Please read and share as many of these reports as possible **
Idaho senate votes to nullify any new federal gun control measures
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/idaho-bill-nullifies-any-future-federal-gun-laws/
Arizona Senate Passes Bill to Authorize Gold and Silver as Legal Tender, 18-12
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-senate-passes-bill-to-authorize-gold-and-silver-as-legal-tender-18-12/
Washington State house votes to nullify federal hemp ban, 97-0
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/washington-state-house-votes-to-nullify-federal-hemp-ban-97-0/
Bill Nullifying Agenda 21 Passes Kentucky Senate 32-5
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/bill-nullifying-agenda-21-passes-kentucky-senate-32-5/
West Virginia house votes to nullify federal hemp ban, 88-8
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/west-virginia-house-votes-to-nullify-federal-hemp-ban-88-8/
Wisconsin Senate Passes Anti-Drone Bill
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/wisconsin-senate-passes-anti-drone-bill/
Washington State house passes anti-drone bill, 83-15
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/washington-state-house-passes-anti-drone-bill-83-15/
Missouri Senate Votes to Nullify Federal Gun Control, 23-10
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/20/missouri-senate-votes-to-nullify-federal-gun-control-23-10/
Arizona Bill to Nullify Common Core Passes Out of Committee and moves to Full Senate
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-bill-to-nullify-common-core-passes-out-of-committee-and-moves-to-full-senate/
Arizona 4th Amendment Protection Act passes committee, full senate vote next
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-4th-amendment-protection-act-passes-committee-full-senate-vote-next/
Arizona senate committee votes to nullify federal gun control, full senate vote next
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-sen-committee-votes-to-nullify-federal-gun-control-full-senate-vote-next/
In just the past week, we've seen at least 15 state bills advance at various stages of the legislative process. And while all of these bills have a long way to go if they are to become law, we've seen more success this year than any in our history at TAC.
Thanks to the great work and support of you, our Tenther Community - we're getting things done on NSA, gun control, drones, farming, agenda 21, common core and more.
** Scroll down for a list of the latest bills to move forward **
It's working. We're more aggressive with outreach this year, spending from $50-$500 per bill on very targeted online ad campaigns to reach new people in support of the bills. This has helped us generate thousands of phone calls asking for YES votes on specific bills - by people who live in the state of that legislation. Where we have team members available to dedicate time to passing a bill and some finances available to back it - we're seeing those bills pass.
Want to support a specific bill? Anywhere in the country. You name it.
1. Make a contribution here - http://rally.org/tenthamendmentcenter
2. Email us at info@tenthamendmentcenter.com Name the bill, the state, and the amount of your contribution. We'll dedicate that 100% towards ad campaigns to help that bill pass.
*If you want to see more bills, you can find them in our tracking center HERE.
** Please read and share as many of these reports as possible **
Idaho senate votes to nullify any new federal gun control measures
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/idaho-bill-nullifies-any-future-federal-gun-laws/
Arizona Senate Passes Bill to Authorize Gold and Silver as Legal Tender, 18-12
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-senate-passes-bill-to-authorize-gold-and-silver-as-legal-tender-18-12/
Washington State house votes to nullify federal hemp ban, 97-0
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/washington-state-house-votes-to-nullify-federal-hemp-ban-97-0/
Bill Nullifying Agenda 21 Passes Kentucky Senate 32-5
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/bill-nullifying-agenda-21-passes-kentucky-senate-32-5/
West Virginia house votes to nullify federal hemp ban, 88-8
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/west-virginia-house-votes-to-nullify-federal-hemp-ban-88-8/
Wisconsin Senate Passes Anti-Drone Bill
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/wisconsin-senate-passes-anti-drone-bill/
Washington State house passes anti-drone bill, 83-15
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/washington-state-house-passes-anti-drone-bill-83-15/
Missouri Senate Votes to Nullify Federal Gun Control, 23-10
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/20/missouri-senate-votes-to-nullify-federal-gun-control-23-10/
Arizona Bill to Nullify Common Core Passes Out of Committee and moves to Full Senate
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-bill-to-nullify-common-core-passes-out-of-committee-and-moves-to-full-senate/
Arizona 4th Amendment Protection Act passes committee, full senate vote next
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-4th-amendment-protection-act-passes-committee-full-senate-vote-next/
Arizona senate committee votes to nullify federal gun control, full senate vote next
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/02/arizona-sen-committee-votes-to-nullify-federal-gun-control-full-senate-vote-next/
TEAPARTYPATRIOTS.ORG SYMPOSIUM
The Tea Party Patriots just wrapped up a 4 week symposium on Article V. They presented it at the request of many of their members for information about Article V. Here are the links to their site and the 4 installments for your information. Each presentation is about one hour long.
We appreciate their interest and the opportunity that they have given to the interested public.
We thank them for their work and effort.
Introduction from their site and the links.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution outlines two methods for amending the Constitution. The first method allows for Congress to originate an amendment and the second provides for a convention of the states. The second method has never been used. The founders specifically provided that method to allow the people and the states the ability to reign in an over reaching federal government. However, there are some fears and some dangers to an Article V amending convention.
Is today’s federal tyranny demanding that we bring the government back within its constitutional limits? Does that need now outweigh the fears and dangers of an amending convention? Did the Founders provide us with the remedy in Article V? These questions need serious consideration. Tea Party Patriot’s Article V Symposium will tackle those questions by discussing the historical context of Article V, including the historical pros and cons. We will also discuss the current pros and cons and proposed amendments that are being promoted by various pro-convention groups.
Join us for this discussion to become well informed about this very important issue permeating our political discussions. The schedule is as follows:
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week1/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week2/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week3/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week4/
We appreciate their interest and the opportunity that they have given to the interested public.
We thank them for their work and effort.
Introduction from their site and the links.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution outlines two methods for amending the Constitution. The first method allows for Congress to originate an amendment and the second provides for a convention of the states. The second method has never been used. The founders specifically provided that method to allow the people and the states the ability to reign in an over reaching federal government. However, there are some fears and some dangers to an Article V amending convention.
Is today’s federal tyranny demanding that we bring the government back within its constitutional limits? Does that need now outweigh the fears and dangers of an amending convention? Did the Founders provide us with the remedy in Article V? These questions need serious consideration. Tea Party Patriot’s Article V Symposium will tackle those questions by discussing the historical context of Article V, including the historical pros and cons. We will also discuss the current pros and cons and proposed amendments that are being promoted by various pro-convention groups.
Join us for this discussion to become well informed about this very important issue permeating our political discussions. The schedule is as follows:
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week1/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week2/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week3/
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/article-v-symposium/week4/
This is our old friend the State Senator - http://restoringfreedom.org/ NATIONAL DEBT RELIEF BILL
Legal Brief: The Compact for America’s laser-focused Article V convention is clearly constitutional
February 22, 2013
By Nick Dranias, esq., Director of Policy Development and Constitutional Government – The Goldwater Institute[1]
This memorandum furnishes a scholarly explanation as to why the Compact for America’s limitations on an Article V convention would be constitutional and enforceable.
Overview of the Compact for America
A legal analysis of the Compact for America (“CFA”) first requires a “50,000 foot” view of its structure and the constitutional amendment process it sets in motion. The CFA is an agreement among the states to advance a single, specific, and pre-drafted Balanced Budget Amendment (“BBA”) using their sovereign power under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which authorizes states to originate constitutional amendments by applying to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. In the absence of the CFA approach, the ordinary “plain vanilla” amendment-by-convention process under Article V would have no fewer than five essential state and federal legislative components—an “application” for a convention that would require passage by 34 state legislatures, a convention “call” that would require passage by Congress, convention delegate appointment and instruction legislation by at least 26 states, a “referral” of any amendment proposed by the convention that would require passage by Congress, and a “ratification” that would require passage by legislatures or conventions in at least 38 states. By contrast, the CFA has only two essential legislative components—the state compact and a counterpart congressional omnibus concurrent resolution.
The states, through their legislatures and governors each of which has deliberated over the wording and impact of both the compact and BBA and subsequently signed the compact into law in their respective states, have determined in advance that they are in agreement that the BBA is necessary, and because time is of the essence, that the BBA is the only amendment that will be considered and proposed in this particular amendment effort. Accordingly, the CFA is designed to greatly simplify the otherwise unwieldy amendment-by-convention process that heretofore has been unsuccessful. It does this by consolidating into the state compact all of the legislation involved in the Article V process that states control—from the application to Congress, to delegate appointments (the state governors are the sole delegates) and delegate instructions (limit the convention agenda to the up/down vote on the BBA), to the selection of the convention location and rules, to the ultimate ratification of the BBA. It then consolidates all of the congressional legislation involved in the Article V process—both the call for the convention and the ratification referral—into a single omnibus concurrent resolution that in itself incorporates the terms and provisions of the interstate compact. Thus, by consolidating the entire Article V process into these 2 pieces of intertwined legislation – the state legislation adopting the Compact and the federal legislation adopting the omnibus concurrent resolution – all of the stakeholders involved, including the people through their elected state legislators, the state legislature bodies, the governors who will serve as the delegates, and the U.S. Congress will have all agreed in advance as to how this particular amendment process will be conducted. No one is left out of the process.
The key to consolidating the required Article V legislation into the CFA’s two overarching legislative components is the use of contingent effective dates—also known as “conditional enactments” or “tie-barring”—to ensure that each piece of consolidated legislation only goes “live” at the right time. The U.S. Supreme Court and courts in 44 states have recognized the viability of such conditional enactments.[2] Conditional enactments are common components of congressional legislation, including legislation approving interstate compacts,[3] as well as many existing interstate and federal-territorial compacts.[4] Accordingly, the CFA is designed not to go live and trigger a convention call from Congress until at least 38 states join the compact and agree to be bound by its provisions; likewise, the prospective ratification of the CFA’s BBA will only go live if Congress first enacts the counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution,[5] which prospectively refers the BBA for legislative ratification if it is proposed by the convention.[6]
The CFA is also designed to prevent any reasonable possibility of a “runaway convention”—an Article V convention that would disregard the CFA’s limited agenda of advancing the single, specific, pre-drafted BBA. This is because the CFA leaves no gaps in the convention process to be filled by those who might run wild. It appoints all delegates for at least 38 member states (their sitting governors[7]) and strictly instructs them to follow convention rules that limit the agenda of the convention to an up or down vote on the specific BBA proposal within 24 hours of convening. It also prohibits member states from expanding the scope of the convention or ratifying any amendment other than the BBA; deeming “ultra vires” and nullifying as “void ab initio” any action or proposal that deviates from the CFA. Finally, the Compact Commission, which the CFA establishes to enforce the CFA and manage its logistics, is empowered to relocate the convention from its default location of Dallas, Texas, if necessary, to ensure it proceeds in accordance with the CFA and the Congressional Resolution.[8]
In total, the CFA has sixteen mutually-reinforcing safeguards, consisting of both direct legislation and carefully calibrated political incentives, to keep the convention laser-focused. These safeguards are binding on all member states both as a matter of state law and as contractual obligations under the U.S. Constitution’s Contracts Clause, which allows for the entrenchment of the Compact’s provisions under current precedent.[9] Moreover, because no member state may attend the convention until Congress adopts the counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution, which calls the convention in accordance with the CFA, the CFA’s safeguards will also have the status of the “Law of the United States” under current precedent interpreting the effect of Congressional approval of interstate compacts.[10] As is common in many existing interstate compacts,[11] to ensure a reputable jurisdiction entertains any enforcement proceeding, the CFA includes a forum selection clause designating the federal and state courts located with the Northern District of Texas as the default choice of venue for all member states.
Legal Analysis
The following legal analysis deals with the most frequent issue surrounding the CFA: whether the Article V convention process can be limited—i.e. directed and regulated—by an interstate compact. This analysis is not meant to exhaustive of supporting precedent or legal theories. It highlights the key points showing that the CFA’s limitations on the Article V convention process are entirely constitutional and legally effective.
