Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

If we do manage to get to 34 next year, we’ll be asking Congress, (or more specifically Chairman Goodlatte of House Judiciary, and Chairman Grassley of Senate Judiciary)  to set the time of the Amendment Convention no later than the spring of 2016.  We will also ask that the proposal from the Convention be voted on by the states not through their legislatures, but through state conventions.  The Amendment Convention would finish its work by summer, allowing the states to have elections for the ratification conventions in November, 2016 — the same day as the Presidential election.  Dave Biddulph imagines a split screen on election night, with one side showing the electoral vote count, the other showing the count on the BBA ratification votes around the country.  Today, and for the last 30 years, 2/3 of the American people have polled in favor of a BBA, so if the Democrats running in 2016 are opposed, they’ll be hurt, badly.

That’s the ideal.  If we get to 34 in 2016, it’s too late for this scenario.  But what could happen is almost as good.  The Amendment Convention would be held in late summer, just as the Presidential campaign kicks into high gear after Labor Day.  That campaign and the Convention would take place simultaneously.  The Convention would agree on a proposed amendment prior to election day.  All candidates, not just Presidential, would have to weigh in on their position on the proposed amendment.  All of this, all of it, benefits the Republicans, from the top of the ticket down.  2016 could be another 1980, although without the Gipper.  It could be a realignment election, in the way that 1932 was for the D’s.  They had Hoover to kick around then.  We’ll have Obama.

Dave and Bill Fruth will be making this pitch to the Liberty Congress.  Surely some in the audience will get it.  I’ll be making this same pitch to all the Republican presidential campaigns, to the extent that I can get to them.  Lew Uhler should be able to help there, or some of our legislative sponsors.

I’m not involved with Article V because I want to win elections for the Republicans.  I want Article V.  That’s the Reagan Project.  It just so happens, because of the timing, that a successful Article V BBA in 2015 or 2016 has enormous electoral appeal for Republican candidates.  If they can be convinced of that, they have access to the resources to make it happen.

The problem is credibility.  Is the Task Force just blowing smoke?  We’ve got 24, we can clearly see our to 34 (thanks to West Virginia, without one Democrat vote), but is that enough?  We’ll find out in Philly on Tuesday.  I think these guys are primed for Article V, and are ready to believe.

If we don’t get some help we could still do it this year.  It would be unlikely.

Like flipping the West Virginia Senate was unlikely.

The West Virginia Senate flipped last night, when a Democrat decided, for some reason, that he now wants to be a Republican.  Since he was the first to come over, he’ll get the most goodies — probably including a committee chairmanship.  I’d be surprised if more members of the now minority Senate D’s don’t follow.  Being in the minority is a bitch, let me tell you.  I spent my entire eight year career in the Alaska Legislature in the minority.  I was only able to get one bill through, but, on the bright side, I did have a lot of free time.  Good politicians are highly attuned to changes in the strength and direction of the wind.  In West Virginia right now you don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind’s blowing.

One of the heroes of the Article V movement, right up there with Hal Wick of South Dakota, is Delegate John Overington of the West Virginia House of Delegates.  He’ll be in the majority for the first time in his 30 or so years in the House.  One of the reasons he’s hung in there for so long is his dedication to Article V.  He’s been introducing our bill since he was first elected.  He never even got it out of the House, but he didn’t quit.  He’s been selling Article V in the State Capitol all this time, and because of him we think West Virginia is ours.

What a guy.

Like Ed Gillespie, running for the Senate in Virginia.  He knew most guys in Virginia are Redskins fans.  And he knew these guys, black and white, are pissed off at people telling them their team’s mascot is racist.  So he runs an ad on Monday Night Football, the night before the election, in which he says all this crap about the name “Redskins” is just that — crap.  What we should be worried about is good jobs, etc.

Reports on Fox News that Gillespie was winning 18% of the black vote led Bob Beckel to claim that number could not be right.  He didn’t realize that these black guys were voting for Gillespie because he manned up for the Redskins — finally, a politician with balls.

Gillespie may lose, but I look forward to 2017 when he’ll beat the execrable VA Gov. Terry McAuliffe.  It won’t be close.

