Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

Politico calls the Soros-funded Democracy Alliance “the left’s secret club”, and it has struck again in Maryland, as it did in New Mexico a few weeks ago, and Delaware last year.  This Soros group has unlimited money, and it is dedicated to preventing a Balanced Budget Amendment, or any other use of Article V.  They apparently understand, as a lot of conservatives don’t, that Article V is the last lifeline of federalism and the Constitution.  George Soros hates the United States Constitution.  He hates this country, and everything it stands for.  On this issue, at least, no one with deep pockets is willing to fight back

With Maryland’s rescission of its 40 year old BBA Resolution, we’re down to 28 States, right we started in January.  Nevada looks as though it could be poised to rescind as well, which would mean we’d be back to 27.   We expect a win early this summer in Wisconsin, which means we’d begin 2018 with 28 Resolutions, six to go: Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Kentucky, Virginia and South Carolina.  All are under Republican control, and can pass Article V Resolutions on a party line vote, if need be.  I’ve yet to meet a Republican State Legislator who opposes a BBA.  But a few are afraid of Article V.  The Phoenix Convention of States is designed to allay their fears.  If it succeeds, we’ll have 34 by the middle of next year.

That’s because, if they get Nevada, there will be no more States in our column that are completely under Democrat control.  And if we control one chamber, we can kill a rescission.  But that could change after the November 2018 election.  Colorado could flip to the Democrats, as it almost did last year, which would mean it’s during the legislative sessions of 2018 or bust for the BBA.

These rescissions are not unexpected.  When we started to get close, we knew the opposition would mobilize.  Two years ago, when Soros stopped us in Montana, we knew the jig was up.  They were on to us, they hate Article V, they have unlimited money, and they control the Democratic Party.  We will not pass in any Democratic chamber, and they have rescinded where they could.

We didn’t see the 2016 Republican takeover of the Minnesota Senate coming.  Minneapolis media mogul Stanley Hubbard was probably the man behind it.  He has regalvanized the Republicans in the State Legislature, and with some help from a Trump bump, we won the Senate, 37-36.  By the skin of our teeth.  Without that 37th Senate seat, we would not be able to get to 34 next year.  Which means maybe never.

Thank you, Stanley Hubbard.  For the last four years you and your cohorts have fought the Democracy Alliance, and George Soros, over the Legislature of Minnesota.  And the winner is:  Stanley Hubbard.  With Minnesota under our control, we can get to 34.  Just barely.

It feels as though things are coming to a head.  It’s as if political continents are colliding, and resisting one another, and cataclysmic forces are about to be unleashed.  All over the world there’s a revolt against the Center, as people seek to regain control over their fate.  Resistance may be futile in the end, but it is fierce.  Something’s got to give.

The campaign for a Balanced Budget Amendment is about the dangers that lie ahead, and what we can do to save ourselves.  It’s abstract, mathematical, and logical.  Not exactly a good fit for the times we seem to be living in, which are all about passion and justice and freedom.  What the BBA Task force is trying to do is so sensible that logic would seem to demand that it be done.   But it’s in the trenches fighting every step of the way.  We need a break.

And that’s what I sense coming, a sudden release of tectonic forces, a political earthquake.

36 years ago, on March 30, 1981, we had such an event.  It was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan.  If Reagan had been killed, God knows what would have happened to this country.  But he survived, bravely and gamely, and the American people loved him for it.

It was only with this wave of popular affection and support that Reagan was, that summer, able to rally the people behind his tax cuts.  Speaker Tip O’Neill had a thirty vote Democratic majority, and he fought Reagan every step of the way.  But in the end he caved, because he knew public opinion when he saw it.

Those tax cuts led directly to Reagan’s reelection landslide in 1984, and were the bedrock of his popularity.  If he hadn’t been shot, he may have never gotten them.

I’m certainly not predicting any sort of national calamity, far from it.  It won’t be the act of a lone mad man who shakes things up.  Rather, a sudden break, that becomes a crisis.  And, as a wise man said, you never get an opportunity like you do in a crisis.  That’s when you can shake things up.

It may take some sort of financial crisis, but I hope not.  What could come is a crisis in confidence in Congress as an institution.  They may reach gridlock, unable to do anything with the budget, adding a trillion to the deficit, and no end in sight.  It could come later this year.  Right after the Phoenix Convention of States.

And then people might ask themselves, why not get a balanced budget using Article V?  Do you need to be Doctor Spock to figure that out?

 

 

Arizona has issued the call for a Convention of States in Phoenix on September 12, 2017.  Who will answer?

The purpose of the Convention is to propose the rules for, and the site of, an Article V Balanced Budget Amendment Convention, which Congress is obliged to call once 34 States have passed the appropriate Resolutions.  Presumably, the 29 State Legislatures which have passed such Resolutions will attend.  What of the other 21?

There are 12 all Democrats, 7 all Republican, and Maine and Connecticut with split control.  Gallup has always had Republican support of a BBA at 80%, and with Washington the way it is right now,  that’s probably climbing.  The Balanced Budget Amendment been a standard Republican talking point for two generations.  So all of these solidly Republican States will send a delegation, it seems to me.

The Republicans in control of the Maine and Connecticut Senates can, if need be, send delegates even without the cooperation of their House colleagues.  That brings the total to 38, which would make it an historic success.    But the goal is 50, and bipartisanship.

Two Democratic State Legislators began this entire process over 40 years ago, but since the early 80’s the national Democratic Party has opposed a BBA, and George Soros, the left wing’s mega-donor, is bound and determined to stop any Article V movement.  So there will be opposition to sending a delegation and further legitimizing the proceeding.  But if history is any guide, they will, in the end, participate.