It is important to first emphasize that whatever special legal significance attaches to it under the U.S. Constitution, an Article V convention is, in the most concrete terms, simply a gathering of people. Thus, in asking whether the CFA can constitutionally limit the Article V convention process, one is essentially asking whether states have the power to regulate the organization of a particular, albeit very special, gathering of people through an interstate compact. Viewed in this light, it is important to recall that the states do not have the burden of affirmatively proving their general governing authority by reference to specific provisions in the U.S. Constitution. The default assumption of the Constitution, as evidenced by the Tenth Amendment, is that all powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the People. The states retain general and indefinite powers of governance subject only to such limitations as required by the Constitution’s language and structure.[12]
Accordingly, absent a clash with one or more affirmative provisions of the U.S. Constitution, if a gathering of individuals that happens to be an “Article V convention” is organized from or is located within the boundaries of the states, it follows that each such state will respectively have governing authority over so much of that gathering and its organization as fall within its jurisdiction. In other words, based on the Constitution’s design, the states should be assumed to have the power to direct and regulate the Article V convention process under their reserved general powers of governance with or without an interstate compact—unless there is a cogent reason to believe that such power was exclusively delegated to some other body or is otherwise limited by the Constitution’s language or structure.
In view of this basic assumption about the relationship between states and the Constitution, the burden of proving that states lack constitutional authority to direct and regulate an Article V convention through an interstate compact should more properly be placed on the person advancing that proposition. To demand, instead, that the states shoulder that burden of proof inverts the Constitution’s power structure. Nevertheless, by process of elimination we can say with certainty that there is no question the states have the power to direct and regulate the Article V convention process through the CFA. This is because there are only three possible repositories of sovereign power in our federal republic that could direct and regulate the Article V convention process: the People, Congress, as agent of the People as a Whole, and the States, as agents of the People within their respective boundaries. As discussed below, we can exclude the possibilities that the People or Congress were meant to direct and regulate the Article V convention process, which necessarily leaves such power in the hands of the states as a reserved power under the Tenth Amendment, the exercise of which can be coordinated collectively through an interstate compact.
An Article V Convention is Not a Revolutionary Convention of the People
The text of Article V articulates no role for the People in advancing constitutional amendments whatsoever. In view of this fact, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically observed in Dodge v. Woolsey, 59 U.S. 331, 348 (1855), that the people of the United States, aggregately and in their separate sovereignties “have excluded themselves from any direct or immediate agency in making amendments.” For this reason, an Article V convention is not analogous to a state constitutional convention, which directly exercises the People’s sovereignty as a convention of the People.
But even if one were to analogize an Article V convention to a state constitutional convention, it is important to emphasize that, with respect to such conventions, state courts have long distinguished between conventions that are “revolutionary” in nature and those that are not. If a state constitution expressly authorizes the abolition or replacement of the existing state government, then the constitutional convention process it outlines has been deemed “revolutionary” and intended to directly represent the People as an independent sovereign body, which cannot be constrained by a limited agenda set by the state Legislature.[13] In contrast, if the state constitution does not expressly authorize the abolition or replacement of the existing state government or if the state constitution imposes Legislative call or ratification requirements, then the state constitutional convention process is not “revolutionary” and a limited agenda can be imposed on the convention by bodies that only indirectly represent the People, such as the Legislature.[14]
In view of this distinction between revolutionary and non-revolutionary state constitutional conventions, it is clear that an Article V convention cannot possibly be regarded as a “revolutionary” convention of the People, even if it were somehow considered analogous to a state “constitutional convention.” This is because: 1) there is no textual authority given to an Article V convention to “abolish” or “replace” the U.S. Constitution, as is found in many state constitutions; and 2) the proposals of an Article V convention are subject to specific application, call and ratification requirements, all of which imply that the convention operates with the strictures of the Constitution as an extension of existing governmental bodies.
Indeed, there is abundant direct evidence that the Article V convention process was intended to operate within the strictures of the Constitution in proposing amendments, rather than directly invoke the People’s revolutionary sovereignty in establishing a new form of government. This evidence includes: 1) the Report of Proceedings from the Philadelphia Convention on September 15, 1787, in which authority to hold a general convention, which could make any constitutional proposal without any ratification requirement whatsoever, like a revolutionary convention, was considered and repeatedly rejected; and 2) the textual fact that an Article V convention’s amendment power is defined and limited by the same constitutional provisions as Congress’ amendment process, which indicates that both processes wield the same non-revolutionary amendment power.
In short, even if one were to attempt to analogize the Article V convention process to a state-level constitutional convention, no precedent deems a convention that shares the characteristics of an Article V convention to be an independently sovereign popular body that is revolutionary in nature and capable of forming a new government. Notably, both Congress’ amendment power and the Article V convention’s amendment power refer to proposing “amendments.” In view of the fact that Congress has proposed singular amendments, it is clear that the plural use of “amendments” was not meant or understood to signify that only more than one amendment can be proposed. Rather, the plural form was used to include the singular, which is a style utilized throughout the Constitution.
The understanding that an Article V convention may propose a single amendment and is not comparable to revolutionary state constitutional convention is confirmed by Federalist No. 85, which was published in book form in May 28, 1788 and again as a newspaper column on August 16, 1788. There, Alexander Hamilton observed:
But every Amendment to the Constitution, if once established, would be a single proposition, and might be brought forward singly. There would then be no necessity for management or compromise, in relation to any other point; no giving, nor taking. The will of the requisite number would at once bring the matter to a decisive issue. And consequently, whenever nine, or rather ten States, were united in the desire of a particular amendment, that amendment must infallibly take place. There can, therefore, be no comparison between the facility of effecting an amendment, and that of establishing in the first instance a complete Constitution.[15]
For this reason, there is no merit to the theory that an Article V convention is a convention of the People that cannot be directed or regulated by the states.
An Article V Convention is Not a Convention of Congress
There is also no merit to any contention that the Article V convention process was meant to be directed and regulated by the federal government as a Convention of Congress. Investing Congress with a substantive role in directing or regulating the Article V convention process would render it redundant of Congress’ existing amendment power, which is contrary to standard rules of constitutional interpretation.[16] Moreover, it would also contradict contemporaneous understandings of Article V at the time the Constitution was ratified. As discussed below, the central arguments of Federalist Nos. 43 and 85 (which were repeated by George Washington in his personal correspondence and by others at the Virginia ratification convention) underscore that the Article V convention process was meant to furnish the states with an independent and parallel means of amending the Constitution alongside Congress’ amendment power.
An Article V Convention is a Convention of the States
At the time the U.S. Constitution was proposed for ratification, the Founders repeatedly represented to the public that any future Article V convention would be constituted by the states as a gathering point for their respective delegates to advance a specific state-selected constitutional amendment agenda. In particular, on January 23, 1788, Federalist No. 43 was published with James Madison’s attributed observation that Article V “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.” Similarly, George Washington wrote on April 25, 1788, “[i]t should be remembered that a constitutional door is open for such amendments as shall be thought necessary by nine States.” On June 6, 1788, George Nicholas reiterated the same points at the Virginia ratification convention, observing that state legislatures may apply for an Article V convention confined to a “few points;” and that “[i]t is natural to conclude that those States who will apply for calling the Convention, will concur in the ratification of the proposed amendments.” Finally, this public understanding of Article V was confirmed by the last of the Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 85, in which Alexander Hamilton concluded: “We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority” by using their amendment power under Article V.
These representations about how the states would organize and target the Article V convention process did not occur in a vacuum. They reflected the custom and practice of the dozen or more interstate and intercolonial conventions that were organized prior to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.[17] Simply put, it was usual and customary for states to set the agenda for any such convention and to instruct their delegates specifically on what to advance and address at the convention.[18] Delegates were regarded as “servants” of the states that sent them.[19] Naturally, the Founders repeatedly represented to the public that an Article V convention would operate in the same way. In fact, for decades after the Constitution’s ratification, it was an uncontroversial proposition that the states could organize the Article V convention process to consider desired amendment proposals.[20] For example, James Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolutions observed in January 1800 that the states could organize an Article V convention for the specific “object” of repealing the Alien and Sedition Acts. Correspondingly, the U.S. Supreme Court in Smith v. Union Bank, 30 U.S. 518, 528 (1831), specifically referenced the Article V process as authorizing a “convention of the states” that could be directed to propose amendments to overturn authority for specific laws.
As the Article V convention process was meant to be a “convention of the states”—not of the People or of Congress—it follows that states are not somehow preempted or otherwise disabled in exercising their reserved sovereign power under the Tenth Amendment to determine who will represent them at the convention, how they will represent them, how they will run the convention, what they will propose, and how the states will respond to those proposals.[21] Accordingly, states that adopt the CFA properly limit the Article V convention process as a logical extension of the Constitution’s default assumption that they retain general and indefinite powers of governance.[22]
An Article V Convention is Properly Organized by an Interstate Compact
Notwithstanding the textual requirement of congressional consent to interstate compacts in U.S. Const. art. I, § 19, cl. 3, the CFA properly utilizes an interstate compact to coordinate the states in the exercise of their powers under Article V and the Tenth Amendment. This is because congressional consent is not required for compacts that merely exercise the sovereign powers of the states without purporting to augment those powers relative to those of the federal government.[23] Moreover, the portion of the CFA that directly organizes the Article V convention itself will not go “live” before Congress calls the convention; member states may not attend the convention unless Congress first consents to the CFA by passing the contemplated counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution; and the CFA’s prospective ratification only becomes effective if Congress first refers the CFA’s BBA out for legislative ratification, and only if the convention proposes it for ratification. Therefore, even if the CFA were adopted by the states before Congress consented to it, the CFA cannot possibly trench on the federal government’s role in the Article V convention process.
As unusual as the CFA may seem, there are more than 200 interstate compacts in existence today, many of which make the CFA appear rather mundane by comparison. For example, there are interstate compacts for military alliances to repel invasions, to bypass the Electoral College, and to impose cap-and-trade greenhouse gas regulation. Despite the range of novel approaches to coordinating state action found in the hundreds of interstate compacts that currently exist and that have existed in the past, no state or federal court has ever struck down a single interstate compact. Against this backdrop of longstanding judicial tolerance of the use of interstate compacts to enable states to solve problems of collective action, there is every reason to believe the CFA will survive any legal challenge. If anything, the problems of collective action surrounding the use of Article V make it a natural candidate for an interstate compact solution. In the final analysis, not only is there a solid originalist and precedential basis for recognizing the constitutionality of the CFA’s limitations on the Article V convention process, there is also a powerful pragmatic case as well.
- See more on notes for this article: http://www.compactforamerica.org/legal-brief-the-compact-for-americas-laser-focused-article-v-convention-is-clearly-constitutional/#sthash.tOaK0D22.dpuf
http://www.compactforamerica.org/legal-brief-the-compact-for-americas-laser-focused-article-v-convention-is-clearly-constitutional/
Legal Brief: The Compact for America’s laser-focused Article V convention is clearly constitutional
February 22, 2013
By Nick Dranias, esq., Director of Policy Development and Constitutional Government – The Goldwater Institute[1]
This memorandum furnishes a scholarly explanation as to why the Compact for America’s limitations on an Article V convention would be constitutional and enforceable.
Overview of the Compact for America
A legal analysis of the Compact for America (“CFA”) first requires a “50,000 foot” view of its structure and the constitutional amendment process it sets in motion. The CFA is an agreement among the states to advance a single, specific, and pre-drafted Balanced Budget Amendment (“BBA”) using their sovereign power under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, which authorizes states to originate constitutional amendments by applying to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. In the absence of the CFA approach, the ordinary “plain vanilla” amendment-by-convention process under Article V would have no fewer than five essential state and federal legislative components—an “application” for a convention that would require passage by 34 state legislatures, a convention “call” that would require passage by Congress, convention delegate appointment and instruction legislation by at least 26 states, a “referral” of any amendment proposed by the convention that would require passage by Congress, and a “ratification” that would require passage by legislatures or conventions in at least 38 states. By contrast, the CFA has only two essential legislative components—the state compact and a counterpart congressional omnibus concurrent resolution.
