Fellow Article V Supporters:

 

Enclosed is your April 16, 2017 edition of The Article V Convention Legislative Progress Report.  By my latest worksheet count, 175 or more pieces of Article V legislation have been filed in 40 states so far in 2017 with one or more states still to weigh in before the 2017 legislative sessions are complete. As mid-April approaches, we are beginning to see the 2017 legislative sessions wind down as 11 states have gone sine die and another five have completed their Article V work for this year. More and more the focus will now turn to Arizona where plans continue to move forward to host a non-Article V national convention of states starting on September 12, 2017.

 

Progress continues to be made on the Article V front, notwithstanding the full frontal assault from Common Cause and their media friends. The BBA is moving forward in Wisconsin under the leadership of Sen. Chris Kapenga and in South Carolina under Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey. A BBA resolution is close to filing in Minnesota led by Rep. Jerry Hertaus and Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer. The CoSP is moving forward in Texas, Iowa and Missouri. US Term Limits passed this past week in the Missouri Senate and Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee. Congratulations to all groups for your great successes!

 

A special note goes out to the CoSP team in Illinois: The CoSP resolution minus the third prong (HJR32) is gaining steam in the Illinois House. It passed committee 8-0 and now moves to the floor. It has bi-partisan support with 19 Democrat and 27 GOP sponsors. 60 votes will be needed to pass. Congratulations to CoSP’s Illinois team for your great work reaching across the aisle.

 

Rescission efforts remain active in Nevada. SJR12 has passed the Senate and been referred to the Assembly Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections.  If all of us in the Article V movement would pick up the phone and call, or send an e-mail to, the committee members, we might be able to make a difference. Here is a link to the Committee webpage: http://asm.leg.state.nv.us/Assembly/LOE.aspx.  The Vermont Senate has passed a rescission resolution that would repeal the Wolf PAC Fair Elections Resolution. George Soros is funding both sides of that battle. As most of you know, New Mexico and Maryland have already rescinded this year.

 

In recent weeks, we have had some excellent legal articles come to the forefront. Michael Farris has authored a comprehensive article on the 1787 convention which establishes beyond any doubt that the Framers were acting within their respective state-granted authority when they drafted a new Constitution and referred it to Congress for submission to the states. Here is the cite and a link to the article:

 

Michael Farris, Defying Conventional Wisdom: The Constitution Was Not The Product Of A Runaway Convention, 40 Harv.J.L.Pub.Pol. 61 (2017), copy available at http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Farris_FINAL.pdf.

 

Prof. Rob Natelson has likewise been active responding to the ever growing media attacks on Article V. Here are links to some of Rob’s more recent work:

 

On Justice Scalia’s quotes re Article V and a “constitutional convention”: Natelson, Scalia Probably Favored an Amendment Convention – But What Does It Matter? (The Daily Caller April 12, 2017), copy available at http://dailycaller.com/2017/04/12/scalia-probably-favored-an-amendment-convention-but-does-it-matter/.

 

On the Arizona Planning Convention: Natelson, Arizona Calls First National Convention of States in 150 Years (The American Spectator April 10, 2017), copy available at https://spectator.org/arizona-calls-first-national-convention-of-states-in-150-years/.

 

On the 1787 Convention: Natelson, Yes, the Constitution was adopted legally (The Hill April 11, 2017), copy available at http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/uncategorized/328112-yes-the-constitution-was-adopted-legally.

 

Thanks to Michael and Rob for their steadfast efforts.

 

Here’s wishing you a Happy Easter/Passover/Spring Holiday! Next AVCLPR will be coming out Derby Week, the first week in May. Until then . . .

 

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

 

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David F. Guldenschuh

Editor and Publisher

The Article V Convention Legislative Progress Report

 

 

 

 

The Founding Fathers were political scientists, experimenting with a new form of government, a constitutional republic.  Their prime directive was the dispersion of power.  The American Revolution was a revolt against the concentrated central power of monarchy, as so eloquently expressed by Thomas Paine in Common Sense.

The Founders disliked democracy almost as much as they did monarchy.  Mob rule, or tyranny by the majority, was an actual threat during and immediately after the Revolution.  If you’re interested in the subject, I recommend The Founding Conservatives:  How a Group of Unsung Heroes Saved the American Revolution, 2013, by David Lefer.

