Wesley A. Whittaker’s first political campaign activity was in 1964 at the age of 10.
He was sitting on his grandfather’s porch swing on the south side of Flint when a man walked by and asked if he could leave a flyer on the door. Being a curious young boy, Wes asked the man what the flyer was for and why he was handing them out.
For the next 45-minutes, Dale Kildee sat on the porch swing and answered question after question from the curious boy. He explained that he was running for the office of State Representative in the Michigan Legislature. He explained why he was running. He laid out his vision for the 81st district and the State of Michigan.
And then he asked the curious towhead if he would be willing to be part of his campaign. Ten minutes later, newly anointed campaign “grassroots communications manager,” Wesley Whittaker was standing in front of the Hamady Brother’s grocery store handing out flyers for Dale Kildee. That began a relationship that lasted until Dale’s passing in October of 2021.
At age 18, Wes worked as a volunteer for then-Republican Congressman Don Riegle. At the urging of Riegle’s office, he ran for Precinct Delegate and won. He and Ellen Carr became the first 18-year-old delegates to the Michigan Republican State Convention in 1972. In June of 1972, two weeks after graduation from high school, Wes got off the bus for basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. He returned to Michigan politics 22 years later as a member of the Genesee County Republican Executive Committee.
In October 2007, the looming 2008 financial crisis began emerging in the construction industry. Wes’ career as a design-build project manager in the power industry came to a screeching halt. A former employer and mentor urged him to pursue his dream of becoming a writer and Wes went to work for a venture capital firm based in Kalispell, Montana.
He met New York financier, Ziad Abdelnour, who hired Wes to write a book for him. That book, “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” (2012, Wiley) has been on the required reading list for upper-level Economics majors at several universities and colleges. It is listed in the top 500 Venture Capital books along with Wes' third book, “The Little Book of Venture Capital Investing” (2014, Wiley), which he co-authored with VC veteran Lou Gerken.
Late last year, Wes and his wife attended a town hall meeting at the Groveland Township Hall. The presenter gave an incredibly good presentation about the “Convention of States" project in Michigan; this project started in 2013 and has millions of supporters across America.
The presentation explained that, when the Founding Fathers in 1787 were doing a final edit of the document that would become our U.S. Constitution, Virginia planter George Mason asked a question regarding Article V. This was the shortest Article in the document and it dealt with how to amend the Constitution. It gave Congress the power to propose amendments, meaning it also relied on Congress to see a need for amendments in the first place!
Mason asked his fellow delegates what would happen if Congress started acting against the will of the American people. After a short discussion, Article V was revised to include a method to create checks and balances upon any adverse actions of the federal government. This method started with State Legislatures passing a Resolution to create an amending convention.
This amending convention would allow the states to propose amendments to the Constitution, No matter who proposed amendments (Congress or the states), three-quarters of the states would need to agree on (“ratify”) proposed amendments for them to become part of the Constitution.
Wes saw this “Convention of States" project as an opportunity to get involved in a non-partisan effort to put some checks on what he saw as an out-of-control and illegitimate expansion of federal government control over the lives of average Americans.
“The federal government today,” says Wes, “in no way represents the form and function of government that Dale Kildee taught me about when I was a kid. Washington DC has become a bureaucratic tyranny that has saddled Americans with unlawful regulations and tax laws that would make King George look like a benevolent magistrate. Article V offers us, the average person, a mechanism for regaining our rightful position as the true owners and managers of this federal republic.”
Wes said, “The Convention of States project offers every American an opportunity to get actively involved in restoring our Constitutional form of government. What is happening in Canada should be a wake-up call for everyone who cares about freedom and liberty. Even if all you can do is make phone calls, COS has a role for you to fill. For instance, as a Legislative Liaison, I am uniquely qualified to be an information resource to our state legislators. They are pulled in a variety of directions, and I can help them find their True North - the reason they got into politics in the first place. When they discover that Article V provides a means for putting them back into their original role as part of the checks-and-balances mechanism with respect to the federal government, they see the value of supporting our Resolution.”
He went on to say, “A lot of people are running around saying some crazy things about COS leading to a runaway convention and such. I have personally investigated these claims and found that the people putting forth these claims fall into one of two camps. Either they don’t really understand how the process was designed to work or they are so heavily vested in the status quo of our present system that they are desperate to stop anything that returns the power to the people and restores open, honest, and limited government.”
Those who want to help Wes get Michigan’s legislators to join the 17 other states that have passed the Resolution may contact him at wesley.whittaker@cosaction.com or go to the COS website for more information. Enjoy reading answers to frequently asked questions (or printer-friendly version) and watching a 3-minute video about the Convention of States project.
ABOUT CONVENTION OF STATES ACTION
Convention of States Action is a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization founded for the purpose of stopping the runaway power of the federal government. Our mission is to inspire a spiritual and political awakening in America and build an engaged army of self-governing grassroots activists that support a Convention of States. Learn more at https://conventionofstates.com/michigan-home.