The states, through their legislatures and governors each of which has deliberated over the wording and impact of both the compact and BBA and subsequently signed the compact into law in their respective states, have determined in advance that they are in agreement that the BBA is necessary, and because time is of the essence, that the BBA is the only amendment that will be considered and proposed in this particular amendment effort. Accordingly, the CFA is designed to greatly simplify the otherwise unwieldy amendment-by-convention process that heretofore has been unsuccessful. It does this by consolidating into the state compact all of the legislation involved in the Article V process that states control—from the application to Congress, to delegate appointments (the state governors are the sole delegates) and delegate instructions (limit the convention agenda to the up/down vote on the BBA), to the selection of the convention location and rules, to the ultimate ratification of the BBA. It then consolidates all of the congressional legislation involved in the Article V process—both the call for the convention and the ratification referral—into a single omnibus concurrent resolution that in itself incorporates the terms and provisions of the interstate compact. Thus, by consolidating the entire Article V process into these 2 pieces of intertwined legislation – the state legislation adopting the Compact and the federal legislation adopting the omnibus concurrent resolution – all of the stakeholders involved, including the people through their elected state legislators, the state legislature bodies, the governors who will serve as the delegates, and the U.S. Congress will have all agreed in advance as to how this particular amendment process will be conducted. No one is left out of the process.
The key to consolidating the required Article V legislation into the CFA’s two overarching legislative components is the use of contingent effective dates—also known as “conditional enactments” or “tie-barring”—to ensure that each piece of consolidated legislation only goes “live” at the right time. The U.S. Supreme Court and courts in 44 states have recognized the viability of such conditional enactments.[2] Conditional enactments are common components of congressional legislation, including legislation approving interstate compacts,[3] as well as many existing interstate and federal-territorial compacts.[4] Accordingly, the CFA is designed not to go live and trigger a convention call from Congress until at least 38 states join the compact and agree to be bound by its provisions; likewise, the prospective ratification of the CFA’s BBA will only go live if Congress first enacts the counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution,[5] which prospectively refers the BBA for legislative ratification if it is proposed by the convention.[6]
The CFA is also designed to prevent any reasonable possibility of a “runaway convention”—an Article V convention that would disregard the CFA’s limited agenda of advancing the single, specific, pre-drafted BBA. This is because the CFA leaves no gaps in the convention process to be filled by those who might run wild. It appoints all delegates for at least 38 member states (their sitting governors[7]) and strictly instructs them to follow convention rules that limit the agenda of the convention to an up or down vote on the specific BBA proposal within 24 hours of convening. It also prohibits member states from expanding the scope of the convention or ratifying any amendment other than the BBA; deeming “ultra vires” and nullifying as “void ab initio” any action or proposal that deviates from the CFA. Finally, the Compact Commission, which the CFA establishes to enforce the CFA and manage its logistics, is empowered to relocate the convention from its default location of Dallas, Texas, if necessary, to ensure it proceeds in accordance with the CFA and the Congressional Resolution.[8]
In total, the CFA has sixteen mutually-reinforcing safeguards, consisting of both direct legislation and carefully calibrated political incentives, to keep the convention laser-focused. These safeguards are binding on all member states both as a matter of state law and as contractual obligations under the U.S. Constitution’s Contracts Clause, which allows for the entrenchment of the Compact’s provisions under current precedent.[9] Moreover, because no member state may attend the convention until Congress adopts the counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution, which calls the convention in accordance with the CFA, the CFA’s safeguards will also have the status of the “Law of the United States” under current precedent interpreting the effect of Congressional approval of interstate compacts.[10] As is common in many existing interstate compacts,[11] to ensure a reputable jurisdiction entertains any enforcement proceeding, the CFA includes a forum selection clause designating the federal and state courts located with the Northern District of Texas as the default choice of venue for all member states.
Legal Analysis
The following legal analysis deals with the most frequent issue surrounding the CFA: whether the Article V convention process can be limited—i.e. directed and regulated—by an interstate compact. This analysis is not meant to exhaustive of supporting precedent or legal theories. It highlights the key points showing that the CFA’s limitations on the Article V convention process are entirely constitutional and legally effective.
It is important to first emphasize that whatever special legal significance attaches to it under the U.S. Constitution, an Article V convention is, in the most concrete terms, simply a gathering of people. Thus, in asking whether the CFA can constitutionally limit the Article V convention process, one is essentially asking whether states have the power to regulate the organization of a particular, albeit very special, gathering of people through an interstate compact. Viewed in this light, it is important to recall that the states do not have the burden of affirmatively proving their general governing authority by reference to specific provisions in the U.S. Constitution. The default assumption of the Constitution, as evidenced by the Tenth Amendment, is that all powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or the People. The states retain general and indefinite powers of governance subject only to such limitations as required by the Constitution’s language and structure.[12]
Accordingly, absent a clash with one or more affirmative provisions of the U.S. Constitution, if a gathering of individuals that happens to be an “Article V convention” is organized from or is located within the boundaries of the states, it follows that each such state will respectively have governing authority over so much of that gathering and its organization as fall within its jurisdiction. In other words, based on the Constitution’s design, the states should be assumed to have the power to direct and regulate the Article V convention process under their reserved general powers of governance with or without an interstate compact—unless there is a cogent reason to believe that such power was exclusively delegated to some other body or is otherwise limited by the Constitution’s language or structure.
In view of this basic assumption about the relationship between states and the Constitution, the burden of proving that states lack constitutional authority to direct and regulate an Article V convention through an interstate compact should more properly be placed on the person advancing that proposition. To demand, instead, that the states shoulder that burden of proof inverts the Constitution’s power structure. Nevertheless, by process of elimination we can say with certainty that there is no question the states have the power to direct and regulate the Article V convention process through the CFA. This is because there are only three possible repositories of sovereign power in our federal republic that could direct and regulate the Article V convention process: the People, Congress, as agent of the People as a Whole, and the States, as agents of the People within their respective boundaries. As discussed below, we can exclude the possibilities that the People or Congress were meant to direct and regulate the Article V convention process, which necessarily leaves such power in the hands of the states as a reserved power under the Tenth Amendment, the exercise of which can be coordinated collectively through an interstate compact.
An Article V Convention is Not a Revolutionary Convention of the People
The text of Article V articulates no role for the People in advancing constitutional amendments whatsoever. In view of this fact, the U.S. Supreme Court specifically observed in Dodge v. Woolsey, 59 U.S. 331, 348 (1855), that the people of the United States, aggregately and in their separate sovereignties “have excluded themselves from any direct or immediate agency in making amendments.” For this reason, an Article V convention is not analogous to a state constitutional convention, which directly exercises the People’s sovereignty as a convention of the People.
But even if one were to analogize an Article V convention to a state constitutional convention, it is important to emphasize that, with respect to such conventions, state courts have long distinguished between conventions that are “revolutionary” in nature and those that are not. If a state constitution expressly authorizes the abolition or replacement of the existing state government, then the constitutional convention process it outlines has been deemed “revolutionary” and intended to directly represent the People as an independent sovereign body, which cannot be constrained by a limited agenda set by the state Legislature.[13] In contrast, if the state constitution does not expressly authorize the abolition or replacement of the existing state government or if the state constitution imposes Legislative call or ratification requirements, then the state constitutional convention process is not “revolutionary” and a limited agenda can be imposed on the convention by bodies that only indirectly represent the People, such as the Legislature.[14]
In view of this distinction between revolutionary and non-revolutionary state constitutional conventions, it is clear that an Article V convention cannot possibly be regarded as a “revolutionary” convention of the People, even if it were somehow considered analogous to a state “constitutional convention.” This is because: 1) there is no textual authority given to an Article V convention to “abolish” or “replace” the U.S. Constitution, as is found in many state constitutions; and 2) the proposals of an Article V convention are subject to specific application, call and ratification requirements, all of which imply that the convention operates with the strictures of the Constitution as an extension of existing governmental bodies.
Indeed, there is abundant direct evidence that the Article V convention process was intended to operate within the strictures of the Constitution in proposing amendments, rather than directly invoke the People’s revolutionary sovereignty in establishing a new form of government. This evidence includes: 1) the Report of Proceedings from the Philadelphia Convention on September 15, 1787, in which authority to hold a general convention, which could make any constitutional proposal without any ratification requirement whatsoever, like a revolutionary convention, was considered and repeatedly rejected; and 2) the textual fact that an Article V convention’s amendment power is defined and limited by the same constitutional provisions as Congress’ amendment process, which indicates that both processes wield the same non-revolutionary amendment power.
In short, even if one were to attempt to analogize the Article V convention process to a state-level constitutional convention, no precedent deems a convention that shares the characteristics of an Article V convention to be an independently sovereign popular body that is revolutionary in nature and capable of forming a new government. Notably, both Congress’ amendment power and the Article V convention’s amendment power refer to proposing “amendments.” In view of the fact that Congress has proposed singular amendments, it is clear that the plural use of “amendments” was not meant or understood to signify that only more than one amendment can be proposed. Rather, the plural form was used to include the singular, which is a style utilized throughout the Constitution.
The understanding that an Article V convention may propose a single amendment and is not comparable to revolutionary state constitutional convention is confirmed by Federalist No. 85, which was published in book form in May 28, 1788 and again as a newspaper column on August 16, 1788. There, Alexander Hamilton observed:
But every Amendment to the Constitution, if once established, would be a single proposition, and might be brought forward singly. There would then be no necessity for management or compromise, in relation to any other point; no giving, nor taking. The will of the requisite number would at once bring the matter to a decisive issue. And consequently, whenever nine, or rather ten States, were united in the desire of a particular amendment, that amendment must infallibly take place. There can, therefore, be no comparison between the facility of effecting an amendment, and that of establishing in the first instance a complete Constitution.[15]
For this reason, there is no merit to the theory that an Article V convention is a convention of the People that cannot be directed or regulated by the states.
An Article V Convention is Not a Convention of Congress
There is also no merit to any contention that the Article V convention process was meant to be directed and regulated by the federal government as a Convention of Congress. Investing Congress with a substantive role in directing or regulating the Article V convention process would render it redundant of Congress’ existing amendment power, which is contrary to standard rules of constitutional interpretation.[16] Moreover, it would also contradict contemporaneous understandings of Article V at the time the Constitution was ratified. As discussed below, the central arguments of Federalist Nos. 43 and 85 (which were repeated by George Washington in his personal correspondence and by others at the Virginia ratification convention) underscore that the Article V convention process was meant to furnish the states with an independent and parallel means of amending the Constitution alongside Congress’ amendment power.
An Article V Convention is a Convention of the States
At the time the U.S. Constitution was proposed for ratification, the Founders repeatedly represented to the public that any future Article V convention would be constituted by the states as a gathering point for their respective delegates to advance a specific state-selected constitutional amendment agenda. In particular, on January 23, 1788, Federalist No. 43 was published with James Madison’s attributed observation that Article V “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.” Similarly, George Washington wrote on April 25, 1788, “[i]t should be remembered that a constitutional door is open for such amendments as shall be thought necessary by nine States.” On June 6, 1788, George Nicholas reiterated the same points at the Virginia ratification convention, observing that state legislatures may apply for an Article V convention confined to a “few points;” and that “[i]t is natural to conclude that those States who will apply for calling the Convention, will concur in the ratification of the proposed amendments.” Finally, this public understanding of Article V was confirmed by the last of the Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 85, in which Alexander Hamilton concluded: “We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority” by using their amendment power under Article V.
These representations about how the states would organize and target the Article V convention process did not occur in a vacuum. They reflected the custom and practice of the dozen or more interstate and intercolonial conventions that were organized prior to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.[17] Simply put, it was usual and customary for states to set the agenda for any such convention and to instruct their delegates specifically on what to advance and address at the convention.[18] Delegates were regarded as “servants” of the states that sent them.[19] Naturally, the Founders repeatedly represented to the public that an Article V convention would operate in the same way. In fact, for decades after the Constitution’s ratification, it was an uncontroversial proposition that the states could organize the Article V convention process to consider desired amendment proposals.[20] For example, James Madison’s Report on the Virginia Resolutions observed in January 1800 that the states could organize an Article V convention for the specific “object” of repealing the Alien and Sedition Acts. Correspondingly, the U.S. Supreme Court in Smith v. Union Bank, 30 U.S. 518, 528 (1831), specifically referenced the Article V process as authorizing a “convention of the states” that could be directed to propose amendments to overturn authority for specific laws.
