Month: March 2017

It’s always fun to watch clowns like Sen. Al Franken make fools of themselves.  Franken knows as much about the law as my wife’s cat, but that won’t stop him from making a spectacle of himself at tomorrow’s Judiciary Committee hearing on the Gorsuch nomination.  All of his prog friends will be counting on him to reveal Judge Gorsuch as a partisan extremist and anti-abortion fanatic.  This is what “The Resistance” demands.  It’s all flapdoodle, but no matter.

And then there’s Leahy, that oily snake.  Here’s a man to truly despise.  Durbin and Blumenthal are equally obnoxious, in their own way.  What a rogue’s gallery of puffed up dopes.

Gorsuch doesn’t need any help, but I’m sure Ted Cruz is all lawyered up.  My hunch is that this is going to prove a huge embarrassment to the Democrats involved.  I don’t think any of them are vulnerable in 2018, but if they were, this wouldn’t help.

And on Thursday “High Noon” on the House floor.  Since I’m retired, I may want to watch the vote on Obamacare R & R.  This is a very big vote, and about as dramatic as legislative politics gets.  Trump and Ryan and the rest of them have all their chips on the table.  They’re all in.  If necessary, Ryan will extend the vote, for as long as he has to, in order to give his Whips time to get to 218.

If you play your cards right, and you’re the 218th vote, you can make some withdrawals from the favor bank.  Rep. Marjorie Margolis-Mezvinsky (3M) was the 218th vote on Clinton’s 1993 budget.  She had pledged to vote no, and if she didn’t, her political career was over.  But while the vote was being held, she got a call from President Bill Clinton, and she switched, and her vote passed the budget.  She needed police escorts in her own district, and was a one term wonder.  But she’s had a marvelous career since, including a UN gig, Chair of the National Women’s Business Council, and a nice sinecure at the University of Pennsylvania.  And her son married Chelsea Clinton.  That must have been one hell of a phone call.

Trump will be available to make a call, if necessary, I’m sure.  I hope we get this mess cleaned up soon, and we can move on to tax reform.  Based on his budget, I think Trump will go bold, and make some major reforms.  That would be a time to be in the market.

The only election this year that matters is the Virginia Governor’s race.  Virginia is a target State, with a 21 R-19 D split in Senate, and an overwhelming Republican advantage in the House.  The House is going to stay Republican, and the Senate is not up for election this year.  While the Governor has no formal role in the passage of a BBA Resolution, in the case of Virginia a Republican Governor in our corner might be a real asset.

Speaker Bill Howell is a solid Article V man, and has done all he could on our behalf.  But he has no influence in the Senate.  In fact, there is no one in the Senate he can really do business with.  He just passes bills in the House, and sends them over, and receives Senate bills.  No communication.  This is truly bizarre.

Bill Fruth and others have made valiant efforts to each out and communicate with these Virginia State Senators, all for naught.  It’s like they’re nobility or something.  Having been a State Senator myself, I know the title can go to some people’s heads.  But this is ridiculous.  These people won’t even talk to us.  But I’ll bet they’d talk to a new Republican Governor.

Ed Gillespie is the guy.  This guy is good.  Four years ago he bought a 60 second spot on Monday Night Football, the night before the election, and told the audience he was 100% behind the Washington Redskins keeping their Indian mascot.  Brilliant.  I remember some analyst on a network looking at the results the next night from Virginia, and he was saying these numbers can’t be right.  Gillespie is getting way too many black men. But, of course, black guys in Virginia are Redskins fans, and they don’t like their team being pressured by a few renegade Indians.

Way to go, Ed, I hope you’ve got a few more up your sleeve.  He’s got a Tea Party primary challenger, but he’s the far superior candidate.  This is a task for the Task Force between now and the Republican primary on June 13th.  When Gillespie goes to meet the voter events he needs to meet people who will ask him if he supports a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.  When he says yes, you ask him if he’s willing to do anything to pass it.  And then explain Article V, and that a Resolution from the Virginia Assembly in support of a BBA is needed, and would he be willing to help?  If three, or four, or five people ask him this same question, he’ll remember it vividly.  This would be perceived as a groundswell of public support.

