Miscellaneous

Like the rest of the Constitution, Article V is skimpy on details.  The Framers assumed the men and women who succeeded them would be competent enough to work things out themselves.  So when the first Amendment Convention meets, it will need to set its own rules and establish its own procedures.  There are precedents from other conventions of states in our history, however.  We expect Professor Rob Natelson to be submitting a piece to American Thinker on this subject soon.

The bottom line is that every such convention in American history has adopted the one state, one vote principle.

Some of those involved with the Assembly of State Legislatures believe a new standard should be used in order for an Amendment Convention to offer an Amendment proposal, that the states voting in favor must represent a majority of the Electoral College.  Task Force member Mike Stern believes in this idea.  The rest of the Task Force voted unanimously in opposition.

Mike’s a lawyer in D.C., and he thinks if the proposed Amendment lacks that kind of support coming out of the Convention, Senate Democrats will oppose sending it out for ratification.  They’ll say it does not have majority support, is thus antidemocratic, and should be killed.  He thinks this would be their best political line.

I’ll try to put this gently.  Mike should stick to practicing law.  His understanding of politics is, let’s say, incomplete.  He hasn’t really thought this through, politically.  I’ll leave it at that.

The Task Force will do all it can to defeat any proposal, from any source, that differs one iota from the principle of one state, one vote.  The people at ASL who are pushing this are doing it with the best of intentions, but it is an extremely misguided move.  Hopefully it will die in Salt Lake next month.

John Knubel came up with the idea of having Admiral Owens call West Virginia Speaker Armstead on our behalf.  This is a seriously good idea.  Even House Speakers take calls from former Vice Chairs of the Joint Chiefs.  If this works we may ask Admiral Owens to call Hugh Leatherman in South Carolina.

The more I think about it, the more positive I feel about our chances.  Look at our opposition.  Hillary Clinton.

When Romney lost I was so pissed off I wanted to go back to Alaska and lead a movement for secession.  Then I settled into a period of deep depression.  I get wrapped up in these things personally.  The year after Romney lost was the most depressing year of my life.  And then October of 2013 came, and the roll out of Obamacare.

And I was born again.

Twice before in our history the governing political consensus has shattered, replaced by a new one only after a national catastrophe.  And that’s precisely where we find ourselves today.

That’s according to James Pierson’s Shattered Consensus, a thoughtful analysis by a thoughtful man.  From Jefferson to the Civil War the Democrats were the party of the governing consensus, but their inability to solve the slavery issue brought the Republicans into power.  Until the Great Depression, Republicans represented a new consensus, but their failure to control the excesses of laissez faire capitalism brought their downfall.  The new Democratic consensus prevailed until the present time, but it too has shattered, and there is no consensus in this country today.  Piereson thinks we must suffer a market collapse, or a major recession, or a terror attack before a new one can be formed.  In the process we are going to have to accept a lower standard of living.  In his view the new consensus will feature a return to federalism, economic growth, and the downfall of the public sector unions.

It’s important to clearly appreciate what Piereson is saying.  It doesn’t matter who wins the White House.  Even if we hold all the reins of power, the Presidency, the House , the Senate, the Supreme Court  — it still won’t be enough.  To deal with our intractable problems we need a national consensus, and we won’t get one unless we suffer a great calamity.  We’re a 50-50 nation right now, at war with one another, with no victory for either side in sight.

So I guess we just sit around and await the inevitable Civil War or Great Depression to give us the chance to get things right.  Or maybe we could use Article V to avert such catastrophes.  Our choice.  Maybe we ought to at least give it a try.  I don’t think a decline in our standard of living is something we should settle for.  If the first Amendment Convention is a success, others will follow, and the sclerotic federal government can be cut down to size.  Prosperity would follow.  But if we don’t use Article V, I think Piereson is right.  Congress has degenerated into a bipartisan parliament of whores, and will never clean up its mess without an outside intervention.