As the Article V convention process was meant to be a “convention of the states”—not of the People or of Congress—it follows that states are not somehow preempted or otherwise disabled in exercising their reserved sovereign power under the Tenth Amendment to determine who will represent them at the convention, how they will represent them, how they will run the convention, what they will propose, and how the states will respond to those proposals.[21] Accordingly, states that adopt the CFA properly limit the Article V convention process as a logical extension of the Constitution’s default assumption that they retain general and indefinite powers of governance.[22]
An Article V Convention is Properly Organized by an Interstate Compact
Notwithstanding the textual requirement of congressional consent to interstate compacts in U.S. Const. art. I, § 19, cl. 3, the CFA properly utilizes an interstate compact to coordinate the states in the exercise of their powers under Article V and the Tenth Amendment. This is because congressional consent is not required for compacts that merely exercise the sovereign powers of the states without purporting to augment those powers relative to those of the federal government.[23] Moreover, the portion of the CFA that directly organizes the Article V convention itself will not go “live” before Congress calls the convention; member states may not attend the convention unless Congress first consents to the CFA by passing the contemplated counterpart omnibus concurrent resolution; and the CFA’s prospective ratification only becomes effective if Congress first refers the CFA’s BBA out for legislative ratification, and only if the convention proposes it for ratification. Therefore, even if the CFA were adopted by the states before Congress consented to it, the CFA cannot possibly trench on the federal government’s role in the Article V convention process.
As unusual as the CFA may seem, there are more than 200 interstate compacts in existence today, many of which make the CFA appear rather mundane by comparison. For example, there are interstate compacts for military alliances to repel invasions, to bypass the Electoral College, and to impose cap-and-trade greenhouse gas regulation. Despite the range of novel approaches to coordinating state action found in the hundreds of interstate compacts that currently exist and that have existed in the past, no state or federal court has ever struck down a single interstate compact. Against this backdrop of longstanding judicial tolerance of the use of interstate compacts to enable states to solve problems of collective action, there is every reason to believe the CFA will survive any legal challenge. If anything, the problems of collective action surrounding the use of Article V make it a natural candidate for an interstate compact solution. In the final analysis, not only is there a solid originalist and precedential basis for recognizing the constitutionality of the CFA’s limitations on the Article V convention process, there is also a powerful pragmatic case as well.
- See more on notes for this article: http://www.compactforamerica.org/legal-brief-the-compact-for-americas-laser-focused-article-v-convention-is-clearly-constitutional/#sthash.tOaK0D22.dpuf
http://www.compactforamerica.org/legal-brief-the-compact-for-americas-laser-focused-article-v-convention-is-clearly-constitutional/
From the Mount VERNON Summit on Article V
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://youtu.be/MrK89MNa2nM
News stories:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/09/gaining-steam-nearly-100-lawmakers-descend-on-mount-vernon-to-talk-convention-of-states/
http://redmillennial.com/2013/12/08/state-legislators-discuss-convention-of-states-at-mount-vernon-assembly/
Lawmakers tweets:
http://redmillennial.com/2013/12/08/state-legislators-discuss-convention-of-states-at-mount-vernon-assembly/comment-page-1/#comment-454
http://youtu.be/MrK89MNa2nM
News stories:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/09/gaining-steam-nearly-100-lawmakers-descend-on-mount-vernon-to-talk-convention-of-states/
http://redmillennial.com/2013/12/08/state-legislators-discuss-convention-of-states-at-mount-vernon-assembly/
Lawmakers tweets:
http://redmillennial.com/2013/12/08/state-legislators-discuss-convention-of-states-at-mount-vernon-assembly/comment-page-1/#comment-454
OUR ADVOCACY in SUPPORT of your EFFORT, and HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOUR STAFF
Senator Long,
We work in common cause, supporting Article V in the states.
We admire and support your December 7 initiative and we wish you our very best in this regard.
Our site is dedicated to Article V and we believe it is the only solution for our national crisis.
We do not advocate for amendments that add legislation to the Constitution.
We advocate repeal, to restore the original document. One amendment, to repeal three.
We use the proven model of the 21st amendment, repealing the 18th. When we considered some time ago, that the 'election solution' is a precarious star to pin our hopes upon in the future, we chose the Constitutional solution.
We are a group of Constitutional scholars and students, historians, former law professionals, teachers, reporters, writers and common citizens, who have joined together to try to make THE difference. Our site is self-built and published, we require no membership, we accept no advertising, we are a free resource and study site-with our own proposal. We encourage free download of all of our materials.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com
In few words, we are not in this for any personal gain.
We work anonymously-and wish to remain so. We do this work for the good of our Country. No one on site is paid any salary or receives any monetary compensation, and we have worked independently and cooperatively, in our little and free time in service to this effort. We call our site 'The People's Site', and our 28th amendment 'The People's Amendment'.
You have already made the acquaintance other members of our team, in private correspondence, Gene Daily and Lock Piatt. Gene has shared this email address with me, and asked that I send this graphic on to you.
We have a page on our site where we share like minded site links. We wanted you to know that we have placed this graphic there, in support of your advocacy for Article V, and we sincerely thank you for your work, your effort, and your dedication to The Constitution and Constitutional governance.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/conservative-hub-partners.html
Article V Project to Restore Liberty
We work in common cause, supporting Article V in the states.
We admire and support your December 7 initiative and we wish you our very best in this regard.
Our site is dedicated to Article V and we believe it is the only solution for our national crisis.
We do not advocate for amendments that add legislation to the Constitution.
We advocate repeal, to restore the original document. One amendment, to repeal three.
We use the proven model of the 21st amendment, repealing the 18th. When we considered some time ago, that the 'election solution' is a precarious star to pin our hopes upon in the future, we chose the Constitutional solution.
We are a group of Constitutional scholars and students, historians, former law professionals, teachers, reporters, writers and common citizens, who have joined together to try to make THE difference. Our site is self-built and published, we require no membership, we accept no advertising, we are a free resource and study site-with our own proposal. We encourage free download of all of our materials.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com
In few words, we are not in this for any personal gain.
We work anonymously-and wish to remain so. We do this work for the good of our Country. No one on site is paid any salary or receives any monetary compensation, and we have worked independently and cooperatively, in our little and free time in service to this effort. We call our site 'The People's Site', and our 28th amendment 'The People's Amendment'.
You have already made the acquaintance other members of our team, in private correspondence, Gene Daily and Lock Piatt. Gene has shared this email address with me, and asked that I send this graphic on to you.
We have a page on our site where we share like minded site links. We wanted you to know that we have placed this graphic there, in support of your advocacy for Article V, and we sincerely thank you for your work, your effort, and your dedication to The Constitution and Constitutional governance.
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/conservative-hub-partners.html
Article V Project to Restore Liberty
Looks Like Sen. Long Has Done It!!
Sen. David Long may have discovered the only path left for attaining fiscal solvency. If he succeeds, future generations might recall Dec. 7, not only for Pearl Harbor, but for the beginning of a second American Revolution.
Call it a “Long shot,” but it is one worth attempting. The Preamble to the Constitution begins: “We the people.” It is the people who lend power to the federal government. If the people lend it, the people can also reclaim it when government exceeds its constitutional authority.
Long says, “States’ rights have been trampled — rendering the 10th amendment, (which protects state rights), almost meaningless.” He adds, “The bigger modern-day threat to America is not a runaway convention, but a runaway federal government.”
Long says he has commitments from representatives of at least 26 state legislatures to attend a Dec. 7 meeting at George Washington’s home in Mt. Vernon, Va. The goal is “not to decide on any amendment to be considered, but to put together a structure on how a convention will be run.” Once that structure is in place, the convention would hope to establish a framework for reigning in overspending, overtaxing and over-regulating by the federal government and moving toward a less centralized federal government.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/11/19/plan-for-returning-power-to-people-where-founders-wanted-it/?intcmp=obnetwork
IS YOUR STATE SENDING A REPRESENTATIVE?
Call it a “Long shot,” but it is one worth attempting. The Preamble to the Constitution begins: “We the people.” It is the people who lend power to the federal government. If the people lend it, the people can also reclaim it when government exceeds its constitutional authority.
Long says, “States’ rights have been trampled — rendering the 10th amendment, (which protects state rights), almost meaningless.” He adds, “The bigger modern-day threat to America is not a runaway convention, but a runaway federal government.”
Long says he has commitments from representatives of at least 26 state legislatures to attend a Dec. 7 meeting at George Washington’s home in Mt. Vernon, Va. The goal is “not to decide on any amendment to be considered, but to put together a structure on how a convention will be run.” Once that structure is in place, the convention would hope to establish a framework for reigning in overspending, overtaxing and over-regulating by the federal government and moving toward a less centralized federal government.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/11/19/plan-for-returning-power-to-people-where-founders-wanted-it/?intcmp=obnetwork
IS YOUR STATE SENDING A REPRESENTATIVE?
Indiana Senate leader working toward U.S. constitutional convention
October 26, 2013 10:00 pm • Dan Carden
INDIANAPOLIS | The leader of the Indiana Senate has invited lawmakers from every state to join him Dec. 7 at Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia home, to discuss the state-led process for crafting amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, asks in a letter written to fellow legislative leaders that each state send a bipartisan group of three delegates to the "Mount Vernon Assembly."
He said the meeting will lay the groundwork for a Convention of the States that would, when established by Congress, propose amendments to change various provisions of the Constitution."The authors of the Constitution included a state-led amendment option as a check on a runaway federal government," Long said. "The dysfunction we see in Washington, D.C., provides an almost daily reminder of why this option is needed now more than ever."
The initial meeting won't actually consider potential amendment topics, Long said. Instead, it's intended to set up the rules to be followed if and when a constitutional convention is called.
Read more..... http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/indiana-senate-leader-working-toward-u-s-constitutional-convention/article_21f801b9-2ea4-56a5-b0d4-e3ea00b10968.html
INDIANAPOLIS | The leader of the Indiana Senate has invited lawmakers from every state to join him Dec. 7 at Mount Vernon, George Washington's Virginia home, to discuss the state-led process for crafting amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Senate President David Long, R-Fort Wayne, asks in a letter written to fellow legislative leaders that each state send a bipartisan group of three delegates to the "Mount Vernon Assembly."
He said the meeting will lay the groundwork for a Convention of the States that would, when established by Congress, propose amendments to change various provisions of the Constitution."The authors of the Constitution included a state-led amendment option as a check on a runaway federal government," Long said. "The dysfunction we see in Washington, D.C., provides an almost daily reminder of why this option is needed now more than ever."
The initial meeting won't actually consider potential amendment topics, Long said. Instead, it's intended to set up the rules to be followed if and when a constitutional convention is called.
Read more..... http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/indiana-senate-leader-working-toward-u-s-constitutional-convention/article_21f801b9-2ea4-56a5-b0d4-e3ea00b10968.html
Dear friends in the media - Pay attention!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiOPsDk5rOA This video is GREAT! You will know why when you see it!!
Then go to:
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/article-v.html
Then go to:
http://articlevprojecttorestoreliberty.com/article-v.html
Article V of our Constitution is starting to get some notice! We will post that activity here.
Article V Convention To Amend Constitution Pushed By Several States
At least three states are seeking to force a constitutional convention to consider changes to the founding document.Indiana, Georgia and Kansas have proposed a convention under the Constitution's Article V, which allows two-thirds of the states to call a convention. The states' reasons range from balancing the federal budget to overhauling federal powers. A constitutional convention has not been convened since the original one in 1787.
Forty-nine of the 50 states have filed at least one resolution with Congress calling for a constitutional convention. In order for a convention to be held, at least 34 states must pass a resolution on the same subject.
Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas who backs an Article V convention, said the process is designed to be hard. "People who don't like the idea of a convention, which is most people, want to make it impossible," Levinson said.
Resolutions in Kansas and Indiana call for a constitutional convention to balance powers of states and the federal government. Georgia's calls for the inclusion of a balanced budget amendment. The Indiana resolution --passed by the state Senate -- gives broad outlines, while the Kansas resolution specifies that education, guns, health care, insurance and elections are strictly state powers with no role for the federal government.
