Could an Article V convention backfire on conservatives?

Source: Conservative Review | August 27, 2016 | Nate Madden

Fearmongering over an Article V convention of states continues, this time peddled by former labor secretary and “fight for fifteen” minimum wage shill Robert Reich and a wildly-inaccurate blog post.

Scare tactics

A post at the liberal blog Daily Kos earlier this week dredged up a policy proposal by the American Legislative Exchange Council that has been adopted by a handful of states asks:

What if individual states could ignore Supreme Court rulings and ban same-sex marriages, taxation, immigration, abortion and so forth?  In other words, make their own set of rules without citizens having a voice in the matter?  Sound ridiculous? I thought so too, until I came across such an amendment being passed in republican states across our country months ago.  

The blogger then quotes a Facebook post from Reich about a recent New York Times article on the subject:

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1287328894613037

“The right-wing coup d’etat continues. Conservative advocacy groups bankrolled by the Koch brothers are quietly marshaling support for a constitutional convention to get a balanced budget – amendment, among other nefarious right-wing goals,” reads the post.

“The plan rests on Article 5 of the Constitution allowing states to draft their own constitutional amendments whenever two-thirds of their legislatures demand it,” he continues. “Not only would a balanced-budget amendment be bonkers – preventing government from being the purchaser of last resort when consumers and businesses aren’t spending enough to keep the economy going – but such a convention could easily spiral out of control.”

But the liberal pseudo-economist’s statement is just the latest in a long line of fear-mongering and misinformation about the prospect of an Article V convention that reaches across party and ideological lines.

Probably the longest-running anti-convention talking point operates on the possibility of a “runaway convention,” where the convention is called and the several delegates propose and pass a theoretical Pandora’s box of amendments. The argument goes that these amendments will be contrary to our understanding of liberty, the American experience, basic civil rights, what have you. But what this argument ignores is that – even in the event that the states can call a convention – the Constitution requires supermajorities to pass amendments, regardless of the amendment avenue employed.

What would actually happen under an Article 5 convention?

According to the Convention of States Project:

Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, any constitutional amendment must be ratified by three fourths of the states (now 38 of 50) to be effective. Before an amendment can be ratified, however, it must be proposed either (1) by Congress or (2) by an interstate task force the Constitution calls a “convention for proposing amendments.” This gathering is convened when the people convince two thirds of the state legislatures (34 of 50) to pass resolutions demanding it.

This means that anything proposed would have to pass an immense legislative hurdle. Whether in metaphor or reality, high hurdles aren’t conducive to running away. The framers built the government this way for a reason, which brings us to our second point.

The idea, as the Daily Kos blogger writes, that the people would have no say in a convention of states is laughably ignorant to how a republic works in the first place.

Our government is a representative government. State and federal representatives represent the people. That’s why they are called representatives. If you don’t feel represented by your representative, then find a new candidate, knock on doors, and get them elected.

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  • Discussion
  • Consistent #9613

    Woodcutter #9696

    Of course they’re going to try and scare people away from the convention, because it could end up limiting their power.

    Take a look at this 5-minute video on “How do we know a Convention of States is safe? ”

    Woodcutter #9697

    Here’s another 5-minute video of Milton Freidman that really clearly explains the need:

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