Piereson’s a very bright guy, and he makes a number of interesting points.  Today it’s a commonplace that Democrats are most passionate about conserving their gains than anything beyond them.  I didn’t know that Richard Hofstadter was saying that back in 1955.  He also describes contemporary liberalism as essentially punitive, which is quite true, when you think about it.  His most interesting observation is that the celebrated tolerance of the left is really nothing more than nihilism.

Fruth has been updating his Article V BBA campaign brochure, using the latest numbers from CBO and elsewhere.  He says it just keeps getting scarier and scarier.  I guess we’ll never be able to convince all the low information voters of our peril.  But you’d think serious people of all political persuasions would understand that this is an existential threat.  One which Hillary and the D’s should be forced to confront.  Unless she’s indicted she’s the Democrat nominee.  Shouldn’t someone in the media ask her what she plans to do about this problem?   But I’m being naive.  Since when does a press secretary pose hard questions to its candidate?

My review of An American Son is up at American Thinker today.  Here’s the link.  Internet commenters, and not just at AT, are an odd lot.  Some people just can’t disagree, they have to insult and ridicule.

Lew Uhler’s 40th birthday party for the National Tax Limitation Committee was quite a success, and I’m very glad I got to attend.  There were some quite promising opportunities which presented themselves, and I’m optimistic that Fruth is going to be able to get not only Wyoming but Idaho.  That should get us to 32, where the Republican nominee  — whomever it is   — will carry us across the finish line.  Even the most dimwitted of the candidates will realize the political appeal not only of the BBA, but, more importantly, of Article V.  So I’m feeling good.

Lew and I have the same Congressman, Tom McClintock, who just recently left the House Freedom Caucus.   Tom is as smart and conservative as anybody in Congress, and he couldn’t see their political end strategy.  He spoke briefly at Lew’s event, and his words were music to my ears:  “It’s starting to feel like 1979.”  Actually, though, I think he’s underselling our position.

I think it’s starting to feel like 1919.

I just submitted a book review of Rubio’s An American Son  to American Thinker.  I’ll print and link to it if they use it.

I read it on Kindle on the flight back to D.C.  I also read part of Shattered Consensus by James Piereson.  This guy’s been reading my mind.  He gets it.  We’re on the cusp of an historic political realignment, the likes of which we’ve only seen twice in our history, occasioned first by the Civil War, second  by the Great Depression.  The first realignment made Republicans the dominant political party for a lifetime, the second did the same for the Democrats.  I’ll finish the book on the way home, and will write a review for AT.  It’s an important book.

The question for our time is if we have the ability to avoid another national catastrophe.  The Civil War and the Great Depression could have been avoided by political leaders with the requisite talent.  The Democrats of the mid 19th century, and the Republicans of the early 20th, didn’t have the skills that were needed.  National calamity was the result.  We’ll all find out soon enough if our current crop of politicians has what it takes.  Hint:  it involves Article V.

I took Uber from Reagan to my hotel, my first try at it.  Lord, what a wonderful service.   My black driver asked me if I was coming from the Congo.  I asked him if I looked like I came from the Congo, and he laughed, and said that’s where he’s from.   We had a good chat.  He brought up global warming and I was telling him all about it when the ride ended.  I went out for a beer and ran into a couple Macedonians who were working their way around the world.  I’m starting to feel pretty cosmopolitan.

Lots of construction in D.C.  Not a good sign for the rest of the country.

House R’s are in closed caucus tonight, so we probably won’t see too many Representatives this evening.  Lew thought Paul Ryan might stop by, but he’s trying to decide if he wants to be Speaker, so that’s not happening.  I’m glad I’m here, regardless.  I have a little reproduction of Houdon’s bust of Washington that I want to present to Lew tonight.  The plaque reads “To Lew  Uhler.  The Founder of our Movement.  From the Reagan Project”.  I gave one to Biddulph in San Diego, and hope there’s an appropriate moment tonight.  It’s funny.  Here I am a 70 year old man, and I’m paying homage to an elder statesman.

But then Lew Uhler’s one of a kind.

 

Dave Guldenschuh advises that my previous post on Kapenga and Wisconsin was factually incorrect.  Contrary to what I said, Kapenga does not want to pass an open resolution.  My apologies to him and to anyone I may have misled.  I should have double checked with Dave G. before I put it out.