"The idea is that the federal government never wants to limit its power," Kansas state Rep. Brett Hildabrand (R-Shawnee), a sponsor of his state's resolution, told HuffPost. "Most of the amendments are to expand the scope of the federal government. Except for the Bill of Rights, everything expands power."
Some backers of a constitutional convention said they worry conventioneers could range beyond resolutions to amend any part of the Constitition. Hildabrand said he had such concerns, but was assured by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), that constitutional safeguards prevent a so-called runaway convention, requiring changes be approved by three-fourths of the states. Similar reasoning was used in the Indiana Senate debate.
Hildabrand said that he and other Kansas backers of a convention plan a national campaign to get other states to join the effort. He said they plan pressure conservative states, including Texas and Wyoming, to pass resolutions similar to the one in Kansas.
Levinson said its unclear whether convention delegates would be elected or picked by state legislatures. He said he wants an Article V convention that would "last for two years and is on CSPAN and holds serious hearings on the whole thing."
Levinson said he doesn't see states rushing to join the Kansas plan. "There is no way two-thirds of the states will get behind such a radical-right proposition," he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/article-v-convention_n_2951027.html
Forty-nine of the 50 states have filed at least one resolution with Congress calling for a constitutional convention. In order for a convention to be held, at least 34 states must pass a resolution on the same subject.
Sanford Levinson, a law professor at the University of Texas who backs an Article V convention, said the process is designed to be hard. "People who don't like the idea of a convention, which is most people, want to make it impossible," Levinson said.
Resolutions in Kansas and Indiana call for a constitutional convention to balance powers of states and the federal government. Georgia's calls for the inclusion of a balanced budget amendment. The Indiana resolution --passed by the state Senate -- gives broad outlines, while the Kansas resolution specifies that education, guns, health care, insurance and elections are strictly state powers with no role for the federal government.
"The idea is that the federal government never wants to limit its power," Kansas state Rep. Brett Hildabrand (R-Shawnee), a sponsor of his state's resolution, told HuffPost. "Most of the amendments are to expand the scope of the federal government. Except for the Bill of Rights, everything expands power."
Some backers of a constitutional convention said they worry conventioneers could range beyond resolutions to amend any part of the Constitition. Hildabrand said he had such concerns, but was assured by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), that constitutional safeguards prevent a so-called runaway convention, requiring changes be approved by three-fourths of the states. Similar reasoning was used in the Indiana Senate debate.
Hildabrand said that he and other Kansas backers of a convention plan a national campaign to get other states to join the effort. He said they plan pressure conservative states, including Texas and Wyoming, to pass resolutions similar to the one in Kansas.
Levinson said its unclear whether convention delegates would be elected or picked by state legislatures. He said he wants an Article V convention that would "last for two years and is on CSPAN and holds serious hearings on the whole thing."
Levinson said he doesn't see states rushing to join the Kansas plan. "There is no way two-thirds of the states will get behind such a radical-right proposition," he said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/25/article-v-convention_n_2951027.html
Mark Levin's "The Liberty Amendments" -- What You Can Do to Save the Country
August 15, 2013
RUSH: Fredericksburg, Texas. Jerry, it's great to have you on the EIB Network today. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, sir. I tell you what, I have to admit, I'm a discouraged, pessimistic American. I'm ashamed to say that because I was raised to be optimistic.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And today it seems to me that we're just on the precipice of going over. I don't know what can be done. I mean, you say we need policies. The Republican Party is obsolete, in my opinion. I think the only policy we need is, as you say, the Constitution. I'm just finishing up reading the Federalist Papers. And to see the arguments that took place back in the --
RUSH: Let me give you something else to read. Have you heard of Mark Levin's new book, The Liberty Amendments?
CALLER: Yes, I have. I've ordered it from Amazon and it hasn't arrived yet.
RUSH: Okay, well, read it when it does. It's fascinating. Everybody still asks me, "Rush what can I do, besides vote?" Everybody wants to do something. Well, look, the standard, ordinary give-and-take and back-and-forth of politics isn't gonna work anymore. The Constitution's broken. We're not living under it anymore. It's already been bastardized. The Constitution is going to have to be put back together. It's going to have to be reaffirmed. It's already being torn apart. It's being shredded. It's being ignored by this president who just chooses which law and what part of a law he wants to obey or not.
CALLER: Well, he's the nearest thing to a despot that we've ever elected.
RUSH: True. Woodrow Wilson a close second, followed by his wife when Woodrow had the stroke or whatever. But the thing about The Liberty Amendments is that the premise is the Founders understood that what we are going through today was very possible, and they had a prescription to fix it. There are remedies for this. The remedy is not the Republican Party, not as it's currently constituted or operating. The American people are going to have to fix this, and that's what Levin's book is about. It's a wonderful book.
I don't want to say it's simple, but it makes so much sense. He proposes 10 amendments that simply reaffirm the original intent of the Constitution and then gives a thorough explanation for why each amendment is in fact justified and warranted and traces it back to the days of the founding. And it is something that, the more people read it, the more people become familiar with it and demand that something be done to reaffirm and strengthen the Constitution, it's something like this that is going to be necessary, because the Constitution is broken. We cannot rely on it now.
RUSH: Look, folks, the Founders of this country never, ever intended that one judge determines the law of the land. John Roberts and Obamacare, Anthony Kennedy on whatever the issue. This was never intended. So much of what is happening now was not intended. Presidents don't have the right to pick and choose what parts of legislation they like and implement that and deny other parts. The American people have the power to change this, but not at the ballot box. At least that's one of the theories of The Liberty Amendments. The Constitution is going to have to be reaffirmed and a new reminder to elected officials of what the law is is going to have to be made.
One of the points in the book is that the states, the amendment process is right there in Article V, how to deal with out of control administrations, how to deal with leaders that are abrogating and denying the Constitution, shredding it. It's right there. The Founders are brilliant. They knew what they were doing. They weren't just devising a formula for life during their era. They were devising a structure for all time, and, as such, they were able, 'cause they understood human nature, they were able to understand exactly how despotism happens, dictatorship happens, usurpation of freedom by governments, how it happens.
That's why the country came into existence. And there is a recipe, there's a formula, there's a proscription in the Constitution for addressing the problems we have today and fixing them. And it involves the states. In our Constitution, the states, particularly banded together, have far more power than the federal government, and the people, and it's going to have to happen. And it's gonna be slow in coming. This is gonna be resisted by the current ruling class. They're not gonna want any part of this. So it's gonna have to effervesce from the grassroots up.
There are a lot of grassroots efforts taking place right now simply because of the realization that there is not -- I don't think there's a single mechanism in Washington that's structured right now and oriented toward addressing the real problems that we have. Mounting debt. I mean, this was never intended. This was never thought to be acceptable. Never. This kind of thing is what was supposed to not happen. In almost every venue, almost every area of government, the EPA, all these bureaucracies, able to write their own laws and regulations without going through the representatives of the people. That was never intended. That was never part of the plan.
The Constitution's bastardized. It's been bastardized for years. It's been shredded for years. It needs to be reaffirmed. And Levin's book is a series of ideas of how to do it that involves the American people. The Liberty Amendments. There are 10 of them. And I don't want to go through all of them for you here, but one of them actually term limits judges, 12 years, Supreme Court. That's it. There's no reason we need some babbling idiot that can't add two and two anymore on the court.
Some people are afraid that once you convene a meeting, a convention, to start amending the Constitution, that you're opening the door to the left. This is dealt with in the book as well. I don't want to give everything away. But that is dealt with. Keep in mind, too, that the left wants to do this themselves. They're not happy. The reason the Constitution's being shredded and the reason it's being shredded and bastardized, it's by them, and they don't like it. The Constitution doesn't give them enough power. The Constitution, as written, grants all the power to the people and all the power to the states. That's unacceptable.
They want their new Bill of Rights. They want 10 brand-new amendments that specifically spell out the power that government has over us. The Bill of Rights as written, of course, limit the federal government's power, and that's why they exist. So if you find yourself frustrated, asking yourself, "What can I do, what is there to be done," take a look at this and see.
END TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Fredericksburg, Texas. Jerry, it's great to have you on the EIB Network today. Hi.
CALLER: Thank you, sir. I tell you what, I have to admit, I'm a discouraged, pessimistic American. I'm ashamed to say that because I was raised to be optimistic.
RUSH: Yeah.
CALLER: And today it seems to me that we're just on the precipice of going over. I don't know what can be done. I mean, you say we need policies. The Republican Party is obsolete, in my opinion. I think the only policy we need is, as you say, the Constitution. I'm just finishing up reading the Federalist Papers. And to see the arguments that took place back in the --
RUSH: Let me give you something else to read. Have you heard of Mark Levin's new book, The Liberty Amendments?
CALLER: Yes, I have. I've ordered it from Amazon and it hasn't arrived yet.
RUSH: Okay, well, read it when it does. It's fascinating. Everybody still asks me, "Rush what can I do, besides vote?" Everybody wants to do something. Well, look, the standard, ordinary give-and-take and back-and-forth of politics isn't gonna work anymore. The Constitution's broken. We're not living under it anymore. It's already been bastardized. The Constitution is going to have to be put back together. It's going to have to be reaffirmed. It's already being torn apart. It's being shredded. It's being ignored by this president who just chooses which law and what part of a law he wants to obey or not.
CALLER: Well, he's the nearest thing to a despot that we've ever elected.
RUSH: True. Woodrow Wilson a close second, followed by his wife when Woodrow had the stroke or whatever. But the thing about The Liberty Amendments is that the premise is the Founders understood that what we are going through today was very possible, and they had a prescription to fix it. There are remedies for this. The remedy is not the Republican Party, not as it's currently constituted or operating. The American people are going to have to fix this, and that's what Levin's book is about. It's a wonderful book.
I don't want to say it's simple, but it makes so much sense. He proposes 10 amendments that simply reaffirm the original intent of the Constitution and then gives a thorough explanation for why each amendment is in fact justified and warranted and traces it back to the days of the founding. And it is something that, the more people read it, the more people become familiar with it and demand that something be done to reaffirm and strengthen the Constitution, it's something like this that is going to be necessary, because the Constitution is broken. We cannot rely on it now.
RUSH: Look, folks, the Founders of this country never, ever intended that one judge determines the law of the land. John Roberts and Obamacare, Anthony Kennedy on whatever the issue. This was never intended. So much of what is happening now was not intended. Presidents don't have the right to pick and choose what parts of legislation they like and implement that and deny other parts. The American people have the power to change this, but not at the ballot box. At least that's one of the theories of The Liberty Amendments. The Constitution is going to have to be reaffirmed and a new reminder to elected officials of what the law is is going to have to be made.
One of the points in the book is that the states, the amendment process is right there in Article V, how to deal with out of control administrations, how to deal with leaders that are abrogating and denying the Constitution, shredding it. It's right there. The Founders are brilliant. They knew what they were doing. They weren't just devising a formula for life during their era. They were devising a structure for all time, and, as such, they were able, 'cause they understood human nature, they were able to understand exactly how despotism happens, dictatorship happens, usurpation of freedom by governments, how it happens.
That's why the country came into existence. And there is a recipe, there's a formula, there's a proscription in the Constitution for addressing the problems we have today and fixing them. And it involves the states. In our Constitution, the states, particularly banded together, have far more power than the federal government, and the people, and it's going to have to happen. And it's gonna be slow in coming. This is gonna be resisted by the current ruling class. They're not gonna want any part of this. So it's gonna have to effervesce from the grassroots up.
There are a lot of grassroots efforts taking place right now simply because of the realization that there is not -- I don't think there's a single mechanism in Washington that's structured right now and oriented toward addressing the real problems that we have. Mounting debt. I mean, this was never intended. This was never thought to be acceptable. Never. This kind of thing is what was supposed to not happen. In almost every venue, almost every area of government, the EPA, all these bureaucracies, able to write their own laws and regulations without going through the representatives of the people. That was never intended. That was never part of the plan.