It’s a big advantage to be smart.

It’s our only pickup.  I was wrong about the Kentucky House, but, thankfully, I was also wrong about the West Virginia Senate.  24 D’s, 10 R’s, and 17 up for election, twelve of them D’s.  To get a tie they had to pick off seven out of twelve, while holding on to their five seats.  My God, beating seven of twelve incumbent State Senators just doesn’t happen.  But it did, so they’ve got a 17-17 split, with no Lieutenant Governor to break a tie.

I’m speculating here, but it’s informed speculation.  Why would any West Virginia Republican State Senator abandon his caucus and give the D’s their 18th vote?  Corruption — it would be the only explanation.  Could happen.

Why would a Democrat State Senator abandon his caucus and give the R’s their 18th vote?  Political expediency, or, save your own ass while you can.  If you’re up in 2016, as twelve of these D senators are, you realize you’re on a sinking ship.  As long as Obama is in the White House it’s poison to be a Democrat in West Virginia.  You bail.

So we picked up a target, which we needed.  If we can’t hang on to Maryland, West Virginia will be our 34th state.  No room to spare.  Run the table, win ’em all.

I’m afraid it will have to be in 2016, though.  Virginia meets for 30 days, next year, and we haven’t even gotten it through the House yet — itself no sure thing.  We have no real champion in the Senate, and would have to get every Republican State Senator.  Possible?  Yes.  Realistic?  No.

I’ve said before the Task Force is going to need some major help to get to 34.  If we don’t get help in time for 2015’s sessions, we’ll have the summer and fall to drum up support.  As long as we’re at 30 or so we’ll be given a hearing.  This is when the Republican Presidential campaign gets going.  I believe we’ll get the active support of one or more of these campaigns — Kasich, Paul, Jindal, Pence and Perry.

There’s a meeting of the West Virginia State Senate Democratic Caucus going on right now.  There used to be 24 of them; now it’s 17.  They got their asses handed to them.  They’ll talk about how they need to stay unified, collectively cut some kind of power sharing deal with the R’s.  But they have to be unified, nobody can bolt and cut a deal on their own.  They don’t trust each other.  Everyone is thinking the same thing — if I don’t cut my own deal, which one of these sons-of-bitches is going to do it, and what will they get for it?

These are fun meetings.  My first Alaska Republican State Senate Caucus was one.  The Senate was split 10-10, and it was just a question of who bails.

It wasn’t me.

After sitting on the sidelines for 25 years I got back into the Article V game about a year ago for one reason: timing.  The Obamacare website fiasco, and the realization that people were seeing that the emperor had no clothes, told me the time was right.  People have had it with Washington, they don’t see a solution to the mess we’re in.  We knew we needed change, but didn’t really know where to look.  Congressional Republicans?  Give us a break.  People don’t trust Obama, Congress, Republicans, Democrats, Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, McConnell, Hillary, or any of the Republican Presidential hopefuls — no one.

What can be done?  Article V.  A movement and a moment in perfect alignment.  We have had a perfect political environment for our cause.

The moment is changing, of course.  It always does.  Reid out, McConnell in.  But nothing will be solved.  I’m betting Obama digs in his heels.  He’ll do amnesty by executive order, and won’t care too much about the political consequences.  So we’re in for two more years of trench warfare.  No grand bargains.  No entitlement reform.  No fiscal reform.  No significant tax reform.  We’re still in a hole, and we’re still digging.  Article V’s ideal political environment will continue.

From the Article V perspective this is all good.  We want people to continue to despise what’s happening in D.C.  It proves our point:  we need systemic change, a fundamental reordering of our politics, a return of power and responsibility away from Washington, back to the states, and the people.  The momentum we in the Task Force feel in our favor will continue.  Especially if we flip Kentucky, Maine, or Washington.  Two out of three would do.

And that momentum will be tangible, plain to see.  One state at a time.  We’ll get to 25.  Then we’ll get to 26, and 27, and 28, and 29, and 30.  And then people will realize there is hope, there is a solution, something really can be done to save this country and its Constitution.  I can’t say when this realization will take place.  But I’m confident it will happen.

Then we win.