State Senator Chris Kapenga is our man in Wisconsin, and has told us he’ll take care of getting our Resolution passed.  Last year he got through the House, but was a vote short in the Senate.  Turnover in the Senate led us to believe that we now had a majority there, and all was well.  We’ve been waiting for the uncommunicative Kapenga to push it through.

He’s also one of the principals in the Assembly of State Legislatures, and has determined that bipartisanship is critical to its existence and effectiveness.  Thus four of the nine members of the ASL board are Democrats.  They are involved, in my opinion, because of their desire to use Article V to overturn Citizens United, and their involvement with the group pushing it, Wolf-pac.  Kapenga wishes to be as accommodating as possible to these Democrats, and apparently intends to introduce, and pass, an “open” Article V resolution, which would be intended to aggregate both with our current 27 Resolutions and Wolf-pac’s three or four.

The Heartland Institute’s Kyle Maichle spent a few days in Madison with Dave Guldenschuh and gave the Task Force a detailed report today.

On a related note, we learn that Kapenga is opposed, for some reason, to ratification  by Convention, and is therefore assuming that any proposal that came out of an Amendment Convention would need ratification by a Democratically controlled chamber of a state legislature.  As a result, he thinks any proposal should get a 2/3 vote at the Convention.  His reasoning is that since we’ll need bipartisanship to ratify, we may as well require bipartisanship to propose.  This is Kapenga’s proposed Convention Rule, which he hopes the ASL will approve at its Nov. 11th meeting in Salt Lake.

The Task Force is unanimously and vociferously opposed to this proposed Rule.  If it is adopted it would kill us in some of our target states.  We hear again and again the fear that somehow the Democrats would wind up in control of the Amendment Convention.  Our response is simple:  if it’s majority rule, the D’s have no power.  31 states are Republican controlled.  26 is a majority.  Let the majority rule.  Fruth, Biddulph and the rest of us are going to do all we can to get legislators to the Salt Lake ASL meeting to vote down this proposal.

The Task Force is in favor of ratification by Convention, but it’s Congress’s call.  If they want it ratified quickly they’ll choose Convention.  If they want to be cautious, they’ll choose legislative ratification.

Which can be accomplished.  It is my belief that a lot of the Democratic opposition to an Article V BBA is political, not substantive.  Let’s face it, the BBA is a Republican issue, and a winning one.  D’s just want it to go away, because it hurts them politically.  But if an Amendment Convention is held, and a BBA proposal comes to a Democratically controlled chamber for ratification, the political calculation changes.  They almost certainly have to put it up for a vote.  And at that point, if you’re a Democrat from Minnesota, or Washington, or Kentucky, serving in the state legislature, with your constituent’s eyes on you, what’s in your best political interest?

Which leads me to Delaware, where we’re worried about rescission.The Senate is 12 D’s, 9 R’s, so we’d need to get two Democrat State Senators to vote no on rescission.  These guys are up for reelection a year from now.  This will be an issue.  Do they really want to make this vote?  For what?  For who?  What do they get out of it?

Which brings us to the Wisconsin Center for Media and Democracy, another Soros front group, like the one that killed us in Montana.  These people aren’t that bright.  They pulled some stuff on us in Montana that blew up in their face, and gave us the opening we needed.  But then they got to the Governor, and that was the end of that.

These people are on us.  They may even read this blog.  Hi.

We’ll be looking for help in Delaware from my cousin, Sen. Brian Pettyjohn.  There are a lot of Pettyjohns in Delaware.  We were originally from Virginia.  My branch moved to Delaware, then Ohio, and points west.  The first American Pettyjohn, James,  was born in Northampton County on the Eastern Shore of Virginia in 1633.  On July 4th, 2033, I will be 87 years old.  If I’m still kicking, my sons have promised me that they’ll get me back there for a 400th birthday party.  There are probably 5-10, 000 named descendants of James Pettyjohn.  They’re all my cousins.

I hope to see some of them there.