In addition to dispersing power, in the most basic sense, the Constitution is about protecting the minority.   That concept was central to everything they did.  One aspect of that protection is the provision for supermajorities.  They wanted to preserve the libertarian form of government they had created from being amended out of existence by transient and excitable majorities.  So a 2/3 supermajority is required to even propose an amendment.  Congress needs 2/3 to propose, just as the States, under Article V, need 2/3.

It’s very hard to get a 2/3 majority in this country, and always has been.  That’s the way the Framers wanted it.  In today’s hyper-partisan politics, it’s virtually impossible.  But the Balanced Budget has a chance, because it’s supported by 3/4 of the people, if not the politicians.   The Democratic Party has become the party of government, and most people don’t want more government.

But Congress has, on occasion, assembled 2/3 majorities in both Houses to propose Amendments, and on 28 such occasions the result was an Amendment to the Constitution.  There’s no reason to think State Legislative leaders would be any less adept than Congressmen at occasionally reaching a 2/3 consensus.  What can the Republican and Democratic State Legislative leaders agree on?  We should get some idea at the Phoenix Convention of States.

 

 

 

George Soros has selected Common Cause, and its spokesman, former Clinton Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, as the leaders to oppose Article V.  Their latest salvo is reproduced in full at the bottom of this post.

Soros-affiliated organizations stopped the Article V BBA Resolution in Montana two years ago, got Delaware to rescind in 2016 and Maryland and New Mexico to rescind this year.  They, along with the John Birch Society, are our principal opponents.  Strange bedfellows indeed.

Their press release contains some glaring errors, and my only hope is that some member of the media will look into their allegations.  We can’t seem to get any publicity.  Maybe they will get some for us.  They say the BBA Task Force is “well funded”.  We wish.  We’re doing it on a wing and a prayer.  They say we’re backed “by billionaires like the Koch brothers.”  The Kochs, and no person or organization affiliated with them, has ever given us a dime.  With the recent departure of our Executive Director, we’re an all volunteer force.  None of us are paid.  We get some of our expenses reimbursed, but all of us have made in-kind or other donations.  Some have put in thousands of dollars, or, in the case of the original Co-founders, hundreds of thousands.  Field Director Loren Enns has given up his job, his house and his car, and incurred substantial personal liability hiring lobbyists.  Maybe if we can get a reporter interested, they could talk to Loren, and understand the truth.

It’s interesting to look at their list of 200 organizations.   These people are supposedly horrified at Article V as a threat to the Constitution.  But look at the list, beginning with the African-American Health Alliance, ending with the Women’s Voices Women’s Vote Action Fund.  It contains the usual suspects, the Sierra Club, the NAACP, the NEA a lot of the unions, including the AFL-CIO.  How many of these groups have ever shown any interest in the Constitution?  None.  But what almost all of them do have in common is a dependence on federal government money, in one form or another.  They don’t care about the Constitution.  They just want to see the federal dollars keep flowing.

Or, in some cases, like Soros himself, what they really don’t want is for the States to rediscover their powers, latent in Article V.  That’s bigger than a balanced budget amendment.  And that’s what they’re really afraid of.  The States, if they act together, can supervise the federal government.  And demanding a balanced budget could be just the beginning.

That might depend on Congress.  If they learn a lesson from having a Balanced Budget Amendment imposed on them, maybe another Article V Amendment Convention wouldn’t be necessary.  Article V is a way for the States to act when Congress won’t, or can’t.  My belief is that it will be used more than once.

And that’s what George Soros is afraid of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More Than 200 Organizations Oppose Calls for New Constitutional Convention, Warn of Dangers | Common Cause | Common Dreams

 

More Than 200 Organizations Oppose Calls for New Constitutional Convention, Warn of Dangers

As wealthy special interests groups increase their efforts, constitutional rights and public interest groups stand in opposition to an Article V convention that could rewrite the U.S. Constitution

Today 230 national, state, and local groups are releasing a letter in opposition to calls to convene a new constitutional convention. The letter comes as wealthy special interests groups are increasing their efforts to call a convention for the first time since 1787, and are now just six states away from reaching their goal.

The letter focuses on the threat of a “runaway convention,” where every American’s constitutional rights and protections could be at risk. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, a convention can be called when two-thirds of the states (34) petition for a convention to enact amendments to the constitution. Most legal scholars agree that all 34 applications must be on one issue, but once a convention is called anything could be brought up.

