Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

Since this occasion is piled high with difficulty, we must think and act anew.  Dogmas of the quiet past, such as the rules of the Senate, are inadequate for these times, and we must disenthrall ourselves if we are to save our country.

So if the filibuster can’t be eliminated, it must not be allowed to block the passage of tax reform,  Obamacare reform, and budget reform.  As I argued over a month ago,  you roll it all into one reconciliation package, make a determination that the filibuster requirement can be waived, and pass it with 51 votes.

Either that, or Schumer wins again, as he did in the latest budget bill.  Trump is embarrassed, and he should be.  He’s tweeting that we may need a good government shutdown in September in order to shake things up.  His guts are right on this one.  I don’t think he has any choice.

His base is sticking with him, for now.   But they don’t like seeing Chuck Schumer knocking him around, and they want him to fight back.  Speaker Newt Gingrich was beating President Clinton up pretty good in 1995, and then Clinton fought back, vetoing the budget, shutting down the government, and blaming the Republicans.  Trump could do something similar.

A reconciliation bill is anything you want to call it.  What can go in, and what can’t, are totally up to the Senate.  If the Republicans want to put something in a bill, and say that  it fits the requirements, then it does.  But some, like McCain, will object, and it only takes three members of the Senate majority to prevent such a ruling.

I say, let them go ahead and do it.  Then pass some mealy mouthed budget with some good and some bad, the product of bipartisan compromise with Chuck Schumer, and send it to President Trump.

At that point, Trump vetoes the budget, and shuts down the government.  And the pressure will be on McCain.  If he removes his objection on the filibuster waiver, the big package of legislation in the Omnibus Reconciliation Bill of 2017 can pass with 51 votes, and the government reopens.

It will all be on McCain.

He caused the shut down, in order to preserve an anti-democratic rule that the Senate club is attached to, and not for sentimental value.  The filibuster empowers every Senator.  It make every Senate vote more valuable to its owner.  In today’s world of hyper-partisanship, it doesn’t work.  There’s no middle ground.

The press will be with McCain, but Trump can deal with that.  That’s something he’s pretty good at.

How did this nonsense about a runaway convention get started?  Let’s look back in time, to Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964).  These decisions were the Warren court at its worst, brazen cases of judicial activism that required “one man, one vote” in state legislative districts.

This meant, in the case of Illinois, that Chicago would now have unfettered control of the Illinois state legislature.  As a result, a once growing and prosperous state has spent itself to the edge of bankruptcy, and private enterprise flees in droves.

Senate Minority Leader Ev Dirksen saw what was coming in his native state, and began an Article V movement to overturn these pernicious decisions.  He was dead serious, and the movement had significant support in state legislatures across the country.   He might have succeeded if had acted quickly enough.  But in response to these cases states began redistricting themselves, and the newly redistricted states had no interest in pursuing a constitutional amendment.

The proponents of these two decisions opposed Dirksen, and rather talk about the issue on the merits, they cooked up this runaway convention story.  It’s been around ever since.  It will die in Phoenix.

 

The upper Copper River Indians of Alaska call themselves Taa’tl’aa Denae, or the Headwater People.  They were among the last Alaska Natives to have whites live among them, and this didn’t happen until after the ’98 Gold Rush.  The Russians had earlier made three separate forays into this Indian land, and had been turned back each time, for these Athabaskan Indians are kin of the Apache, and were war like.

My Uncle Fritz knew these Indians, and admired them greatly.  Until 1957, with the arrival of village schools, they had maintained their traditional subsistence lifestyle.  According to my uncle, at the beginning of the last century the tribal elders held a council, to decide if they should accept the white man’s law.

The old chief presided, and when the discussion had gone fully around he made his recommendation.

“We have lived on this land for thousands of years, and have always known our sacred mountain as Mentasta.  Then a white man came, took one look at the mountain, and said it was Mt. Sanford.  And that is how it is known today.  We were too ignorant to know its name.  So I say we accept the white man’s law, as he knows so much more than we do, even to the names of our mountains.”

 

 

It was the first item of controversy at the First Continental Congress in 1774, and thirteen years later, at the Constitutional Convention, it was the hardest problem to solve.  It’s suffrage, or how will votes be counted.  Is it one State, one vote, or something else, based on population?

In 1774 Samuel Adams convinced the large States to accept equal power with the small.  In 1787 a compromise was reached, and in the Constitution large States were given power in the House of Representatives, and in Presidential elections.  But that’s all they got.