With Gillespie’s help, we could finally get the attention of the Senate.  He might be able to do more than that.  But first, you have to ask.

Hopefully Gillespie’s opponent will be former Rep. Ton Perriello, who’s running as the Bernie Sanders Democrat.  Main stream conservative Republican Gillespie against  Bernie Boy Perriello in a purple State.  The election is in eight months.  Which way will the wind blow?

 

Georgia attorney Dave Guldenschuh has emerged as a leading legal authority on Article V, and also gives periodic updates on the various Article V organizations.  Here’s his latest:

Enclosed is your March 17th St. Patrick’s Day edition of THE ARTICLE V CONVENTION LEGISLATIVE PROGRESS REPORT. By my latest worksheet count, 150 or more pieces of Article V legislation have been filed in 37 states so far in 2017.

 

Congratulations goes out to the legislature of Arizona which passed the CoSP resolution this past week. That’s #9 for CoSP. Arizona is scheduled to vote on and is expected to pass the BBATF resolution, the Compact for America and a Delegate Selection bill sometime next week. Kudos to Rep. Kelly Townsend and others for their hard work in Arizona.

 

New Mexico passed a rescission bill this past week which cost the BBA effort one state, but that action was not unexpected. A single swing vote in the House was the difference. Do you think those three dozen legislators have any idea how their clearly partisan vote could’ve impacted negatively the future of our country? How shameful!

 

I try to make myself available to all of the Article V advocacy groups and to assist where I can when friction arises between them. I  am a volunteer. I’m not getting paid. So I think I can speak without bias here. I have and always will preach that all groups need to support each other and that we as a movement need to keep our focus on the real opposition: an overreaching federal government, the misguided efforts of JBS and Eagle Forum, and the ever growing liberal media opposition spurred on by Common Cause. If we fight among ourselves, we gift wrap failure and hand it to the opposition on a silver platter.

 

Which brings me to the Tennessee Planning Convention. In the bullet points below, I offer no opinion or editorial . . . just FACTS based on the failure of that effort.

 

·        The Tennessee Planning Convention failed because we as an Article V movement could not get our act together and work through our differences. Each group needs to understand that when one group moves forward, we ALL move forward. Some get it; some don’t.

 

·        The Tennessee legislature sought to call the Planning Convention, not any particular group. They limited it to the BBA convention because that was the group closest to reaching 34. And there was an economic reason for doing so-the carrot of landing the first Article V convention in our nation’s history. There was absolutely no mal-intent to subterfuge “We the People” or any other group.

 

·        Once the Tennessee Senate passed a resolution for a BBA Planning Convention, it would have been political suicide to expand the convention beyond that. Folks, the naysayers argue that an Article V convention cannot be limited. If the Tennessee legislature had expanded the planning convention at that point, we would have poured nitroglycerin on the fire of the naysayers.

 

·        Despite what some claim, there were efforts to compromise.

 

·        The rules established at the Tennessee Planning Convention would not have even been binding on the BBA convention it was planning for. The argument that those rules would have been binding on a future CoSP convention was fundamentally flawed and inaccurate.

 

·        Valuable Article V resources that could’ve and should’ve been spent promoting the movement were wasted in Tennessee in-fighting.

 

·        As a direct result of the opposition and failure of the planning convention, Sen. Mike Bell, the primary sponsor of CoSP in Tennessee in 2016, has now filed SJR254 which seeks to rescind the CoSP resolution passed just last year in Tennessee.

 

I would only ask those who opposed the proposed BBA planning convention: Was it really worth it?

 

As I understand it, there remains a sliver of hope to put Humpty Dumpty back together in Nashville. But it will only happen if the opposition sends the clear signal to Tennessee leadership that it will support a BBA planning convention. I have read  Mr. Bobo’s letter setting forth his explanation for COS-Tennessee opposing the planning convention. I was the Legislative Liaison for CoSP in Georgia when in 2014, we became the first state to adopt the CoSP resolution. I can only tell you sir that the negative consequences you perceive flowing from a BBA planning convention are about as likely as the runaway convention we all agree can never happen. So imagine sir that you are the legislator whose yes or no vote will decide whether this country ever has an Article V convention; are you going to destroy that possibility simply because it does not address all the issues you want to see addressed?