The Constitution's bastardized. It's been bastardized for years. It's been shredded for years. It needs to be reaffirmed. And Levin's book is a series of ideas of how to do it that involves the American people. The Liberty Amendments. There are 10 of them. And I don't want to go through all of them for you here, but one of them actually term limits judges, 12 years, Supreme Court. That's it. There's no reason we need some babbling idiot that can't add two and two anymore on the court.
Some people are afraid that once you convene a meeting, a convention, to start amending the Constitution, that you're opening the door to the left. This is dealt with in the book as well. I don't want to give everything away. But that is dealt with. Keep in mind, too, that the left wants to do this themselves. They're not happy. The reason the Constitution's being shredded and the reason it's being shredded and bastardized, it's by them, and they don't like it. The Constitution doesn't give them enough power. The Constitution, as written, grants all the power to the people and all the power to the states. That's unacceptable.
They want their new Bill of Rights. They want 10 brand-new amendments that specifically spell out the power that government has over us. The Bill of Rights as written, of course, limit the federal government's power, and that's why they exist. So if you find yourself frustrated, asking yourself, "What can I do, what is there to be done," take a look at this and see.
END TRANSCRIPT
Book Review: The Liberty Amendments, Mark Levin
“The Statists’ utopia and the Framers’ Constitution cannot coexist.”
So begins what might be the most intellectually bracing, rational, and thought-provoking book in recent memory. Authored by the preeminent conservative author of our time, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic is a timely yet timeless masterpiece that gives liberty-loving Americans a plan of action.
Mark Levin—an eight-year veteran of the Reagan Administration and a thorn in the side of the EPA thanks to his Landmark Legal Foundation—recognizes that Statism has been eroding the precious liberties that the Founding Fathers labored so arduously to secure.
“The Statists have been successful in their century-long march to disfigure and mangle the constitutional order and undo the social compact.”
The scope of the federal government’s control over the people has reached a tipping point, including a burdensome and complicated tax code, a bureaucracy that stifles free markets and the individual spirit by issuing thousands of laws a year, not to mention the NSA’s violations of the Bill of Rights, a Congress that spends much faster than it can tax, and an Executive that centralizes government with every act he takes.
The United States is $17 trillion in debt, and entitlements are operating on annual deficits, destined for bankruptcy. As demonstrated by this summer’s scandals, corruption and abuses of power have infiltrated nearly every level of the federal government.
The war between liberty and tyranny is not unlike the UFC fights that Levin occasionally mentions on his radio show, a brutal battle pitting two heavyweights against each other. Those of us warring for limited government and freedom must first recognize that our strategy of playing defense is simply not working.
We. Are. Failing.
We have been bloodied, beaten down, and knocked senseless by the Statists’ fight for a Utopian government-controlled society.
Some may have even conceded the fight, unwilling to go another round, cynically proclaiming that the death of the constitutional republic is inevitable, succumbing to the blows of despotism.
However, there are those of us who are unwilling to tap out or play dead, nor damn this generation, our children, and every following generation to an existence of government servitude, economic ruin, and societal instability.
To Levin, there is no surrender. While there is still time, do we not have a responsibility to defy the tide of tyranny? Is it not the hour to gather ourselves and make that stand, even if it’s a last one?
As Reagan once said, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”
The good news is: there is a plan. In fact it’s right there in the Constitution. The Constitution has been amended 27 times, all by the first method of proposal and passage. However, there is a second method that George Mason insisted be included for the purpose of circumventing the federal government.
The plan requires that each and every freedom-loving American to use his or her gifts, talents, and creativity in order to petition state legislators, as well as to support and elect candidates who will seriously promote and pursue a convention of the states for the purpose of proposing amendments to the constitution.
This idea may be ambitious, but it is not radical. Levin is able to utilize his gift for concise yet intellectual and sophisticated thought in order to lay out the case for the “other” amendment process, never before successfully achieved yet equally legitimate to the first amendment process.
Levin’s The Liberty Amendments is an electrifying call to action, combining the history of the United States Constitution with political philosophy and, best of all, practical application—a game plan, designed by the Framers’ themselves, included within the Constitution itself, for such a time as this.
Tearing through the book as I would a suspense novel, compelling myself to slow down and digest the proposals therein, I was struck with the sheer genius of the Framers of the Constitution. As students of history, the Framers knew that nations prefer tyranny, that republics naturally devolve into despotism, that despite their best efforts, man’s depraved desires for power would over time compromise their design for a limited federal government.
Levin, quoting Benjamin Franklin in support of the Congressional term limits that he proposes: “But there is a natural inclination in mankind to Kingly Government…I am apprehensive therefore, perhaps too apprehensive, that the Government of these States, may in future times, end in Monarchy.”
Franklin’s fears were certainly legitimate if not prescient.
Within the first few pages of his book, Levin demonstrates that the federal government has become much too bloated, intrusive, and corrupt. In other words, our government has become the very thing the our Founding Fathers fought a revolution to defeat.
The Liberty Amendments includes popular ideas like term limits for the Supreme Court and Congress, not to mention limits on taxation and spending that hold mass appeal among the American people. Levin also incorporates solutions which seem ingenious yet sensical and straightforward to cut back the federal government, reduce its size, and restore power to the states.
Levin reiterates that his proposed Liberty Amendments—and there are eleven of them—are meant as a general framework, a starting point if you will, by which the state delegates might consider for the purpose of curbing the power of the federal government and restoring power to the states and to the people.
Perhaps Levin is right. Maybe it’s time we shrug off our apathy, reject the defeatism that has swept through what was once a vibrant and optimistic people, and reclaim what is rightfully ours.
I encourage you to decide for yourself, to consider Levin’s proposals, and to not give up on this country that can yet be saved from a thousand years of darkness.
http://redmillennial.com/2013/08/17/book-review-the-liberty-amendme...
So begins what might be the most intellectually bracing, rational, and thought-provoking book in recent memory. Authored by the preeminent conservative author of our time, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic is a timely yet timeless masterpiece that gives liberty-loving Americans a plan of action.
Mark Levin—an eight-year veteran of the Reagan Administration and a thorn in the side of the EPA thanks to his Landmark Legal Foundation—recognizes that Statism has been eroding the precious liberties that the Founding Fathers labored so arduously to secure.
“The Statists have been successful in their century-long march to disfigure and mangle the constitutional order and undo the social compact.”
The scope of the federal government’s control over the people has reached a tipping point, including a burdensome and complicated tax code, a bureaucracy that stifles free markets and the individual spirit by issuing thousands of laws a year, not to mention the NSA’s violations of the Bill of Rights, a Congress that spends much faster than it can tax, and an Executive that centralizes government with every act he takes.
The United States is $17 trillion in debt, and entitlements are operating on annual deficits, destined for bankruptcy. As demonstrated by this summer’s scandals, corruption and abuses of power have infiltrated nearly every level of the federal government.
The war between liberty and tyranny is not unlike the UFC fights that Levin occasionally mentions on his radio show, a brutal battle pitting two heavyweights against each other. Those of us warring for limited government and freedom must first recognize that our strategy of playing defense is simply not working.
We. Are. Failing.
We have been bloodied, beaten down, and knocked senseless by the Statists’ fight for a Utopian government-controlled society.
Some may have even conceded the fight, unwilling to go another round, cynically proclaiming that the death of the constitutional republic is inevitable, succumbing to the blows of despotism.
However, there are those of us who are unwilling to tap out or play dead, nor damn this generation, our children, and every following generation to an existence of government servitude, economic ruin, and societal instability.
To Levin, there is no surrender. While there is still time, do we not have a responsibility to defy the tide of tyranny? Is it not the hour to gather ourselves and make that stand, even if it’s a last one?
As Reagan once said, “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness.”
The good news is: there is a plan. In fact it’s right there in the Constitution. The Constitution has been amended 27 times, all by the first method of proposal and passage. However, there is a second method that George Mason insisted be included for the purpose of circumventing the federal government.
The plan requires that each and every freedom-loving American to use his or her gifts, talents, and creativity in order to petition state legislators, as well as to support and elect candidates who will seriously promote and pursue a convention of the states for the purpose of proposing amendments to the constitution.
This idea may be ambitious, but it is not radical. Levin is able to utilize his gift for concise yet intellectual and sophisticated thought in order to lay out the case for the “other” amendment process, never before successfully achieved yet equally legitimate to the first amendment process.
Levin’s The Liberty Amendments is an electrifying call to action, combining the history of the United States Constitution with political philosophy and, best of all, practical application—a game plan, designed by the Framers’ themselves, included within the Constitution itself, for such a time as this.
Tearing through the book as I would a suspense novel, compelling myself to slow down and digest the proposals therein, I was struck with the sheer genius of the Framers of the Constitution. As students of history, the Framers knew that nations prefer tyranny, that republics naturally devolve into despotism, that despite their best efforts, man’s depraved desires for power would over time compromise their design for a limited federal government.
Levin, quoting Benjamin Franklin in support of the Congressional term limits that he proposes: “But there is a natural inclination in mankind to Kingly Government…I am apprehensive therefore, perhaps too apprehensive, that the Government of these States, may in future times, end in Monarchy.”
Franklin’s fears were certainly legitimate if not prescient.
Within the first few pages of his book, Levin demonstrates that the federal government has become much too bloated, intrusive, and corrupt. In other words, our government has become the very thing the our Founding Fathers fought a revolution to defeat.
The Liberty Amendments includes popular ideas like term limits for the Supreme Court and Congress, not to mention limits on taxation and spending that hold mass appeal among the American people. Levin also incorporates solutions which seem ingenious yet sensical and straightforward to cut back the federal government, reduce its size, and restore power to the states.
Levin reiterates that his proposed Liberty Amendments—and there are eleven of them—are meant as a general framework, a starting point if you will, by which the state delegates might consider for the purpose of curbing the power of the federal government and restoring power to the states and to the people.
Perhaps Levin is right. Maybe it’s time we shrug off our apathy, reject the defeatism that has swept through what was once a vibrant and optimistic people, and reclaim what is rightfully ours.
I encourage you to decide for yourself, to consider Levin’s proposals, and to not give up on this country that can yet be saved from a thousand years of darkness.
http://redmillennial.com/2013/08/17/book-review-the-liberty-amendme...
Cal Thomas commentary: Amendments would rein in government
August 17, 2013|By Cal Thomas
When I studied the U.S. Constitution in school, I learned that for a bill to become law it first had to be introduced in either the House or the Senate. Today, a cynic might say for a bill to become law a member of Congress must first be introduced to a lobbyist.
Much of government's dysfunction, cost and overreach can be traced to the abandonment of the constitutional boundaries the Founders put in place for the purpose of controlling the lust for power.
In his new book, "The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic," Mark R. Levin asserts the U.S. government isn't performing up to standards established by the Founders because, like a flooding river, politicians have breached their constitutional limits.
Mr. Levin, who graduated with honors and a law degree from Temple University and who hosts a popular syndicated radio talk show, believes "The nation has entered an age of post-constitutional tyranny" resulting in this attitude by our leaders: "The public is not to be informed but indoctrinated, manipulated and misled."
Before this is dismissed as the ranting of a far-right extremist, consider the case Mr. Levin builds: The executive branch has assumed for itself "broad lawmaking power," creating departments and agencies that contravene the doctrine known as separation of powers; Congress creates monstrosities like Obamacare that have no constitutional origin, spending the country into record debt and making America dependent on foreign governments, especially China; the judiciary consists of men and women who are "no more virtuous than the rest of us and in some cases less so, as they suffer from the usual human imperfections and frailties." And yet they make decisions in the name of the Constitution that cannot be defended according to the words of the Founders, who believed the judiciary should be the least powerful and consequential branch of government. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary branch would be the weakest of the three because it had "no influence over either the sword or the purse. ... It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment."
Who can credibly disagree with Mr. Levin when he writes: "What was to be a relatively innocuous federal government, operating from a defined enumeration of specific grants of power, has become an ever-present and unaccountable force. It is the nation's largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider and pension guarantor."
