Obama Citizenship

On Constitutional Conventions

By Phil

US Constitution, Article 5:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

There have been a number of rumors — and emails — floating around concerning the possibility of there being enough States to ratify having a constitutional convention (Ohio being the latest, to date, to seriously consider the thought). I would like to dispel at least a part of one of those rumors and bring to your attention some facts regarding the above Article…

Firstly, as you can plainly see, above, if “two thirds of the several States” call for a Convention for proposing Amendments, that is certainly one way to amend the Constitution. It was likely, in my view, that the founders put this clause in the document over and above going the People route (meaning to send a proposed Amendment to the several States for the People to ultimately decide) as an ultimate check against the People.

How would this have worked? Prior to the 17th Amendment having been ratified (whereby the Senate shifted from being appointed by the legislatures of each State to being popularly elected by the People thereof), the States had equal and direct suffrage (representation) as did the People at the federal level. For those of us who are States’ rights advocates, we know that the House was appropriately directly elected by the People (representing the People individually), the Senate was chosen by the States (representing the States individually and the People thereof as a grouping; a body one step removed from the passion of the People), with the Judiciary under the control of the Senate (where the Judiciary is the furthest removed from the passion of the People).

Therefore, in theory, if the States had equal suffrage at the federal level, they would have had the explicit right to call for a convention in the case that either (1) the federal officeholders were stepping out of bounds, and/or (2) the People were doing the same. So, even in the amending process, there would have been a balance between the more localized States and the People thereof.

With the above being said, one of the rumors I’ve heard about a “Con Con” (to which a constitutional convention is colloquially referred) is that this is a way for “liberal Democrats” to perform an end-run around the American people and completely re-write the document as they see fit. The truth of the matter is (as will be seen via a link, below) that the concept of holding a convention has been around since the beginning of the republic; it apparently really picked up steam, as it were, in the 1970s, but then subsided.

However, it is highly possible that such a convention would hold no legal muster in this country. One particular site that is following two lawsuits that made it to the Supreme Court as well as further links to constitutional conventional history is article5.org. This is an excellent site that proposes that Congress could have the legal authority to simply ignore a call by the States for a convention.

Other sites include the following:

• articlev.com
• Friends of the Article V Convention
• articlev.org

The above list is by no means exhaustive; it’s the result of a cursory search via Google.

In my opinion, I believe it’s important that, in all ways, the People need to hold our governing bodies accountable for their actions. While holding a constitutional convention is one of the paths of last resort for changing the Constitution (hence why two thirds of the States is the requirement to make it happen), it ought to be considered an option, and Congress should certainly be made to be subservient to such a situation.

After all, it’s in the Constitution, and we the People are obligated to hold our rulers accountable to it.

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on January 15, 2009 (boomark / email).