Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

The only money I ever made in politics, aside from my legislative salary, was $10,000 that Frank Murkowski gave me in 1980.  He was running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Clark Gruening, and they were running dead even in the polls.  In the legislature Clark had co-sponsored a constitutional amendment called the Environmental Bill of Rights.  A very bad move, politically.  Alaskans don’t like environmentalists.  It’s a dirty word.  Frank, and his campaign manager, my friend Bill McConkey, were struggling to find a way to nail him on it.  They hired me, I did the hit, and Frank shot up ten points in the polls.  That’s what he won by.

I wanted to succeed Frank in the Senate.  Everybody knew that.  He wanted to be Governor.  When he made his move, I’d run for his seat.  In 1992 he ran for a third term, and I thought he’d go for the governorship in 1994, but he passed.  1998 was his year.  Democrat Tony Knowles was running for reelection, and Frank was the only Republican who could beat him.  I was set to run for Frank’s seat.  I was 53 and in my prime.  My newspaper column and talk radio show had maintained my political viability, and I was raring to go.

Frank ran for a fourth term, and I could see the handwriting on the wall.  It was not to be.  When his daughter, Lisa, ran for the State House, I knew what was up.  She was a young wife and mother, and had no business serving in the state legislature. She wasn’t all that bright, for one thing.  I’m being nice.

When my wife came to Alaska with me she made quite a sacrifice, and she always wanted to get back to California, her family, and friends.  So we made the move in 2001.  Frank was elected Governor in 2002, and interviewed a lot of people, trying to decide who he should appoint to serve out his term in the Senate.  My buddy Rick Halford, an extremely bright guy, was one of them.  I was in California, but I knew what Frank was up to.  After giving it a lot of thought,he decided his daughter, Lisa, was the best person for the job, and appointed her.

So for twelve years I was out of politics, living the life of Riley in sunny California.  I went to Alaska to get into Congress, and had failed.  Then, a year and a half ago, I saw a chance to get back in the game, working for Article V.  I’m enjoying myself a lot more than I would be if I was in Washington.  And Article V is a lot more important than anything I could have done as a Senator.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Seattle is as far away from Washington as you get in the contiguous 48 states.  Which makes it a good place to start.  The primary goal is to come to an agreement that voting at the Convention will be one state, one vote; that only one Amendment  — dealing with a balanced budget  — will be in order at the Convention, and that that Amendment contain provisions for land transfers and regulatory reform.  A good day’s work, if achieved.  If that is accomplished the next step is to agree on a subsequent time and place to meet in order to expand the participation to as many states as possible.  The obvious time is December, in between the regularly scheduled meetings of ALEC and the NCSL.  Those meeting take place in D.C., which is an hour’s drive from Annapolis.

The State House in Annapolis is the Capitol of Maryland, built in 1772 and the oldest State Capitol still used by a legislature.  Between November of 1783 and June of 1784 it was the U.S. Capitol, where the Continental Congress met.  It was here on December 23, 1783 that General George Washington tendered his resignation as Commander in Chief of the Army.

The Maryland legislature is one of the bluest in the country, and I’m not at all sure they’d put the welcome mat out for this December meeting.  Maybe the Governor, a conservative Republican, would have some influence with them.  If there’s no room at the State House that would be available, maybe we could meet at the Naval Academy.  Or we may wind up in a hotel.  We’ll see.

It’s hard to say, this far out, what would be covered at Annapolis.  One thing would be to recommend to the Convention what its rules should be.  The Assembly of State Legislatures has been working on that for a year and a half, so maybe they’ll have something to propose.  Another item is the funding of the Convention.  Some amount of money will have to be spent in organizing and conducting this Convention.  We should not rely, in any way, on Congress to pay for it.  Seattle and Annapolis will be privately funded, with the National Tax Limitation Committee paying the bills.  The actual Convention should be paid for by the states.  If 26 states kicked in $50,000 you’d have $1.3 million, enough to cover it.

Another possibility is to recommend a site for the Amendment Convention to Congress.  I think the Capitol at Richmond, designed by Thomas Jefferson, would be best.  Houdon’s bust of Washington is prominently displayed there.  I’ve seen replicas, but never the original.  It’s as precious as any work of art in America.  Houdon captured Washington, the man.  A lot of people think of Washington as a blue blood Virginia aristocrat, with powdered wig and all.  In fact George Washington was a soldier, and a man’s man.  He was the kind of man other men followed in war.  In high school he’d be captain of the football team, not class President.  He’d be the middle linebacker, a stud, and when he told the guys up front to hold that line they’d do it or die trying.