At the last Convention of States, the Washington Peace Conference of 1861, there was great resistance in the North to sending delegates, and legitimizing what they thought would be an attempt to undermine the election of 1860.  But in the end,  they all decided to attend, in order to help control the outcome.  This is all recorded in The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Aug. 1958).  It seems to me a Democratic boycott would look petty and partisan, and the Democrats will show up.

Pushing them in that direction will be Wolf-Pac, the organization trying to use Article V to overturn the Citizens United decision.  This Convention of States will be the best thing that ever happened to Wolf-Pac.  It will totally legitimize Article V.  And it gives them, if they’re delegates, a few days with all of the people they need to convince in order to get their Article V Resolutions.  Wolf-Pac, alone, will bring some Democratic states to the table.

And then there’s Jerry Brown, Governor of the Democratic bastion and  bulwark of progressivism, California, with its 55 electoral votes.  Jerry’s always been a visionary, and I’m hoping he’ll attend, and chair California’s delegation.  He understands Article V, and he used to be in favor of it.  California will only have one vote, like every other State, but Jerry Brown could be the leader of the twelve member Democratic Caucus.  With that many votes he might be able to influence the outcome.

The goal is 50.  Let’s see how close we get.

The campaign to use Article V for a Balanced Budget Amendment is 42 years old, and its original founders, Rep. David Halbrook of Mississippi and Sen. Jim Clark of Maryland, are no longer with us.  In 1983, with the vote in Alaska, 32 of the needed 34 States had signed on.  Then the counter assault began, with Phyllis Schlafly taking point, backed by the AFL-CIO, the AAUP, the AAUW, the AJC, the ACLU, the AFT, the ADA and the AFSCME, and that’s just the A’s.  The lengthy, complete list is in Lew Uhler’s Setting Limits: Constitutional Control of Government.

By the time Shlafly and the John Birch Society were done, half of the original Resolutions were rescinded, and for 25 years the movement didn’t move.  Then Bill Fruth, Dave Biddulph and others formed the BBA Task Force, and began quietly beavering away in State Capitols across the country.  Slowly and painstakingly they and the rest of the team have won 14 States, while losing Delaware and New Mexico to the Eagle Forum, the Birchers, and a number of left wing organizations funded by George Soros.

This has all escaped the attention of the media.  A lot of that has to do with Mark Levin.  His book, The Liberty Amendments, brought attention to Article V, and Levin personally channeled all that attention to the Convention of States Project.  For over three years Levin has pounded the drums for CoSP, and all the attention they received meant no one was interested in us.  Until now, with the Phoenix Convention of States.  The story of that Convention will be written.  It just a question of who, and when.

Dave Guldenschuh’s Article V Legislative Progress Report is out, listing the progress of the various Article V campaigns underway across the country.  The Phoenix BBA Planning Convention will help them all.

I just checked, and the D-backs will be playing in Phoenix during the Convention.  It’s always fun to go to a major league ball park.

Back then the Civil War loomed.  Now it’s national bankruptcy.  The failure of the “Peace Convention” made the war inevitable.  If someone, somewhere, somehow, doesn’t stop the cycle of spending, deficits and debt, our economy will eventually collapse.

Any State Legislature could have called a Convention of States at any time in the last 156 years.  For any number of reasons, the time for it was now, and Arizona has stepped forward.  Never before in our history has the federal government been so completely out of control.  Congress is paralyzed, incapable of passing laws to solve our most pressing problems, such as health care.  They can’t pass a budget.  But they can spend money without one.  Every year the deficit is between half a trillion and a trillion dollars.  That represents money stolen by this generation from its own children.

The Framers foresaw this possible state of affairs, and provided a remedy in Article V.  The States, and the people, are the ultimate sovereigns in our Constitutional system, and, if they can reach a consensus among themselves, can amend the Constitution to solve the federal government’s problems for it.  Such as forcing Congress to live within its means by a balanced budget amendment.

But what if Congress refuses to comply with such an amendment?  My recommendation would be to call another Convention of States, where remedies could be discussed, and if one is agreed to, assemble Article V Resolutions from 34 States and have another Amendment Convention.  That Article V Convention could, if authorized by the call, propose any number of solutions.  One would be to dissolve Congress and elect a new one.  When you’re the sovereign, you can do that.

And that’s what’s really behind the George Soros funded drive to stop Article V.  A fear of the people, as represented by their State Legislators.  Congress can be controlled, but not the State Legislators.  There are a lot of them, 7,383, and they’ve never been organized.  In some ways, the Phoenix Convention will be an organizational meeting, as well as a planning one.  If Phoenix succeeds, an organization will have been formed.  What is done with it, once the Convention adjourns, is up to its members.

The purpose of the Phoenix Convention is limited to two items, proposing rules for a subsequent Article V Convention, and to recommend where it should be held.  It was inspired by our most obstinate opponents, the ones who actually fear a runaway convention.  They will see with their own eyes the men and women chosen by their Legislatures to represent them at the Planning Convention.  They’ll see them, up close and personal.  And they’ll see American patriots, not much different than themselves.  People who can be trusted.  The same people, by and large, who will attend the Article V Convention to follow.

One thing will be settled for once and for all in Phoenix.  One State, One vote.  That’s how every Convention of States in American history has voted, and that will always be the practice.  In addition, a set of Rules will be adopted, and recommended to the Article V Convention.

In a sense, the Phoenix Convention is a demonstration project, a way to prove the feasibility and trustworthiness of the real thing, the Amendment, or Article V, Convention.

Bill Fruth of the BBA Task Force is responsible for this Convention, along with the indispensable Speaker of the Arizona House, J. D. Mesnard.  Remember that name.  You’re going to hear more of it.