Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

The Trump Republican coalition is shaky, full of contradictions, with much of its success due to Hillary Clinton’s shortcomings.  Republican strength in State Legislatures is at a high water mark not seen since Calvin Coolidge, and the normal midterm swing against the President’s party means further gains in 2018 are doubtful.  It’s possible that full Republican control of the Maine and Washington Legislatures could come in 2018, but it’s probably more likely that we suffer losses, as happened last year in Nevada and New Mexico.  It may be now or never for Article V.

California Democrats are rediscovering the merits of federalism, but it’s a passing fancy.  The Progressive movement is wedded to a strong federal government, and is intolerant of political diversity.  Conservatives are, or should be, willing to let California have its abortion on demand, gay and LGBT rights, and relaxed attitude toward immigration.  But today’s left has a strong authoritarian streak, and allowing pro-life South Dakota to restrict abortions is intolerable.  Since Article V’s appeal is all about federalism, it doesn’t really work for the left.  We really can’t count on any legislative chamber controlled by Democrats, now or in the future.

So it’s no coincidence that the next three months, from now until May Day, are critical for both the Trump administration and the Article V movement.  If Trump is going to be a success, he’s got to deliver the goods.  And if the BBA Task Force is ever going to get to 34, it may have to happen this year, or next at the latest.  For some State Legislators, such as in Idaho, voting for an Article V Resolution carries political risk.  The threat of being primaried by a Bircher is real.  It will be easier to get these votes in 2017 than it will be in 2018, when elections loom.

Minnesota and Virginia, on the other hand, may be easier in 2018, if they’re needed.  Without them, we need to run the table in Wyoming, Idaho, Wisconsin, Arizona, Kentucky and South Carolina.  If that fails, and we go into 2018 needing another State, it may get down to one of them.

Rep. Jerry Hertaus is leading our campaign in Minnesota, and is doing everything right.  He’s arranged with House and Senate leadership for a light floor schedule on Feb. 6th, and expects a very strong turnout for a seminar that will include presentations by our Bill Fruth and Dave Guldenschuh.  Many of these legislators are unfamiliar with Article V and the BBA, and all their questions can be addressed.  But we’ve learned through bitter experience that the learning curve on Article V can be lengthy.  We only have a one vote margin in the State Senate, and there are a few who may require another year of education on the subject.  And if Minnesota is going to be number 34, putting the spotlight on it in 2018 may be needed to go over the top.

The Virginia Senate, unlike the House of Delegates and the Governor, is not up for election in 2017.  We have a 21-19 split, and it will be the same next year.  Speaker of the House Bill Howell is a strong Article V man, but he has no influence in the Senate, which seems, to an outsider, almost as bizarre as the South Carolina Senate.  But we may get a Republican Governor in the November 7th election, and if he’s willing to push the issue, he should be able to command the attention of the Senate.  Nothing else seems to interest them.

You never, ever, give up, but if we don’t get a Balanced Budget Amendment with the current political alignment, we may not get it done at all.  Even then, all the progress which has been made would not go to waste.  Unlike the BBA, which should be bipartisan but isn’t, the term limits movement has a lot of Democratic as well as Republican support.  With the boogie man of a runaway convention pretty well disposed of by the BBA Task Force, it could be the limitation of Congressional terms which breaks the wall of Article V.

The better bet is on the BBA.  We started the year off strong in the Wyoming House, and everyone involved is ready to go all out in 2017.  While the rest of the country watches the progress of the Trump administration, a separate, and equally important political drama will be played out from  Boise to Madison, Phoenix to Cheyenne, and Frankfort to Columbia.  If you’re a constitutional conservative, it’s more significant, in the long run, than anything Donald Trump has planned.

 

 

The Article V campaign for a Balanced Budget Amendment has been active for over 35 years, and currently has 28 of the needed 34 State Resolutions needed for success.  Because it’s taken so long, and has suffered so many disappointments, alternative Article V campaigns have tried to pick up the Article V ball.  Perhaps a different approach would have more success, it was believed.  Inspired by Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments, the Convention of States organization was formed four or five years ago, and it has accumulated eight State Resolutions.  The Compact for America is another alternative, and it has four Resolutions.  U. S. Term Limits is now very active, and hopes to quickly gather Article V Resolutions for its proposal.  There are also active organizations promoting an Article V “Countermand Amendment”, and a “Single Subject Amendment.”  The latest entry is from Texas Governor Greg Abbott, which calls for a nine subject Amendment Convention.

The BBA Task Force has always supported any reasonable proposal to use Article V to restore Constitutional government.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of all of the Task Force’s “competitors.”  Some of them may lose their rationale if the BBA succeeds, and as a result efforts have been made to undermine the entire movement for an Article V BBA Convention.  What these people fail to appreciate is that the BBA movement is an ice breaker, and once a path to success has been cleared, those who follow will have clear sailing.