To return America to its constitutional boundaries, Mr. Levin proposes a series of "liberty amendments" to the Constitution, beginning with one limiting the terms of congressmen so they might avoid the bipartisan virus that infects even some who believe in limited government, mutating them into power-hungry influence seekers with little regard for the public good.
Another amendment would establish term limits for Supreme Court justices. "The point is," argues Mr. Levin, "that the Framers clearly intended to create intrinsic limitations on the ability of any one branch or level of government to have unanswered authority over the other."
Another amendment would establish spending limits for the government. Another would grant states the authority to check Congress.
Mr. Levin admits these amendments are unlikely to win congressional approval because in Washington power is not willingly relinquished. That's why he proposes the states bypass Congress, as the Framers provided, and pass these amendments themselves. As Mr. Levin notes, "Article V (of the Constitution) expressly grants state legislatures significant authority to rebalance the constitutional structure for the purpose of restoring our founding principles should the federal government shed its limitations, abandon its original purpose and grow too powerful, as many delegates in Philadelphia and the state conventions had worried it might."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/08/16/amendments-would-rein-in-government.html
When I studied the U.S. Constitution in school, I learned that for a bill to become law it first had to be introduced in either the House or the Senate. Today, a cynic might say for a bill to become law a member of Congress must first be introduced to a lobbyist.
Much of government's dysfunction, cost and overreach can be traced to the abandonment of the constitutional boundaries the Founders put in place for the purpose of controlling the lust for power.
In his new book, "The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic," Mark R. Levin asserts the U.S. government isn't performing up to standards established by the Founders because, like a flooding river, politicians have breached their constitutional limits.
Mr. Levin, who graduated with honors and a law degree from Temple University and who hosts a popular syndicated radio talk show, believes "The nation has entered an age of post-constitutional tyranny" resulting in this attitude by our leaders: "The public is not to be informed but indoctrinated, manipulated and misled."
Before this is dismissed as the ranting of a far-right extremist, consider the case Mr. Levin builds: The executive branch has assumed for itself "broad lawmaking power," creating departments and agencies that contravene the doctrine known as separation of powers; Congress creates monstrosities like Obamacare that have no constitutional origin, spending the country into record debt and making America dependent on foreign governments, especially China; the judiciary consists of men and women who are "no more virtuous than the rest of us and in some cases less so, as they suffer from the usual human imperfections and frailties." And yet they make decisions in the name of the Constitution that cannot be defended according to the words of the Founders, who believed the judiciary should be the least powerful and consequential branch of government. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote that the judiciary branch would be the weakest of the three because it had "no influence over either the sword or the purse. ... It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment."
Who can credibly disagree with Mr. Levin when he writes: "What was to be a relatively innocuous federal government, operating from a defined enumeration of specific grants of power, has become an ever-present and unaccountable force. It is the nation's largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, property owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider and pension guarantor."
To return America to its constitutional boundaries, Mr. Levin proposes a series of "liberty amendments" to the Constitution, beginning with one limiting the terms of congressmen so they might avoid the bipartisan virus that infects even some who believe in limited government, mutating them into power-hungry influence seekers with little regard for the public good.
Another amendment would establish term limits for Supreme Court justices. "The point is," argues Mr. Levin, "that the Framers clearly intended to create intrinsic limitations on the ability of any one branch or level of government to have unanswered authority over the other."
Another amendment would establish spending limits for the government. Another would grant states the authority to check Congress.
Mr. Levin admits these amendments are unlikely to win congressional approval because in Washington power is not willingly relinquished. That's why he proposes the states bypass Congress, as the Framers provided, and pass these amendments themselves. As Mr. Levin notes, "Article V (of the Constitution) expressly grants state legislatures significant authority to rebalance the constitutional structure for the purpose of restoring our founding principles should the federal government shed its limitations, abandon its original purpose and grow too powerful, as many delegates in Philadelphia and the state conventions had worried it might."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2013/08/16/amendments-would-rein-in-government.html
The Liberty Amendments: Restoring The American Republic by Mark Levin
“It was by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we can be kept from falling back.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
So ends Chapter Ten of The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic by Constitutional scholar, attorney and popular conservative talk-radio host, Mark Levin. The quote by Jefferson is used, as are many others, to call to us for the need to be active and resolute in our handling of the precious and fragile rarity of liberty during this most distressing point in American history.
Levin’s book explores and emphasizes the thought processes of those who lent their thoughts to the founding of the nation, and zeroes in on the part in Article V of the Constitution that reinforces the design of the framers; that the people of the States shall have the power to amend the Constitution in case those in Washington D.C. refuse to follow it.
Here is the answer to the questions so many Patriots have posed most recently due to the appalling disrespect paid to our nation’s founding documents by those who reach for absolute power. That, if we cannot sufficiently, through activism within the political process, produce enough legislators steeped in the history of this great nation who will work to shrink the gluttonous beast that is the Federal Government, we are not destined to only trod that narrow path. We are armed with the ability to work with our closest representatives, turning out our passion for liberty onto the villages, towns and communities we live in.
We have the power, each to his own, to pinch and ultimately clamp the Federal Leviathan which has been so egregiously foisted upon us through the deliberate, systemic and evil march of Statists in both major parties in the United States political system. Levin has outlined the process, and gone a step further in offering eleven amendments to restore Constitutional governance.
In laying the case for the amendment process, Levin points to the current President’s “impressive aptitude for imperial rule,” and the “gluttonous appetite for programmatic schemes,” of the out-of-control Federal government. He is convinced that those who currently hold the reins of power in Washington D.C. will not reform that which they feed off of, even though they have all taken an oath to preserve the Constitution, and presses the case for self-government, and a citizen-activist role as well as a citizen-legislative role.
To the activist, these words resonate yet create perhaps a new, daunting and sober look at what work lies before them. If we are to become subjects, we will do nothing and allow poor attitude and complacent inaction to pervade our lives. However, in light of the fact that we do know and understand the nature of free men, this inaction will surely result in violence.
There are those who stand at the ready to defend themselves, but how many will put into motion the arguments and the scholarly work of preservation of the founding of the most advanced society the world has known? The Liberty Amendments shows what one man has thought of, and it will spark the desired discussion especially now that those who so revere the traditions of America as founded have witnessed that both Houses of Congress and both political parties are willing to subvert the greatest document of governance the world has seen.
It is without question that the nation is at a turning point. Do not allow those seeking liberty to wilt and wither at the thought of the task that lies ahead. The activist must continue to contact their legislators, educate the public, alarm those in slumber and spread a renewed enthusiasm for the grand vision of constituting a nation of free men and women.
The anger that has risen in light of the recent actions of those who would rule us should and can be funneled into an enthusiastic triumph of the American Spirit. We cannot allow our great nation to be destroyed from within when we have the tools at our disposal to thwart that destruction.
Levin has found the arguments, the passion, and the intent of those who designed every word of the Constitution. He has also found communications of certain disappointments from those who were involved in its instruction. Finding these arguments and thoughts and, with the benefit of hindsight and observance of progression, Levin is able to craft amendments to the Constitution, not to change it, but to reclaim it.
The work Levin has produced is not the end of any discussion, but the beginning of a new discussion. As we continue to watch those who believe they know better how to run our lives, we are almost ecstatic to change the core of the action from begging our public servants to listen, to, bypassing them completely and emphasize a home-grown grassroots revolution. One that avoids violence and returns the power to We the People.
It is my great pleasure to be able to review Mark Levin’s newest work, and it has not escaped my observation that the book encapsulates all that he has worked for and stood for since he was a young man. His Men in Black,Liberty and Tyranny, and Ameritopia are drawn from, and so are his legal battles, most notably the discussions of the intent of the Commerce Clause in fighting Obamacare. I have read these books and legal briefs, and because I have, and because I have listened to the substantive discussions he initiates on his radio show, as well as his way of thinking and arguing, I am far more knowledgeable and passionate about saving our Republic than I would have been had our paths never crossed. He is a wonderful mentor.
Levin points out that he cannot stress enough the dire need for activism. May we rise to the challenge to reclaim our heritage that so many have died to preserve?
More discussion:
Buy the book– The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic
Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments by Jeff Lord
Breitbart News Interview: Mark Levin and The Liberty Amendments
http://jenkuznicki.com/2013/08/the-liberty-amendments-restoring-the-american-republic-by-mark-levin/
So ends Chapter Ten of The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic by Constitutional scholar, attorney and popular conservative talk-radio host, Mark Levin. The quote by Jefferson is used, as are many others, to call to us for the need to be active and resolute in our handling of the precious and fragile rarity of liberty during this most distressing point in American history.
Levin’s book explores and emphasizes the thought processes of those who lent their thoughts to the founding of the nation, and zeroes in on the part in Article V of the Constitution that reinforces the design of the framers; that the people of the States shall have the power to amend the Constitution in case those in Washington D.C. refuse to follow it.
Here is the answer to the questions so many Patriots have posed most recently due to the appalling disrespect paid to our nation’s founding documents by those who reach for absolute power. That, if we cannot sufficiently, through activism within the political process, produce enough legislators steeped in the history of this great nation who will work to shrink the gluttonous beast that is the Federal Government, we are not destined to only trod that narrow path. We are armed with the ability to work with our closest representatives, turning out our passion for liberty onto the villages, towns and communities we live in.
We have the power, each to his own, to pinch and ultimately clamp the Federal Leviathan which has been so egregiously foisted upon us through the deliberate, systemic and evil march of Statists in both major parties in the United States political system. Levin has outlined the process, and gone a step further in offering eleven amendments to restore Constitutional governance.
In laying the case for the amendment process, Levin points to the current President’s “impressive aptitude for imperial rule,” and the “gluttonous appetite for programmatic schemes,” of the out-of-control Federal government. He is convinced that those who currently hold the reins of power in Washington D.C. will not reform that which they feed off of, even though they have all taken an oath to preserve the Constitution, and presses the case for self-government, and a citizen-activist role as well as a citizen-legislative role.
To the activist, these words resonate yet create perhaps a new, daunting and sober look at what work lies before them. If we are to become subjects, we will do nothing and allow poor attitude and complacent inaction to pervade our lives. However, in light of the fact that we do know and understand the nature of free men, this inaction will surely result in violence.
There are those who stand at the ready to defend themselves, but how many will put into motion the arguments and the scholarly work of preservation of the founding of the most advanced society the world has known? The Liberty Amendments shows what one man has thought of, and it will spark the desired discussion especially now that those who so revere the traditions of America as founded have witnessed that both Houses of Congress and both political parties are willing to subvert the greatest document of governance the world has seen.
It is without question that the nation is at a turning point. Do not allow those seeking liberty to wilt and wither at the thought of the task that lies ahead. The activist must continue to contact their legislators, educate the public, alarm those in slumber and spread a renewed enthusiasm for the grand vision of constituting a nation of free men and women.
The anger that has risen in light of the recent actions of those who would rule us should and can be funneled into an enthusiastic triumph of the American Spirit. We cannot allow our great nation to be destroyed from within when we have the tools at our disposal to thwart that destruction.
Levin has found the arguments, the passion, and the intent of those who designed every word of the Constitution. He has also found communications of certain disappointments from those who were involved in its instruction. Finding these arguments and thoughts and, with the benefit of hindsight and observance of progression, Levin is able to craft amendments to the Constitution, not to change it, but to reclaim it.
The work Levin has produced is not the end of any discussion, but the beginning of a new discussion. As we continue to watch those who believe they know better how to run our lives, we are almost ecstatic to change the core of the action from begging our public servants to listen, to, bypassing them completely and emphasize a home-grown grassroots revolution. One that avoids violence and returns the power to We the People.
It is my great pleasure to be able to review Mark Levin’s newest work, and it has not escaped my observation that the book encapsulates all that he has worked for and stood for since he was a young man. His Men in Black,Liberty and Tyranny, and Ameritopia are drawn from, and so are his legal battles, most notably the discussions of the intent of the Commerce Clause in fighting Obamacare. I have read these books and legal briefs, and because I have, and because I have listened to the substantive discussions he initiates on his radio show, as well as his way of thinking and arguing, I am far more knowledgeable and passionate about saving our Republic than I would have been had our paths never crossed. He is a wonderful mentor.