 

I urge you in the interests of the entire Article V movement to withdraw your opposition. I further urge the Tennessee legislature to appoint Mr. Bobo to be a delegate to the planning convention.

 

I apologize in advance to those that this e-mail might offend or who might strongly disagree with my thoughts. I try very hard to be objective and to call things, not necessarily along the way I see them, but as they really are to those viewing our movement from beyond who desire to see it fail.

 

Good luck to all. If I can ever be of assistance to any of you, please don’t hesitate to ask.

 

David F. Guldenschuh

Editor and Publisher

The Article V Convention Legislative Progress Report

 

Votes don’t get any bigger than the one on Obamacare Repeal and Replace in the House of Representatives next week.  After winning over a dozen or so conservatives this morning the Trump team feels good enough to bring it to the floor.  A whole hell of a lot is riding on this vote, and I expect all the stops to be pulled, and narrow passage.  The alternative is too bleak to think about.

Three and a half years ago freshman Senator Ted Cruz convinced these same conservative House members to shut down the government rather than fund Obamacare.  This time around, as a Trump team member, he’ll be coaxing them aboard, as will every other sane conservative.  There’s a whole hell of a lot not to like in this bill, but it’s way better than no bill at all.  Conservative Republicans who vote no on this bill are posturing, and it won’t play well.  Trump may be no conservative, but he’s all we’ve got, and to torpedo his administration, right out of the gate, is nuts.  He has the potential to do great things for conservatism.  Look at his budget, and Neil Gorsuch.

The Senate will be another story, and here we’re going to see if Trump really has what it takes.  I’m hopeful, but it will probably take some real hardball.  With Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for example.  She only masquerades as a Republican in order to get elected, so she has no loyalty to the Party or anyone in it.  As the most liberal member of the Republican Senate Caucus, she is not inclined to vote for Obamacare R & R.  But she has a weakness.  She’s from Alaska.

Alaska is in absolutely terrible shape right now.  The situation would look desperate, except for the fact that the State has a $50 billion savings account in Jay Hammond’s Permanent Fund.  At the rate the State of Alaska is spending money they’ll blow through the whole thing in the next fifteen years.  Alaska has one hope, resource development.  On federal land.

Thanks to some tax incentives provided by previous State Legislatures, the oil companies, mainly independents, are finding a lot of oil near previously discovered fields.  It will help.  But what Alaska really needs is a very aggressive policy for oil exploration and development on federal land, most especially ANWR.  President Trump and Interior Secretary Zinke are in a position to help Alaska out of the hole that it’s in.  It would be doing the state a great favor.  Does Lisa Murkowski want the Trump administration to be nice to Alaska?  Then maybe she should be nice to the Trump administration.  It’s not a Democrat/Republican thing.  Alaska needs help, and hope, desperately.  I suspect Murkowski will see the light.

Other Senators have other vulnerabilities.  The federal government has its fingers in everything, from the IRS to the Postal Service.  Senators have contributors.

Here’s an example from the good old days with the Gipper.  In 1981 he needed Democrats in the House to pass his massive tax cut, and Louisiana’s John Breaux was a leader of the bloc of Southerners he needed.  John  Breaux was a wholly owned subsidiary of the sugar industry, and he demanded, and got, special tax breaks extended.  It was pure pork, at its absolute worst, making American consumers pay artificially high priced sugar, but that’s what he wanted, and that’s what he got.

It’s too bad Trump doesn’t read, although I see he was trying to read up on Andrew Jackson.  He should read Robert Caro’s Master of the Senate.  Trump says he’s the master at the art of the deal.  But deals are done differently in Washington than they are in New York.

If Trump can play the game like Lyndon Johnson did, he’ll get a lot done.  My God, what a nightmare for the left.  A conservative LBJ.

