I can almost guarantee that if we get an Article V
Convention, this alone will cause most of those 535 members of Congress to wet
their pants.
In theory, there is nothing wrong with keeping a good public
servant in office for as long as the official and we the voters want him or her
there. But through gerrymandering of House districts, congressional perks, a
ton of free media, incumbents are simply ridiculously hard to remove from
office. Our framers NEVER envisioned
elected officials to make a career of serving in Congress and this practice has
led to a power drunk United States Congress that in many ways appears to be in
intentional collusion with the other branches in order to maintain power,
whether it be in minority party of the majority party.
Do you think the United States Congress will EVER propose
such an amendment via the U.S. Congress? The vast majority of our current 535
members of both the United States House of Representatives and the United
States Senate are staggering, falling down drunk on the intoxicating effects of
Congressional perks and power.
Article V of The United States Constitution provides a
second mode for proposing amendments that has never been used. Today, there are
many who have never studied or even read Article V that are fearful of using
the mode because like most things that are feared, they simply do not
understand it. I don't say this disparagingly other than that it is very
frustrating that many that oppose this...when I talk to them and explain
it...they never knew that it was actually IN the Constitution. They say that we need to use the process
whereby Congress proposes amendments and sends them to the states...they talk
about "opening up the Constitution" when we use this process. That
kind of talk betrays their misunderstanding or lack of understanding altogether
on Article V. The second mode that
involves the states is no different than the first mode whereby the U.S.
Congress proposes amendments, the ONLY difference being that the amendments
would come from the states without ANY participation by the United States
Congress. That thought almost makes me
want to do cartwheels. But here is the
thing that most don't seem to understand.
An Article V COS cannot change one word of the Constitution on its
own. Just like all 27 of our current
amendments that came from the U.S. Congress, any amendment coming from a COS
MUST be sent back to all 50 states for ratification and a minimum of 3/4ths
(38) would have to ratify them for any of them to take effect.
An Article V Convention of States could more than likely
move such an amendment to the states in the first few days of a Convention...I
suspect it would be the kind of "low hanging fruit" that could be
proposed as an amendment and pumped out to the states for ratification almost
immediately. Then 38 states would have to ratify such an amendment for term
limits to be part of the United States Constitution.
I am the State Director in South Carolina
for the Convention of States Project. Many other states right now have someone
just like me doing the same thing. You can volunteer as a District Captain here
in South Carolina or in any state that now has a growing grassroots COS
movement. Help us do this by signing up at www.conventionofstates.com