In the Senate, it’s equal suffrage for the States, and the Senate controls the Supreme Court.  If a Presidential election is thrown into the House, it’s one State, one vote.  To ratify Constitutional Amendments, it’s one State, one vote.  And to propose Amendments under Article V, it’s one State, one vote.

There have been dozens of Conventions of States, or colonies, in American history, and in every one of them it’s been one State, one vote.  So it will be in Phoenix in September, and at any subsequent Article V Convention if one is called.

There may be an attempt to introduce some other form of voting in Phoenix.  It happened at the last meeting of the Assembly of State Legislatures, before it was rejected.  In one sense, I hope it does.  This is one of the myths of the runaway.  The Birchers think that the large, liberal States will do their mischief because voting will be based on the electoral college.  So let’s debate the issue, and affirm one State, one vote officially and resoundingly.

Because it’s one State, one vote, the 30 red States will be in full control.  This will also destroy part of the runaway myth, that somehow the dreaded “liberals” are going to get control of a Convention.  Under current political conditions, and for the foreseeable future, conservative Republicans, mostly from small States, will control any meeting of the States.

And let’s not forget, State Legislatures are very often much more conservative than the State, itself.  Minnesota is the perfect example, a State where most of the Democrats are concentrated in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and a lot of their votes are wasted.  Republican votes are spread out across the countryside, and this natural gerrymander gives Republicans control over the Legislature of bluish purple Minnesota.   It’s much the same in Oregon, Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin  —  I could go on.

What this all boils down to is that State Legislatures are the most conservative political institution in this country, by far.  Most State legislatures are more conservative than their Governor, or Congressional delegation.

With some exceptions, State Legislators are not career politicians.  It’s a part time, poorly paid, temporary service.  A lot of these men and women are great Americans, even if most people don’t know who they are.

If all goes well, the Phoenix Convention will give the country a chance to see them in action.

 

If anyone thinks this 115th Congress is going to do anything about deficit spending, and our $20 trillion national debt, they’re not paying attention.  The Democrats aren’t interested, the Republicans don’t have the stomach for it, and Trump has other priorities.  We’ll keep adding between half a trillion and a trillion a year for the next two years, minimum.

So when the Republicans try to maintain their majorities in the 2018 election, they won’t be able to talk about cutting the budget, or reducing deficit spending, or dealing with the creeping existential crisis of printing money to pay our bills.  At the rate they’re going, what are they going to run on?  The best thing you can say about Ryan and McConnell is that they’re not Pelosi and Schumer.  Hardly anything to inspire enthusiasm.

This Congress is off to a lousy start, and if they don’t get something done they could lose the House.  Hatred of Trump fuels Democratic voters.  Republicans can probably count on the 40% of the public standing with the President, but that won’t be enough.

But there may be a way out for the R’s  —  a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution that would force future Congresses to begin balancing the books.  The Democrats are opposed, and will fight it to the death.  Congress has never, and will never, propose such an Amendment.  It will have to come from the States, through Article V.

Almost without exception, Congressional Republicans say they want a BBA.  And they know the 2/3 vote they need to propose it is out of reach.  Therefor, I would argue that Ryan and McConnell, and all of their horses and all of their men, should be assisting us in getting this done.  It’s in their own political self interest.

With most politicians, most of the time, the most important consideration is always the same.  What’s in it for me?  If you’re a Republican running for Congress in 2018, you want Article V to succeed.

Unfortunately, they don’t take the Article V BBA campaign seriously.  The idea is old.  It’s been around and kicking for 42 years.  What makes anyone think that now is the time for the first use of Article V in our history?

This is the question we hope to answer at the Phoenix Convention of States.  The goal of this meeting is simple and straightforward:  kill the myth of the runaway.  Michael Farris, in his cleverly named Defying Conventional Wisdom, in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, has made the academic and historical case as well as it can be done.  In Phoenix we hope to prove that, as a practical matter, the idea that an Article V BBA Convention called next year would turn into a runaway Convention is laughable.

Who are these people that are going to lead a Convention to run away?  There won’t be any in Phoenix, and the three hundred or so Commissioners in attendance will have been hand picked by either a State Legislature or or by the presiding Officers of such a legislature.  These men and women will be the same people, by and large, who would attend an actual Article V Convention.

Where are the bogey men?  Where are the threats to the Constitution?  Who’s going to propose that they ignore their instructions, and disregard the limitations in the call of the Convention?  Who’s a danger to the Bill of Rights?

There are none, or won’t be in Phoenix.  The runaway convention scare is nothing but a big lie.