BEYOND THE NUMBERS
A Dangerous Way to “Fix” American Government
“A dangerous proposal is circulating in states across the country that could widen political divisions and jeopardize cherished rights and freedoms,” CBPP President Robert Greenstein explains today in the Washington Post’s PostEverything blog. He continues:
The push is coming primarily from well-organized, arch-conservative groups seeking to capitalize on the decline in public trust in government to limit the federal government’s role and spending powers. And the method they prefer is a constitutional convention — the first since the 1787 conclave that produced the U.S. Constitution.
Under the Constitution, if two-thirds of state legislatures call for a convention to amend it, one must be convened. Some of those pushing for a convention say that 24 of the needed 34 legislatures have approved such resolutions. Advocates of a convention have targeted more than a dozen other states and are developing lobbying campaigns to push for such resolutions there.
The implications are enormous. At stake, potentially, are the freedoms we take for granted under the Bill of Rights; the powers of the president, Congress and the courts; and the policies the government can or cannot pursue. Conventioneers could alter absolutely anything about the way the United States is governed. Some say they want to terminate all federal taxes and to require super-majorities in the House and the Senate to put any new taxes in their place. Others want to bar the government from carrying out a number of its functions, for example by constraining its ability to regulate interstate commerce. Whatever changes a convention approved would be enshrined in the Constitution if three-fourths of the states ratified them.
Yet the processes for impaneling the convention, selecting the delegates, setting the convention’s voting rules, and determining what issues the convention would consider and how much of the Constitution it would seek to rewrite are a mystery. That means that under a convention, anything goes. There are no rules, guideposts or procedures in any of these areas. . . .
