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COS Overview - How it Works

Get Informed - Convention of States Overview

How a Convention of States Works



Step 1 - The People Lead

  • Citizens ask state legislators to sponsor and support the Convention of States (COS) resolution.

Step 2 - State Legislators Act

  • Thirty-four state legislatures must pass a resolution called an “application” calling for a Convention of States. The applications must request a Convention of the States for the same subject matter.
  • A state legislator sponsors the COS resolution and files it in his/her state legislature.

  • The COS Action resolution is discussed at a committee hearing. The committee will then designate the resolution as either favorable or unfavorable to the citizens of Maryland. A favorable designation from the committee allows the resolution to then be voted on by Senators and/or Delegates. A simple majority of both chambers of Maryland's legislature will add Maryland to the 15 states that have already passed the COS Action application.

  •  Once 34 (2/3rds) of the state legislatures pass the COS Action resolution, the applications are delivered to Congress.

  • Congress counts the applications and calls the convention, setting the date and time. Congress however, does not play a role in the convention itself.

Step 3 - A Convention is Called

  • When 34 states pass the COS Action resolution, the states designate  whom will represent them at the convention.

  • All 50 states (not only the 34 that called the convention of states) send as many delegates as they choose, but each state only gets one vote.

  • States are free to develop their own selection process for choosing their delegates, properly called “commissioners." Historically, the most common method used was an election by a joint session of both houses of the state legislature.

Step 4 - Amendments are Proposed

  • Delegates propose, debate, and vote on amendments limited to the language of the COS Action resolution. Proposed amendments outside of that agenda would be out of order.

  • Proposed amendments can only come out for potential ratification when approved (voted on) by a simple majority vote. (Again, each state gets one vote and all 50 states are represented.)

Step 5 - Amendments are Ratified

  • After amendments are proposed and passed by the convention, Congress chooses the method of ratification. 

  • Normally, Congress designates the state legislatures as the ratifying body, but it may choose to have the states call ratifying conventions. If so, an election by the people would be held in each state to choose delegates to the ratifying conventions.

  • Proposed amendments only become valid if ratified by 38 (3/4ths) states.

  • It only takes 13 states to stop an amendment from being ratified.


For a list of great articles, videos, and scholarly works, check out the next section of our Convention of States Overview >>> Resources


Maryland State Director: Michael Rilee
michael.rilee@cosaction.com


Convention of States Action - Maryland Site Links

Get Informed - Maryland Government
Get Informed - COS Overview
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Physicians for COS

The diagnosis is clear.

We have a growing cancer today known as the Obamacare. As a result physicians are no longer free to practice medicine.

No profession feels the full force of the federal government more than physicians. The medical profession is the most highly regulated profession in the United States. The practice of medicine is controlled, taxed, and regulated to the point of being destroyed by the heavy hand of the federal government.

Physicians are told how to bill, how much to charge, and how to treat patients. They are mandated to use expensive electronic medical records. The federally enacted HIPPA (Health Information Privacy and Portability Act) makes the communication between physicians and atients burdensome, inefficient,and expensive. Every physician is required by federal mandate to register with the government to obtain an NPI (national provider identifier.) We are required by federal law to obtain and pay for a license to prescribe medication through the DEA, which is separate from our state licensure.

This heavy hand of government not only oversees the largest federal health bureaucracy ever created, but by extension reaches into every state, every city, and every small town to regulate how every licensed physician practices the art of medicine and how citizens obtain care.

The treatment is also clear.

The prescription for a cure was written into our constitution by our founders. Article V of our constitution allows for the states to call for a convention of states to limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government through the proposal of constitutional amendments. Physicians should be the strongest supporters of this brilliantly-crafted states’ rights tool placed into our constitution by our founders.

I urge my fellow American physicians to join with me in supporting an Article V Convention of States to take back control of the practice of medicine. It’s the only way that we can return the practice of medicine back to the intimate relationship between a doctor and patient without interference by the heavy hand of a distant, national government.

Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D. Family Physician Newport Beach, CA
Convention of states action

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