The arguments and obstacles used against us are too numerous to mention, but the “runaway Convention” bugaboo is the main problem.  This myth, concocted, originally, by Robert F. Kennedy, and promoted by the likes of Tip O’Neill, Walter Mondale, and the AFL-CIO, has been fervently embraced by the John Birch Society and a few other alt-right outfits.   This has been the problem, and it’s only solution is to personally engage individual State Legislators on the issue.  The large majority of these men and women can be talked to, and eventually see the light.  Only a few are bull headed and are beyond reason.

Dealing with State Legislators, directly, is a time consuming process.  Loren Enns spent weeks on end, criss-crossing the State of Wyoming, putting 10,000 miles on his car, meeting State Legislators in their far flung districts.  As a result of all this hard work, we passed the House 35-23, and have a supermajority of support in the Senate.  Bill Fruth has spent years in the field, criss-crossing the country, speaking to hundreds of State Legislators.  All this labor has created a fallow field for Article V.

Loren didn’t need to tell them that a Balanced Budget Amendment was a good idea.  They all want a BBA.  What he had to do was convince them, one by one, that there wasn’t going to be a runaway convention.  So whichever Article V organization follows up in Wyoming, they won’t have that hurdle to overcome.  All they need to do is convince the State Legislators on the merits of their individual proposals.  A whole lot easier.

The Task Force has an excellent chance of getting to 34 this year, and if we do, and an Amendment Convention is held, the Article V dam will burst, and I hope and pray we get half a dozen more.  A great deal of damage has been done to the Constitution, and it will take more than one Amendment Convention to do the needed repair.

All these other Article V organizations need to understand what our success would mean to them.  Most of them are well funded, which the Task Force is not, and never has been.  If some of this funding could be directed in an effort to help with the BBA, it will be money well and wisely spent.

I imagine Trump thinks of himself as in the great tent of the Sultan, full of activity, where important decisions are constantly being made.  The elite media are camels, who would wreak havoc inside, and seek entry by shoving their noses under the tent’s edges. Armed with a club, Trump immediately interrupts whatever he’s doing when he sees a nose, runs over and whacks it.  Either that, or he’s playing whack-a-mole.  And the more time and energy he puts into whacking moles the less he has for business.

It’s who he is, and how he got where he is, and we all better get used to it.  I have a hunch Press secretary Sean Spicer won’t pay any price for what the media portray as a PR disaster.  I think he did what Trump wanted him to do, which was dis the press.  Who doubts that the elite media despise Trump, and conspire against him?  The only thing they debate among themselves is means and methods, and how far they’ll go.  They mean to take Trump down, like they took Nixon down, and they won’t quit.  They’ll be trying to destroy his Presidency next month, next year, as long as he’s in office.  It’s the only way to redeem themselves, and put themselves and their friends in the Democratic Party back in power.

They didn’t do this to Reagan.  After he was shot, he was a national hero, and they left him alone.  But to these people, with Trump, it’s personal.  And he knows it.  They’re never going to cut him any slack, so why shouldn’t he give as good as he gets?

Trump can do this, unlike any other politician of my long lifetime.  It’s a marvel.  It takes guts, and brains, and you wonder how long he can pull it off.  I remember thinking  back during the primary, almost a year ago now, that he was on a political tightrope.  He kept ginning up controversies, and getting away with it, and you had to believe he was going to push it too far.  But he never fell off the wire, so you have to believe he knows what he’s doing.

I ran across a video of Trump at a town hall in Reno, in October of 2015.  He’s asked about marijuana and he says it’s an issue for the States.  He favors medicinal marijuana, but other than that it’s up to the States.  AG Jeff Sessions understands this, as shown at his confirmation hearing.  This is big news where I live.

I’m just south of Frog City, U.S.A., as Angel’s Camp, Calaveras County styles itself.  When Babbie was a teenager she and her girl friends entered a frog in the annual frog jumping contest there.  Calaveras County is emerging as a power in marijuana cultivation.  Our climate allows at least two crops a year, and planting conditions are ideal.  These farmers operate strictly in compliance with State law and County Ordinance, and have a good relationship with local law enforcement.  I know these guys, and they’re good people.  Yeoman farmers in the Jeffersonian tradition, as Calaveras County Supervisor Jack Garamendi calls them.  There was a cloud over their operations under Obama.  They expected a total hands off policy from Obama, but that’s not what they got at all.  They will be much better off under Trump.  Federalism is in the bones of all the Republicans around him, and they’re not going to mess around with States rights over marijuana.