There were two American foundings, the first at Jamestown in 1607, the second at Plymouth in 1619.  The Virginians gave us our libertarian philosophy.  The Puritans up north were anti-libertarian.  They were Bible thumping religious fanatics that would burn you at the stake if they thought you were a witch.  Their political legacy is the modern Democratic party, which will destroy anyone out of line with its politically correct dogmas.  American political history is, in some ways, the story of the fight between these two visions.  It started with Jefferson against Adams, and we’re still fighting.

We’re with Jefferson, and liberty.  So let’s meet in Richmond.

So if land transfers, regulatory reform, and tax reform fit under the umbrella of a BBA, what doesn’t, and why?  Where can the Amendment Convention not go?  If it were a rogue Convention, there would be no answer to that question.  By definition, a rogue Convention would observe no limits.  So the question is really where should a BBA Convention not go.

The process of Reconciliation in the United States Senate provides a guideline.  Created by the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, Reconciliation allows the Senate to pass budgetary items with just 51 votes.  So what is a budgetary item?  The Bush tax cuts were.  The Clinton welfare reform was.  Opening ANWR was.  But when Clinton tried to pass his health care plan, HillaryCare, using Reconciliation he was blocked by the Byrd Rule (2 U.S.C. Sec. 644).  The Byrd Rule says, among other things, that if a provision in the budget has only an extraneous effect on the budget, it should not be allowed.  So, who decides if an item is extraneous to the budget?  The Senate Parliamentarian, who can only be overturned by a 3/5 vote.

That’s the job I want, at the Amendment Convention:  Parliamentarian.  I’m a lawyer, and I know the Constitution, and I served eight years in the Alaska Legislature.  I’m qualified.  When I meet with Senator Faber in Savannah on Friday I’m going to ask him to be Co-Chair of, and to preside at, the Seattle Summit.  I’m also going to ask him to appoint me, on an interim basis, as the parliamentarian for the Summit.  That way I get to justify my participation in what should otherwise be for legislators only.

Richmond, Virginia should be the site of the Amendment Convention, in honor of George Mason, the Father of the Bill of Rights, and a proud Virginian.  Mason also gets a lot of the credit for Article V.  In many ways the Constitution was created by Virginians, Washington and Madison most prominent among them.  I’ve never been to the Capitol, but I imagine it’s beautiful.   So I emailed the Task Force and suggested we contact the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Goodlatte of Virginia (what a coincidence!) and tell him we unanimously urge him to recommend to the House of Representatives that Richmond be chosen as the site.

We may need Virginia next year.  Again, what a coincidence!  So we’ll make sure we tell all those Virginia legislators that if they pass our bill, and the first Amendment Convention in 229 years is going to be held, it will be in their Chambers.  I think they’ll like that.

I’ve been thinking about getting 38 states to ratify, and two of the toughest ones will be Maine and Minnesota.  There are a lot of tree huggers in Maine, and it’s barely purple.  So what can we give Maine?  Lobsters: control of their fisheries, free from the federal government.  All small fishermen (which is where the votes are) hate the federal government and its fisheries agents.  They’re like revenuers are to moonshiners  — the enemy.  So we abolish the National Marine Fisheries Service and hand its functions over to the regional fish councils already in existence.   The fishermen and lobstermen of Maine would eat that up.  When you eliminate a federal agency, you’re cutting the deficit, so it fits.  The only people this would piss off would be the environmentalists, and we lost them a while back.  So you get Maine.

This is politics.  Now, what does Minnesota want?  Something that, if they get it, it cuts the deficit.  Somewhere in that state there a group of people that are pissed off at the federal government.  We need to find out who they are, and what they’re pissed off about, and find a way to eliminate the agency that they’re pissed off at.

Article V, properly applied, can be a lot of fun.

Thanks to Rep. Phil King, who we’ve never heard of, The Texas House passed an updated version of the BBA on Friday on a 100-40 vote.  It turns out King is also the incoming Chair of ALEC, which is sweet.  ALEC’s always been big on the BBA, but now we may really see some action.

We didn’t need Texas.  We got it around 40 years ago.  The Convention of States (CoS) really did need Texas.  They put on a full court press, with 20,000 volunteers, a big citizen’s lobbying effort, testimony from over 40 witnesses, and firm commitments from the House leadership.  They did everything right.  They won’t even get a floor vote.

We sent Mike Stern down to testify, period.

CoS is dead.  They’ve spent millions of dollars, and, in some states, ran excellent campaigns.  They’ll finish 2015 where they started, with three states.  It’s over.

Our legal counsel, Dave Guldenschuh, is a fugitive from CoS, and has stories to tell about dysfunction at the highest levels.  But their real problem was quite simple.  They had bad dog food.  The dogs wouldn’t eat it.