Maybe that’s what we’ve had all along.

 

Stu McPhail of the BBA Task Force has delivered a rebuttal of a seriously muddled article in The New Yorker.  From Stu:

The March 13 issue of The New Yorker carried a piece by Jelani Cobb that unfortunately included a lot of misinformation.

 

The story appeared under the title “Republicans and the Constitution” and also under the title “A State Away”.  It was written based on the premise that current Article V efforts are being run by Republican power brokers.  Wrong!

 

Most current efforts to use the powers given to Americans in the second option of Article V by our Founders are by grassroots everyday citizens.  Most of the efforts operate with minimum financial support.  And, many of these efforts are seeing bipartisan support at the state level.

 

While it is true that various members of Congress have introduced resolutions calling for a balanced budget amendment under the first option in Article V, the real current action is under the second option in Article V… the option of having a state-led convention to propose a balanced budget amendment.

 

Twenty-nine state legislatures have now adopted resolutions for such a convention.  When that convention takes place the actual wording will be debated.  Unlike what Mr. Cobb said, the finished proposal is sure to include a provision where under Congress can bypass restraints in times of national emergency.

 

The biggest line of misinformation in Mr. Cobb’s piece dealt with the origins of the 1787 Constitution under which we live today.  Cobb writes that the Confederation Congress called the convention of 1787 in a resolution they adopted on February 21, 1787.  That’s how he concludes that the Constitutional convention went beyond their assigned task and “literally took the law into their own hands and drafted a new document”.

 

But the Constitutional Convention was not held under the authority of the Articles of Confederation nor the Confederation Congress.  It was held by agreement of participating states outside the Articles.  Neither Congress nor the Articles controlled the proceedings, either legally or practically.

 

He uses that misinformation to conclude “that an Article V convention would find it difficult to limit its agenda to the technicalities of budget finance.”  He buys into the long-discredited notion that an Article V convention cannot be trusted due to fear it will run away.

 

The convention wherein our Constitution was drafted was originally called by the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia in December 1786 in response to the recommendation of the Annapolis Convention the previous September (September 14, 1786).  Virginia appointed her commissioners to the convention by legislative resolution on Dec. 12.  New Jersey agreed to participate at about the same time.

 

The Virginia call provided for the convention to propose changes in the “federal constitution” without limiting the gathering to amendments to the Articles.  The unanimous authority of 18th century dictionaries tells us that “constitution” in this context meant the entire political system, not merely the Articles as such.

 

Pennsylvania announced on December 30 that it would participate.  North Carolina and New Hampshire agreed in January.  Delaware joined on February 3.  Georgia joined on February 10.  Thus, seven states already had agreed to participate under terms granting the convention wide powers when Congress passed its resolution on Feb. 21, 1787.

 

That month a Congressional committee recommended that Congress endorse the convention, saying that “in the opinion of Congress it is expedient” that the convention be limited to proposing amendments to the Articles of Confederation.  It was only an expression of “opinion”, not a directive.  But, as indicated above, by then seven of the 13 states had already agreed to participate in the convention as called by Virginia, and had broadly empowered their commissioners (delegates) to consider changes in the political system.

 

As we all know, the Confederation Congress sent the proposed new Constitution to all 13 states for their consideration, and ultimately all 13 states ratified the new document.

 

Efforts to bring about a state-led Article V convention to propose amendments (regardless for a balanced budget amendment or a Congressional term limits amendment) are NOT simply partisan.  They can’t be.  It takes 38 states to ratify any proposed amendment.

 

Cobb says, “an idea should have demonstrated broad and transparent appeal before it is adopted into the framework of the republic.”  On that we agree.  But his conclusion that “causes worthy of legitimacy” can come about through Congressional action is simply naïve.  Congress will never act in a meaningful way to restrict its spending powers or to restrain its own terms.

 

Stuart MacPhail

1133 Race Street

Denver, Colorado 80206

303-321-2082

 

The facts related to the 1787 Convention comments above were based on the published research of respected Constitutional scholar Robert Natelson, Independence Institute.