This letter was published in my local newspaper in response to a different article published in the Opinion Section.
This is just more fake news coming out of professors of elite universities. I’m very surprised this professor doesn’t know the difference between a Constitutional Convention and an Article V Convention. Or perhaps he does and just wants to drop terms like Con-Con to confused people who don’t take the time to understand the difference between a Constitutional Convention and an Article V Convention. This acronym is often thrown out there, by intent, to confuse people.
The differences are very simple: delegates to a Constitutional Convention are given broad authority to draft a new document. Delegates to an Article V Convention are instructed to draft amendments to the Constitution and those amendments don’t go anywhere without ratification by three-fourths of the states.
Article V reads: “The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”
There are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution - both ending with the states ratifying the amendments. In the first case Congress debates and proposes an Amendment and only if 38 states vote in favor of the proposed amendment the Constitution will be amended. Out of thousands of attempts, 27 amendments have been ratified. The bar is very high.
The second way to amend the Constitution is if 34 states pass a specific Article V application, Congress is required to call a Convention. Then all 50 states send delegates to the convention to debate topics specific to the application. Each State can send as many delegates as they would like, but each state only has one vote. Upon debating the amendments, if 26 states agree to the amendments, the amendments are sent to the states for ratification. If 38 states vote in favor (another very high bar), the Constitution would be amended. Congress has no input in this process.
There is no reason to confuse a Constitutional Convention with an Article V Convention other than to intentionally confuse people. Leftists and a very small group of Conservative groups are not in favor of the Article V amendment process because it potentially could remove power from the Federal Government and return some of it to the States where the framers of the Constitution intended it to be.
This is why the Founding Fathers unanimously included Article V in our Constitution. They foresaw a time when the Federal government would grow so large that it would become tyrannical. They wisely added the Article V amending process as a way for the people, through their state legislatures, to rein in the Federal Government when it was no longer serving the people as intended.
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