A Candid Discussion With our Colorado Delegate, Kevin Lundberg

The Convention of States Foundation Article V Simulated Convention took place August 2-4, 2023 in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia and COS Co-Founder Mark Meckler has declared it a great success.

Here in Colorado, COS Action State Director Laura Neimeister organized a Q&A between our Simulation Delegate Kevin Lundberg and our active Colorado volunteers. This too, was a great success. Laura invited Colorado COS leadership and District Captains to send her questions and we held an online meeting with Senator Lundberg where he answered those questions and then answered more questions towards the end of the meeting, which lasted more than an hour.

To get some background, Kevin Lundberg was first elected to the Colorado State Legislature as the House Representative in District 49 in 2003. He became State Senator in District 15 in 2009. He was born in Denver. He worked with his father in custom harvesting for twenty years before owning and managing his own business in video production. He is the Executive Director of the Republican Study Committee of Colorado and sends out free weekly email reports at his website.

Senator Lundberg attended the 2016 Article V Convention of States Simulation. In this 2023 Simulation, he again was the Chairman of the Fiscal Restraints Committee. The Simulation had three committees that represented Convention of States’ three objectives; there was the Federal Term Limits & Judicial Jurisdiction Committee, the Fiscal Restraints Committee and the Federal Legislative & Executive Jurisdiction Committee.

He believes his job as chairman was to manage his committee, not to propose or argue on the proposals within committee. He had hours, not weeks and months like “the real thing” would allow. He believed that job #1 was to get a balanced budget proposal to convention for a vote and that’s what he did. Lundberg wanted to give everybody in his committee the opportunity to participate in the process and so he allowed the recommendation of forty two proposals through a straight seven hours of debate and presentation.

Six members brought forward their own balanced budget proposals and sticking to his chairman principle, he “threw them in a room to debate it out to a consensus”. They held a “free-wheelin’” discussion for a couple of hours before the committee presented at the Convention. The Fiscal Restraints Proposal passed and was one of only six proposals to get through the Simulated Convention. It was the only proposal to pass through the Fiscal Restraints Committee. It did get amended and rewritten before the final vote got it through.

Senator Lundberg’s committee also attempted to debate cryptocurrency and the gold standard. “If this was the real Convention I’d pull it off the table because we didn’t have enough technical detail.” There was not enough specialized information that would allow for a thoughtful and technically sound amendment. “We can’t guess at these things.” 

Lundberg was stressing caution throughout our meeting. “The real thing will be more diverse and more difficult. 95% of delegates attending the Simulation are from the COS world and support our objectives”. The real thing will be more diverse in ideology and no proposals will be drawn up and passed within two days. “Common ground will be a battle.”

In the Simulation, time limits were frustrating. Everybody took it all seriously and gave procedure and process the respect Article V requires. Many delegates had been to the first Simulation so people were more familiar and prepared for the Constitutional process. This is exactly what the Simulation is for and it did its job: educating all on how this is going to get done according to the United States Constitution.

Another “rough edge” for delegates is that everyone must operate under the same operating procedures, which is more difficult than it sounds. The procedure actually makes the processes easier overall because it creates order and functionality that is necessary for any governing to take place.  When the process is agreed upon and respected, “it doesn’t bind but in fact frees them up to get results.”

The fact that we have had hundreds of years to draw upon for procedure is for our benefit.  Senator Lundberg gave us the realization that in the 18th Century, procedure for our Founding Fathers wasn’t yet well defined. The first edition of Robert’s Rule of Order, the primary and most used guidance for parliamentary procedure in the United States, wasn't published until 1876. Before then, there was a lot of ruckus and disorder in assemblies and government meetings.

All procedure was born from life experience and the necessity of getting things done. “That is something we must do ourselves.” The Article V Simulation is that necessary life experience we need. There’s no final story without some rough drafts. There’s no perfect orchestra performance without the strenuous hours of practice.

Kevin Lundberg believes the very act of holding a Convention of States would be a huge step forward. "My idea of what a Convention can do is less rather than more. The mechanism itself sends a message to the federal government that they must answer to the states.”

We will have committed an act of The People that will probably scare the hell out our federal government. Isn’t it that “hell” that we want to scare out of government? The overreach, the overspending and the over-“serving” of government officials that has overshadowed our God-given liberties?

Want to be a part of history? Sign the Convention of States Petition that will be delivered to your State Senator and State Representative stating that you support our Resolution. Afterwards, sign up to volunteer because then you have skin in the game. It becomes your Resolution and then you will understand the definition of grassroots.