How It Began and Misled Others
By Robert G. Natelson1
Executive Summary
Some conservative organizations regularly lobby against using the Constitution’s procedure for a “convention for proposing amendments.” Those organizations may think they are defending the Constitution, but in fact they are unwittingly repeating misinformation deliberately injected into public discourse by their political opponents.
This paper shows how figures generally associated with America’s “liberal establishment” fabricated and spread this misinformation. This paper also reveals the reasons they did so: to disable a vital constitutional check on the power of the
federal government.
INTRODUCTION
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. The convention itself is a meeting of the representatives of state legislatures—an assembly of the kind traditionally called a “convention of states.”
The Framers adopted the convention procedure to ensure that Congress did not have a monopoly on the amendment process. The Framers saw the procedure as a way the people, acting through their state legislatures, could respond if the
federal government became dysfunctional or abusive.
There is widespread public support for amendments to cure some of the real problems now plaguing the country. However, since repeal of Prohibition, Congress repeatedly has refused to propose any constitutional amendments limiting its own power and prerogatives. When reformers sought to check lavish congressional pay raises, for example, they could get nothing through Congress. Instead, they had to secure ratification of an amendment (the 27th) that had been formally proposed in 1789!
1Robert G. Natelson, the Senior Fellow in Constitutional Jurisprudence at the Independence Institute in Denver, was a law professor for 25 years at three different universities. He has written extensively on the Constitution for both the scholarly and popular markets, and since 2013 has been cited increasingly at the U.S. Supreme Court, both by parties and by justices. He is the nation’s most published active scholar on the amendment process, and heads the Institute’s Article V Information Center. For a biography and bibliography, see http://constitution.i2i.org/about.