“A constitutional convention call, even on a single issue will become a Pandora’s box – once it’s open there will be no controlling where it goes, putting every Americans’ basic rights on the auction block,” said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause. “The wealthy special interests who are funding this push do not share the best interest of the American people, and there are no rules to limit their influence on what could be brought up once a convention is convened. Legislatures should follow the lead of Delaware, New Mexico, and Maryland in rescinding their applications for an Article V convention to protect everyone’s constitutional rights.”

“A constitutional convention would wreak havoc in the country,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21. “It would open up the nation’s charter and all of the constitutional rights and protections it provides for the American people to fundamental change in a political environment of great divisiveness and polarization. Our first and only constitutional convention took place in 1787. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton will not be available to serve as delegates if a second constitutional convention is called. It needs to be prevented.”

“The implications of a Constitutional Convention are staggering,” saidRobert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “Our country faces enough problems and division. We don’t need to add to them and inflame an already toxic political environment by placing at risk the constitutional structure that has served us well for more than two centuries — and heading into dangerous, unknown territory by calling a convention to rework the Constitution. Leading legal scholars from across the political spectrum agree that once convened, the scope of the convention in seeking to rewrite the Constitution could not be limited.”

Activists on both the left and the right have called for an Article V convention on different matters, but the risk of a runaway convention is the same regardless of the issue. There is currently a well-funded effort to call a convention to enact a federal balanced budget amendment (BBA), which claims to have active applications in 28 states. Although there has been bipartisan opposition to an Article V convention, the push for a convention on a BBA is being led by Republican legislators and conservative special interest groups bankrolled by billionaires like the Koch Brothers. A leader in the push to rewrite the Constitution is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate lobby that masquerades as a charity to provide its corporate backers with a tax break. Despite claims by ALEC and other convention proponents, most legal scholars agree that a convention cannot be limited to one issue. With no rules governing a convention, a runaway convention involving a major overhaul of the Constitution would likely result.

The letter, which is signed by diverse group of constitutional rights, labor, environmental, immigration, government reform, healthcare, and public interest groups, urges legislators to oppose calls for a constitutional convention and rescind Article V convention applications on the books in their state. In just the last two years, the legislatures in Delaware, New Mexico, and Maryland have successfully rescinded their previous Article V convention applications, including on the BBA. A similar effort is currently underway in Nevada.

To view the letter and a full list of the organizations signing on, click here.

To view this release online, click here.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 by John Gardner as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest.

 

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Alaska’s Legislature consists of three basic political factions, Republicans, Democrats and Bush.  Bush legislators, usually around 15% of the whole, can be either Democrats or Republicans.  But their party identification is essentially meaningless.  They are part of the Bush Caucus.  If given the choice, they will usually organize with the Democrats, most of whom believe, as they do, that the State of Alaska should spend a large part of its revenue on behalf of Alaska’s Natives, and the other residents of remote Alaska.  This is where the greatest need is, and where, over the years, a greater dependency on the State has developed.  But if the Democrats don’t treat them right, they’ll organize with the Republicans.  Most of them are DINO’s, Democrats In Name Only.  In 1982 DINO Al Adams led a legislative coup, installing Republican Minority Leader Joe Hayes as Speaker.  This political flexibility means they hit far above their weight.

For forty years the State has relied almost exclusively on revenue extracted from the oil industry.  But the Alyeska Pipeline now runs at 25% of capacity, the price of oil is far less than it once was, and, at least for the time  being, new fields are not coming on line nearly fast enough to refill the pipeline.

After the 2016 election, three moderate Republicans joined the Bush and the Democrats to form a majority coalition.  Its leader is Bryce Edgmon from a Bush district around Dillingham, who is the first Alaska Native Speaker of the House.  Part of the solution to Alaska’s fiscal woes the House Coalition and Independent Governor Bill Walker have devised is the renewal of the State income tax, repealed by initiative in 1980.

I once heard former Democratic Representative John Hellenthal describe how the original Alaska income tax was passed in the 1950’s, during territorial days.  All the legislators knew it had to be done.  Even as a Territory, they had to have revenue from somewhere.  But they also knew the voters who elected them would be furious.  As Helenthal put it, they all jumped off the cliff together.