Levin points out that he cannot stress enough the dire need for activism. May we rise to the challenge to reclaim our heritage that so many have died to preserve?
More discussion:
Buy the book– The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic
Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments by Jeff Lord
Breitbart News Interview: Mark Levin and The Liberty Amendments
http://jenkuznicki.com/2013/08/the-liberty-amendments-restoring-the-american-republic-by-mark-levin/
Mark Levin's Game Changer: Using The Constitution To Arrest Federal Drift
Two Marks, Levin and Meckler, notably and nobly are proposing to change the rules of modern politics and governance.
Debuting at Amazon Number One (for all, not merely political, books) is syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. Sporting an average of 4.7 stars from, at the time of this writing, 153 reviews on Amazon, Levin calls for a populist suite of Constitutional amendments to be initiated by the States.
Levin proposes to reform the federal government from its degenerate, bloated, imperial structure back to its (small r) republican roots. Even more interesting than his specific proposals is the mechanism.
There is a little-known “emergency cord” built into the Constitution by the Founders. Find it in Article V. It allows for the States, rather than just the Congress, to propose Constitutional amendments. It is obscure yet entirely legitimate — and invaluable. It was extolled by James Madison in The Federalist No. 43.
Meanwhile, on August 15th, on the ground and the Web, a civic “Seal Team Six” — of operatives and activists — has constituted itself as ConventionOfStates.com. (This columnist has there enlisted as a foot soldier.) Its purpose? “COS seeks to call a Convention of States for a particular subject—limiting the jurisdiction and power of the federal government. This strategy would allow the states to formally consider almost all of Mark Levin’s ‘Liberty Amendments,’ giving delegates the freedom to propose the necessary amendments to stop the runaway power of Washington, D.C.”
COS’s president is Mark Meckler, head of Citizens for Self-Governance. Meckler co-founded and co-coordinated the Tea Party Patriots, the largest and most authentic Tea Party mega-group. He departed thence “to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide.” Head of Citizens for Self-Governance’s Convention of the States Project is the powerful and principled Michael Farris, Chancellor of Patrick Henry College and Chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association. They are joined by Mark Wohlschlegel II, Executive Director, Laura Fennig, Coalitions Director and Jordan Sillars, Communications Director.
While ConventionOfStates.com recruits and mobilizes political commandos Levin takes to the printing press and to the airwaves — with important support from such megaphonic forces as Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, generously lauding Levin’s efforts, recently had this to say on his show:
“Have you heard of Mark Levin’s new book, The Liberty Amendments? … It’s fascinating. Everybody still asks me, “Rush what can I do, besides vote?” Everybody wants to do something. Well, look, the standard, ordinary give-and-take and back-and-forth of politics isn’t gonna work anymore. There are remedies for this. … The American people are going to have to fix this, and that’s what Levin’s book is about. It’s a wonderful book.
“I don’t want to say it’s simple, but it makes so much sense. … And it is something that, the more people read it, the more people become familiar with it and demand that something be done to reaffirm and strengthen the Constitution, it’s something like this that is going to be necessary … The American people have the power to change this …”
Indeed we do.
Levin’s book is the first mass-emergence of something that Meckler and others — including, among others, the Goldwater Institute’s Constitutional expert Nick Dranias and the Independence Institute’s Constitutional scholar Robert G. Natelson — have been working on for some time.
As this columnist wrote here in 2011 Meckler was one of the two lead figures in a seminal gathering held at Harvard University at the initiative of the great (albeit decidedly social democratic) humanitarian populist legal sage Prof. Lawrence Lessig.
As then stated:
“Last week the unthinkable happened. While you were distracted by the banal and only marginally important presidential primaries, the lion, Harvard Law School, publicly lay down with the lamb, the Tea Party Patriots. The long-term political implications are, potentially, far more potent than a mere presidency.”
The essence of this epochal event was just (but no less than) this:
“Lessig and the Tea Party, and its guiding spirits, are populists. Populism was forever redefined by Jeffrey Bell ([then] a business partner of this columnist) as optimism about people’s ability to manage their own affairs better than an elite can manage them for them. Populism is neither left nor right wing. Populists of all stripes share in common a conviction in ‘power to the people,’ a belief that in a republic ‘citizen’ is the noblest office. And while Lessig and Meckler may disagree about just about every ideological issue, their respect for the wisdom and dignity of the citizens unites them in a realm far more important than the ideological.
They came together to explore a mechanism by which America’s government can be changed by, of, and for the people. Jefferson was unequivocally right when he wrote:
‘Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’
So. Are there insufferable evils?
For the first time in modern history the populist left and populist right came together to endorse, and seek a way to operationalize, a transcendent belief in citizens over government.”
Are there insufferable evils today? You bet there are. Is Article V a valid means of redress? Yes.
Yet there are figures on the right who oppose a states-driven constitutional amendment process. Foremost among these has been the great Phyllis Schlafly. The conservative proponents of Article V now, indeed partly out of deep respect for her, offer iron-clad safeguards against her concern about the possibility of a “runaway convention.”
The support by such deservedly respected bodies as the Goldwater Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council have allayed the fears of all but the “’til the last dog dies” skeptics. Among these skeptics include some lions of the left as well. Consider Harvard’s Prof. Laurence Tribe under the quilts with the John Birch Society in opposition. Together they make perhaps the strangest-bedfellow tableau in constitutional history since Hamilton and Jefferson served together in Washington’s cabinet.
We, the people, have, of late, sent waves of reformers to Washington to restore to us our power, money and dignity. We see our champions (mostly) stymied by the System. Therefore… it is time to change the System. Amending the Constitution represents a classical liberal, conservative, not radical, solution.
As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 43,
“That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen. It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing them should be provided. The mode preferred by the convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It 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.” (Emphasis added.)
Time to use the U.S. Constitution’s Article V to restore the precedence of the people over the government. Time to use Article V to restore America’s Constitutional rights to their native classical liberal, fierce, status.
It’s been an unequal fight. Our government has much too much power and money. We, the people, demand our money, our power, and our dignity back.
We mere citizens cannot, it seems, win the game as now constituted. Article V, the game changer, is a path back to liberty. Bravo, now, to the two Marks, Levin and Meckler. Time to pull the Constitution’s emergency cord to stop the runaway federal freight train.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/08/19/mark-levins-game-changer-using-the-constitution-to-arrest-federal-drift/2/
Debuting at Amazon Number One (for all, not merely political, books) is syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. Sporting an average of 4.7 stars from, at the time of this writing, 153 reviews on Amazon, Levin calls for a populist suite of Constitutional amendments to be initiated by the States.
Levin proposes to reform the federal government from its degenerate, bloated, imperial structure back to its (small r) republican roots. Even more interesting than his specific proposals is the mechanism.
There is a little-known “emergency cord” built into the Constitution by the Founders. Find it in Article V. It allows for the States, rather than just the Congress, to propose Constitutional amendments. It is obscure yet entirely legitimate — and invaluable. It was extolled by James Madison in The Federalist No. 43.
Meanwhile, on August 15th, on the ground and the Web, a civic “Seal Team Six” — of operatives and activists — has constituted itself as ConventionOfStates.com. (This columnist has there enlisted as a foot soldier.) Its purpose? “COS seeks to call a Convention of States for a particular subject—limiting the jurisdiction and power of the federal government. This strategy would allow the states to formally consider almost all of Mark Levin’s ‘Liberty Amendments,’ giving delegates the freedom to propose the necessary amendments to stop the runaway power of Washington, D.C.”
COS’s president is Mark Meckler, head of Citizens for Self-Governance. Meckler co-founded and co-coordinated the Tea Party Patriots, the largest and most authentic Tea Party mega-group. He departed thence “to work more broadly on expanding the self-governance movement beyond the partisan divide.” Head of Citizens for Self-Governance’s Convention of the States Project is the powerful and principled Michael Farris, Chancellor of Patrick Henry College and Chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association. They are joined by Mark Wohlschlegel II, Executive Director, Laura Fennig, Coalitions Director and Jordan Sillars, Communications Director.
While ConventionOfStates.com recruits and mobilizes political commandos Levin takes to the printing press and to the airwaves — with important support from such megaphonic forces as Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh, generously lauding Levin’s efforts, recently had this to say on his show:
“Have you heard of Mark Levin’s new book, The Liberty Amendments? … It’s fascinating. Everybody still asks me, “Rush what can I do, besides vote?” Everybody wants to do something. Well, look, the standard, ordinary give-and-take and back-and-forth of politics isn’t gonna work anymore. There are remedies for this. … The American people are going to have to fix this, and that’s what Levin’s book is about. It’s a wonderful book.
“I don’t want to say it’s simple, but it makes so much sense. … And it is something that, the more people read it, the more people become familiar with it and demand that something be done to reaffirm and strengthen the Constitution, it’s something like this that is going to be necessary … The American people have the power to change this …”
Indeed we do.
Levin’s book is the first mass-emergence of something that Meckler and others — including, among others, the Goldwater Institute’s Constitutional expert Nick Dranias and the Independence Institute’s Constitutional scholar Robert G. Natelson — have been working on for some time.
As this columnist wrote here in 2011 Meckler was one of the two lead figures in a seminal gathering held at Harvard University at the initiative of the great (albeit decidedly social democratic) humanitarian populist legal sage Prof. Lawrence Lessig.
As then stated:
“Last week the unthinkable happened. While you were distracted by the banal and only marginally important presidential primaries, the lion, Harvard Law School, publicly lay down with the lamb, the Tea Party Patriots. The long-term political implications are, potentially, far more potent than a mere presidency.”
The essence of this epochal event was just (but no less than) this:
“Lessig and the Tea Party, and its guiding spirits, are populists. Populism was forever redefined by Jeffrey Bell ([then] a business partner of this columnist) as optimism about people’s ability to manage their own affairs better than an elite can manage them for them. Populism is neither left nor right wing. Populists of all stripes share in common a conviction in ‘power to the people,’ a belief that in a republic ‘citizen’ is the noblest office. And while Lessig and Meckler may disagree about just about every ideological issue, their respect for the wisdom and dignity of the citizens unites them in a realm far more important than the ideological.
They came together to explore a mechanism by which America’s government can be changed by, of, and for the people. Jefferson was unequivocally right when he wrote:
‘Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.’
So. Are there insufferable evils?
For the first time in modern history the populist left and populist right came together to endorse, and seek a way to operationalize, a transcendent belief in citizens over government.”
Are there insufferable evils today? You bet there are. Is Article V a valid means of redress? Yes.
Yet there are figures on the right who oppose a states-driven constitutional amendment process. Foremost among these has been the great Phyllis Schlafly. The conservative proponents of Article V now, indeed partly out of deep respect for her, offer iron-clad safeguards against her concern about the possibility of a “runaway convention.”
The support by such deservedly respected bodies as the Goldwater Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council have allayed the fears of all but the “’til the last dog dies” skeptics. Among these skeptics include some lions of the left as well. Consider Harvard’s Prof. Laurence Tribe under the quilts with the John Birch Society in opposition. Together they make perhaps the strangest-bedfellow tableau in constitutional history since Hamilton and Jefferson served together in Washington’s cabinet.
We, the people, have, of late, sent waves of reformers to Washington to restore to us our power, money and dignity. We see our champions (mostly) stymied by the System. Therefore… it is time to change the System. Amending the Constitution represents a classical liberal, conservative, not radical, solution.
As James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 43,
“That useful alterations will be suggested by experience, could not but be foreseen. It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing them should be provided. The mode preferred by the convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It 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.” (Emphasis added.)
Time to use the U.S. Constitution’s Article V to restore the precedence of the people over the government. Time to use Article V to restore America’s Constitutional rights to their native classical liberal, fierce, status.
It’s been an unequal fight. Our government has much too much power and money. We, the people, demand our money, our power, and our dignity back.
We mere citizens cannot, it seems, win the game as now constituted. Article V, the game changer, is a path back to liberty. Bravo, now, to the two Marks, Levin and Meckler. Time to pull the Constitution’s emergency cord to stop the runaway federal freight train.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/08/19/mark-levins-game-changer-using-the-constitution-to-arrest-federal-drift/2/
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