As Americans face the continued daily chaos of Trump’s antics and rhetoric, there has been a quiet movement in the background that Republicans have been working on for quite some time. As with much that has to do with the GOP, the only way they know how to win is to cheat and with the help of big donor backing such as the Koch Bros., they are moving in the direction of establishing a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of rewriting the Constitution of the United States.
You might think that this sounds like an impossibility. As citizens of all political beliefs we rely on our Constitution as a method to maintain stability of the country. However, there is an ability to rewrite the contents of the constitution under Article V, and it only requires 34 states to “issue a call”.
The explanation of what is going on was described in a prwatch.org article:
A constitutional convention, something thought impossible not long ago, is looking increasingly likely. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, if 34 state legislatures “issue a call” for a constitutional convention, Congress must convene one. By some counts, the right-wing only needs six more states. Once called, delegates can propose and vote on changes and new amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which, if approved, are currently required to be ratified by 38 states.
There are two major legislative pushes for a convention at the state level. One would attempt to engineer a convention for a balanced budget amendment only, and the other tries to secure an open convention for the purpose of limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government. But once a convention is underway, all bets are off. The convention can write its own rules, resulting in a wide-open or “runaway” convention that can make major changes to the constitution and, some argue, even change the number of states required to ratify those changes.
If America gets saddled with a runaway convention, the Koch coterie of funders will be to blame. Most of the groups pushing the convention idea are being underwritten by one or more institutions tied to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.”
This information was also validate in a Sept. 2017 article by thehill.com in which they state:
“A group of GOP state legislators spent four days last week in Phoenix outlining how to run a constitutional convention that would pave the way for new amendments mandating a balanced budget and possibly congressional term limits.
Nineteen states including Arizona, Iowa and New Hampshire had representation at the meeting, according to The Associated Press, though no Democrats were present. Thirty-four states would need to sign on to the movement to call a new constitutional convention, which would be the first since the one that drafted the U.S. Constitution in 1787.
All 27 amendments since adopted have been proposed by Congress.”
The article continues to say:
“A slew of conservative activists, such as mega-donors Charles and David Koch and the American Legislative Exchange Council are pushing for a constitutional convention to limit the size of the government.
Across the aisle, Democrats worry that the GOP is close to controlling enough state houses to call a constitutional convention.
Former presidential nominee Hillary Clinton even spoke out about such efforts in the recent media blitz over her new memoir, calling it a radical proposal from the right.
‘There’s a big move for change coming from the right that I think would be disastrous for our country. They want radical, pull-em-up-by-the-roots change, they want to have a constitutional convention to rewrite our Constitution to make it friendlier to business, to inject religious and ideological elements,’ she told Vox.”
While Dems Won in Elections, Republicans Added Wisconsin
Republicans are aware of the fact that they are a minority when compared to Democrats and Independents. To rig the system they have incorporated all forms of cheating including voter suppression as well as gerrymandering; and this has been going on for many years. However, these situations were designed to affect the voters themselves and all the while, they are adding the biggest method of moving the country to a single party control through a Constitutional Convention.
Democrats across the country experienced an anti-Trump success in winning an incredible volume of political positions. But one of the key aspects that almost everyone missed was the addition of Wisconsin to the number of states that have signed up for an Article V constitutional convention.
In an alternet.org article, they attempt to bring this topic front and center, because it is something that all of us must be worried about:
“On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Legislature voted to call for what’s known as an Article V constitutional convention, becoming the 28th state to do so in recent years. Thirty-four states are needed, according to the nation’s founding document, to launch a process that would open up the foundation of American’s rights and laws to revision.
‘Sadly, this is not fake news,’ said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. ‘The specter of an Article V convention to rewrite the Constitution remains one of the most alarming threats to our democracy that nobody has ever heard of before.’
‘The deep-pocketed special interest groups behind this effort to call a convention are not likely to stop with a single amendment when there are no rules to prevent opening up the Constitution to a full rewrite in a runaway convention,’ Flynn explained. ‘The effort to call the convention is funded by wealthy special interest groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council that have long pushed for a broad legislative agenda in the states, and it is hard to imagine then not foisting that agenda on the Constitution itself through unelected and unaccountable delegates to the convention.’”
This means that the Republicans only need six more states
The article continues to say:
“But an Article V convention is closer to reality than either the national popular vote or Lessig’s Electoral College reshuffling (even though two states, Minnesota and Virginia, saw lawmakers introduce 2017 legislation to reapportion these votes; both stalled). In the past three years, 12 red-run states have called for an Article V convention (Georgia, Alaska, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, North Dakota, Texas and Missouri). Meanwhile, four blue states (Delaware, New Mexico, Maryland and Nevada) that previously voted for a convention, under the assumption it would only be concerned with balancing the federal budget, rescinded that earlier vote because of fears a convention would become a runaway train.”
It goes on with: “But no one should underestimate the Republicans. The GOP, more so than Democrats, have kept their eyes on longer-term political prizes. They did that with partisan gerrymanders in 2011 to lock down red supermajority legislatures and U.S. House delegations. The Supreme Court is now reviewing a challenge to Wisconsin’s extreme gerrymander. It’s no coincidence that it voted Tuesday to call for a federal constitutional convention. (In New York State on Tuesday, voters rejected a call for a state convention to revise the state constitution, but approved a proposal to seize pensions from corrupt politicians.)”
“There is no way to effectively limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention,” wrote Warren Burger, chief justice from 1969 to 1986. “The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the convention to one amendment or one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey.”
Throughout the entire eight years of the Presidency of Barack Obama, the right wing sources continued to spread conspiracy theories about him and the actions that he was trying to make to bring the U.S. back from the brink of disaster. Depending upon who you listened to, the public heard everything from his alliance with the Muslims to his efforts to undermine the constitution.
But as with a lot of things that are based on conservatism, what they accuse others of is sometimes what they are doing themselves, and such is the case for their backroom deals and underhanded arrangements in their attempt to rewrite the constitution.
In March of 2017, The New Yorker approached this subject in their article: Republicans and the Constitution
Article V allows a method of proposing amendments that cuts Congress out entirely. This partisanship is just what our founders were trying to avoid.
It is no wonder that this has gone under the radar, as there have been so many outrageous and downright disgusting words and actions by the Trump administration which are supported by the GOP through their silence.
The article includes:
“Article V allows an alternative method of proposing constitutional amendments, which cuts Congress out entirely: two-thirds of the state legislatures can call for a constitutional convention. To be in a position to do this, the G.O.P. needs to gain control of just one more statehouse, which could happen as soon as next year. (Last year, the Times reported that twenty-eight states had already adopted resolutions calling for a constitutional convention on a balanced-budget amendment, an effort supported by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is funded by the Koch brothers, among others.) So far, this route to an amendment has not succeeded, but of late we are exploring a lot of novel territory in American democracy. And, as the events of 1787 show, these things have a way of taking on a life of their own.”
It continues with:
“Any proposed change to the Constitution would still require ratification by three-fourths of the states, but the mere theatre of a constitutional convention would be damaging to the nation. The last time a single party was dominant enough to amend the Constitution, the Republicans passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which were ratified by the states; eleven had seceded and later came under Reconstruction governments. That was a very different Republican Party in a very different era, but even that process was fraught. However deep our partisan trenches may have become, we are not currently at war with ourselves. The convention scheme is less about responsibility than about the prerogatives of power.”
