This past weekend I ran across an article in the The Telegraph, Middle Georgia’s News Source entitled A Convention of States is not a Constitutional Convention. I was very impressed by the the ability of the author, Paul Boland, to cut to the chase about a convention of states or Article V convention, as it is also known. With some detail, Boland describes why someone should not confuse our Citizens for Self-Governance Convention of States project with the calling of a “Constitutional Convention”. Boland explains: “A Convention of States is simply one of the two methods in Article 5 of our Constitution for proposing and ratifying amendments. This is not the sort of convention that has the power to propose a new Constitution or to change the Constitution. The only thing an Article 5 convention can do is to propose an idea for how to fix a broken system — a system that has become corrupted by a Congress that can’t function.” Boland further describes how the first draft of the Constitution gave amendment power only to Congress. It would have stayed that way had not George Mason pointed out that “no amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the government should become oppressive, as he verily believed would be the case.” Basically, we are exactly in the situation that George Mason feared. Our Congress is a big part of the problem we have with extreme government overreach. As such, we cannot count on the people in Congress to fix the problem because it would devolve decision making from them down to the people. As we all know, a legislative body is only inclined to increase their collective power, not to decrease it. Boland cites Professor Rob Natelson, a renowned constitutional lawyer and scholar to explain why we cannot be deterred from a Convention of States by the fear of a “runaway convention”. The “runaway convention” scenario was conjured up in the 19th century specifically to dissuade state lawmakers from bypassing the US Congress by calling a convention. In fact, the CSG Convention of States team has thoroughly addressed this concern in this article: Learn Why a Convention is Safe. The next time someone tries to tell you that a Convention of States is not a good idea, pull out this posting and let them know unequivocally that a Convention of States is our only option. . . and that it can save our country! Visit our Convention of States website and be a part of history! One Response
