The following was written by Iowa District Captain James Walker.
When people ask me why I'm involved with the Convention of States project I have to pause for a moment because there are so many reasons: the country’s massive rising debt, regulations on everything from the light bulbs you buy to the toilet in your house, incumbents re-elected year after year with no end in sight, representatives exempting themselves from the laws they pass, no checks or balances on the Supreme Court, federal judges legislating from the bench, et cetera. I could go on, but you get my point.
My involvement with Convention of States is more basic than that: I love my country, but I believe we are on a path to destruction. This is the only option I see to fix it.
The Constitution was written to limit the power of the federal government. Those in power no longer believe they have any limits. We're told that if we just elect good people, they will fix the issues. Good, honest people have been elected and would love to see the necessary course changes, but are powerless to make the hard decisions. They would be committing political suicide if they tried. Others are corrupted by the system and have no intention of making any changes that would limit their power.
This system of automatic, unlimited spending and unaccountable bureaucracies is not sustainable. The bill will eventually come due. If we don't restore the limits, our children and grandchildren will not enjoy the same freedoms as past generations.
It's a massive issue, but we have an equally massive solution. Our Founders foresaw the day when the federal government would amass so much power that they would become oppressive. They gave us the solution in Article 5: If two-thirds of the states, that's 34, pass identical resolutions, we can call a convention. Don't believe the misinformation. This is not a rewriting of the Constitution. The states would be able to shape Amendments that our representatives would likely never consider. It then takes three-fourths of the states, 38, to pass an Amendment and add it to our Constitution. It's an intentionally high bar, and it's not something we do lightly.
Since our Founding there have been 27 Amendments added to the Constitution, all of which originated in Congress. The 10th Amendment is one of my favorites: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The best way to keep control of your government is to keep it as close to the people as possible. It's time for the states to take back their rightful authority as our Founders intended.
I think Thomas Jefferson said it best, "That government is best which governs least, because its people discipline themselves."