I’ll be seeing these guys Super Bowl weekend.  We’ll be raising a glass to Trump, the federalist.

 

 

 

 

States have rights, under the Constitution.   It’s right there in the 10th Amendment.  To claim these rights, they must use the federal courts, but since 1936 these courts have largely refused to enforce them.  They only have one, legal, recourse:  Article V.  The way it’s looking, the States will exercise their power under Article V for the first time in the year of our Lord 2017.  What a great year to be alive.

Meanwhile, as a resident of California, I’ve been thinking about 2018, and I’ve got a candidate for Governor, if he’ll run.  It’s Peter Thiel, the Trump supporting Silicon Valley billionaire.  He’s thinking about it, as evidenced by his willingness to spend an evening with MoDo of the NYT.  That’s a major commitment, so I take him seriously.  I’m working on a piece for American Thinker on the subject.

I’ve been a little down lately, and I think I know why.  It’s withdrawal, from politics.  With Trump, it’s mainly about governing now, and that part never interested me as much as pure politics.  But looking ahead to 2018, right here in my back yard, has got me going again.  When Babbie and I first moved here, in 2002, I got a little involved in the Simon for Governor campaign, a complete fiasco, and haven’t done anything locally since.  But in 2018, Thiel is Real.

At last, a touch of genuine grace.  After being toasted by Mitch McConnell at the post-inaugural luncheon, Trump was invited to say a few words.  He seemed a little caught off guard, and said he figured everyone had heard enough of him.  Then he thought of something he did want to say, and warmly thanked Hillary Clinton for attending, and asked her to stand and be applauded.  It all seemed sincere and spontaneous.  It’s the kind of small gesture that sets a tone, and it’s a moment that bodes well for our 45th President.

The inaugural address was all work, no play.  I like literature, and some political speech attains that level.  But Trump talked plainly, like a man with a job to do, a man who lets his actions speak for him.  What sets Trump’s speech apart from any other I am aware of was its almost total lack of self reference.  He didn’t say one word about himself, his background, his experiences.  There was a lot he could have said, but he didn’t.  More reason for optimism.

May is just 100 days away, and I feel like a ten year old at the carnival.  This could really be a lot of fun.  Trump said it.  “We are transferring power from Washington D.C., and giving it back to you, the people.”  From your lips to God’s ear, Mr. President.  This was Reagan’s project, but he sacrificed it in order to win the Cold War.  But now there can be no excuse. This is long overdue, and the benefits are going to be enormous.  So many good ideas, and legislation, has been laying dormant, waiting for this alignment of power, that all kinds of good things may happen.  Let it be.

Meanwhile, Article V marches on.  Loren Enns gave us further details on the win in the Wyoming House, which did not involve the help of a Democrat, as I’d thought.  I want to thank and acknowledge the help of Rep. Scott Clem of Campbell and Rep. Nathan Winters of Thermopolis, home of the world’s largest mineral hot spring.  And thanks, again, to Rep. Bo Biteman, for being willing to listen.  The Senate will be working on its own bills for the next two weeks, so we won’t come up until early February.  But during debate on another Resolution in the Senate, Senate President Eli Bebout made reference to ours, and let everyone know he expects it to pass.  With Eli in charge, I think we’re just fine in the Senate.

Bills are filed in Arizona, Idaho, Wisconsin, Kentucky and South Carolina.  As each bill goes through the committee process, and on to a floor vote, the BBA Task Force is going to need a representative on the ground, in the Capitol, at each step of the way.  We simply can’t rely on our sponsors.  They don’t understand all the nuances of this process, and can be misled into mistakes.  If Loren Enns had not been present for the floor debate, our sponsors would have agreed to an amendment which would have nullified the effect of the Resolution.  He was able to call Rob Natelson, who advised him that the amendment was deadly.  The floor debate, and rules committee meetings on the floor, took up several hours, with the opposition trying every trick they could think of.  We don’t really need to worry that this kind of fight lay before us in every chamber we need to pass, but we need to be prepared for it.

Dave Biddulph and John Knubel are raising money in Seattle, and are having some success.  It would seem to me that the closer we get to 34, the easier it will be to raise money.  29 sounds better than 28, and when you get to 30 and 31 it starts to look real.

It all happens in the next hundred days, just as the Trump administration is making its mark on Washington.  It will be a great beginning to a magical year.  The year of the Great American Eclipse, the revival of the American economy, and the restoration of the United States Constitution.

And the 250th birthday of the great Andrew Jackson.  It’s just two months away, on March 15th.  President Trump should visit Nashville to pay his respects at the Hermitage.  If he’s half the man Jackson was, we’re in good hands.