They made a fundamental political miscalculation.  Lawyer and radio host Mark Levin, author of “The Liberty Amendments”, is partly to blame.  He encouraged them to go whole hog, try to get a wide open convention which would alter the basic structure of the federal system.  It was a hell of an idea.  I supported it, and testified in favor of it before the Montana Senate Judiciary Committee.  But it was a bridge too far.  It scared people.  Article V is kind of scary to begin with.  To emphasize the radical nature of possible change, as CoS did, makes it just too scary.  When it comes to the Constitution, the American people are conservative.

Plus, they had term limits.  A deal killer, for a lot of legislators.  They don’t believe in term limits.  I’m beginning to see why.  In one sense, term limits are a way to punish the people in office right now.  Rather than throw them out, instead, let’s take their power away.

Like the power to tax.  If we add tax reform to land transfers and regulatory reform, and make the Reagan Initiative three legged, will it cost us votes, or get us votes?  I don’t know.  And I don’t need to know, not yet.  I’m guessing the Amendment Convention will convene in August of 2016, sixteen months from now.  Nobody needs to make a decision until then.  When the delegates, Republican and Democrat, from all 50 states, start their deliberations they will, collectively, make a political calculation, to wit:  How much can we get away with?  What will the purple states ratify?

That will depend, in part, on the public’s perception of the entire Amendment process.  Was it done in an orderly, calm, and reasonable way?  Were all sides listened to, and all view points seriously considered?  Was their bipartisanship?

The last question may be the big one.  If we can’t get some Democrats on board this will be tough to ratify.  I know some reasonable Democrats in Alaska, like former Speaker Sam Cotten, a Navy vet.  He’s now the Commissioner of Fish and Game.  In Alaska, that’s an important job.  And Senator Lyman Hoffman of Bethel, an Eskimo, who I served with.  I’ll talk to them, down the road.

Sam did me a favor 30 years ago.  It was in the middle of the subsistence fight.  The Natives, backed by Ted Stevens, wanted special rights in the Constitution.  It was a very hot fight, and I was leading the opposition.  Sam pulled me aside one day and told me some of the Native leaders thought I was prejudiced against them.  This was serious.  My Uncle Fritz instilled in me, in no uncertain terms, that the Native people of Alaska were owed great respect, and I feel that way very strongly.  So I pulled in my horns and made sure all the Natives knew I had nothing but respect for them.

So I owe Sam one.

You could help balance the budget with tax reform, so if the Amendment Convention chose to do so, it would be within the scope of the call.

The Reagan Initiative  — a supply side BBA — was created out of necessity.  We won’t get to 34 without it.  I believe the two additional elements, land transfers and regulatory reform, will be opposed primarily by the environmentalists.  If you’re going to do land transfers you may as well do regulatory reform  — you’re pissing off the same people,, so what the hell?  Go for broke.

Adding tax reform to the Convention agenda is a different story, which is why I’ve opposed it.  There are a whole lot of people who would be afraid of true tax reform, primarily the entire beltway establishment.  These are people who could go along with regulatory reform and land transfers, but would balk at tax reform.  That’s bad politics.  You want to keep your opposition to a minimum, and build support for your side.  It’s arithmetic.  If we added tax reform, would we get additional support?  Would that support offset the increase in the opposition?

It would fire up a whole lot of people.  The enthusiasm for abolishing the IRS is real.  Land transfers and regulatory reform don’t get people jacked up like repealing the tax code.  That’s exciting.

The people who really know the answer to these questions are the Presidents of the Maine and Washington Senates, Michael Thibodeau and Pam Roach, and Minnesota Speaker Kurt Daudt.  We’ll need all three states to get to 38 for ratification.  If they tell us we can add tax reform, we should give it some serious thought.

The kind of tax reform we’d propose is, to me, almost a completely political question.  How much can we get away with?  How flat can we go?

Here’s an idea.  In the tax reform section of the BBA, put in a provision that strips Congress of the power to impose new taxes for ten years.  Any new taxes, of any kind.  If there need to be tax increases in this ten year period, require the preapproval of a majority of the state legislatures.  Allow Congress to petition the states for permission to impose a new tax.  If they get 26 Resolutions giving approval, they’ve got a green light.  Otherwise, no new taxes.  Period.  Zero, zilch, nada.

I’ll bet that would appeal to people.  I know damn well it would appeal to state legislators.  The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Maybe it’s time to go bold.  Maybe this is a truly special political moment, where amazing things are possible.  I’ve talked a lot about running with the tide.

What if it’s a rip tide?