Once the oil money started gushing into Juneau, an income tax was unnecessary, but the political powers in Juneau, led by a Bush Republican, Governor Jay Hammond, didn’t want to give it up.  If no one paid any taxes personally, then no one would care too much what was done with the oil money.  Hammond thought an income tax gave people a stake in government.  And he wanted to save as much oil money as possible in his Permanent Fund, where it could be used to benefit generations of Alaskans yet unborn.

Libertarian Representative Dick Randolph wasn’t buying it, and he, almost single-handedly, had the income tax repealed by initiative in 1980.  He even got the voters a refund of their 1979 income tax, which they’d already paid.  This made Libertarians quite popular for a time.

Elected Governor in 1986, Democrat Steve Cowper, at the beginning of the 1987 Legislative Session, went off somewhere for a long weekend and had an epiphany.  Either Alaskans had to give up their shiny new Permanent Fund Dividends, or we had to have an income tax.  I was the House Republican Minority Leader at the time, and I remember wondering if Cowper had been smoking some Matanuska Thunder—-.

We blew Cowper off, and as a result Alaskans haven’t paid a dime in income tax in 30 years.  All the while receiving nice fat annual dividend checks.  No wonder Republicans have been so popular in Alaska.

Periodic efforts have been made to reinstate the income tax, most notably by former Governor Hammond in 2004.  He made the same arguments he made against Dick Randolph in 1980.  Hammond may have been right is some cosmic sense, but an income tax in Alaska is a very hard sell.

And would it last?  Wouldn’t there be an initiative to repeal it, just as there was 37 years ago?  Maybe not.  Maybe times have changed, and Alaska is different now.  We may find out.

 

 

 

 

Congress needs to do something in the next two weeks or the “government shuts down”, whatever that means.  The government wouldn’t actually cease to function, but some services could be curtailed.  The last time this happened was in October of 2013, and the Obama administration tried to make it painful, in order to pressure the Republicans in Congress.  Remember those pictures of WW II vets being denied access to public memorials in D.C.?

Every government shutdowns has its own dynamic.  There were five under Carter, but the disruption they caused was minor.  He had a Democratic House and Senate, and no one wanted to create a mess.  His successor, Bush 1, vetoed a Continuing Resolution in 1990 because it was not accompanied  by a deficit reduction package.  When a veto override failed, the Congress, under complete Democratic control, quickly passed another CR along with the package Bush had demanded.  It was no big deal.  His son, big spender Bush 2, had no shutdowns.

So when we think of shutdowns, we think of those under Clinton and Obama  — a Democratic President dealing with a Republican controlled Congress.  It was Clinton and Obama who shut down the government.  Only the President can do that.  They both wanted more money from a Republican Congress, and they both soon got their way.

Now we have a Republican Congress and a Republican President, and the minority Senate Democrats are threatening to filibuster a spending bill, and cause a “government shutdown”.  They demand not only that no funding for the border wall be included, but that more money be committed to Obamacare.

Let me suggest that such a “government shutdown” today would be almost totally different from the Clinton and Obama experiences.  Yes, one thing would remain the same:  it’s all the fault of unreasonable Republicans.   Mitch McConnell was so terrified of being blamed for a shutdown, he unconditionally surrendered Congress’ power of the purse the day after the 2014 election that made him Senate Majority Leader.  But Trump has shown that you can defy the media, and if the Republicans don’t have the courage to do it, they will be forever revealed as spineless wretches.

Let’s think this through.  Six months ago the Democrats lost the White House, the Senate, and the House.  Yet, from their minority position in the Senate, they will shut the government down if the duly elected President, along with elected majorities in the House and Senate, want to spend money the Democrats don’t want to spend on a wall?   And, furthermore, they will also shut down the government if they don’t get the additional spending on Obamacare?

Democrat tails wagging Republican dogs.

As President, Trump can minimize the impact of a “shutdown” by executive order, creative accounting, and generous interpretations of the law.  Very few people need be affected by a shutdown.  If Trump and the Republicans let an hysterical media force them to spend money they don’t want to, and give them a veto over spending, it’s over.

The Democrats have no power in Washington, except the power of the press.  I know Trump is trying to be kinder and gentler, but if he caves here he’s weaker than George H. W. Bush was.  There is one institution more unpopular than Trump, and that’s Congress.  And that’s who he needs to fight, in the person of Chuck Schumer, a man more unlikable than he is.

I mean, if you can’t handle Schumer, what kind of a man are you?