On Wednesday, August 5, at 7:00 pm, Convention of States President Mark Meckler was a guest at a town hall for Convention of States Delaware.
The town hall was opened by Regional Director Monica Sellers, who introduced Mark Meckler to the audience. Mark began by telling the story of his involvement with Convention of States. He said that he has been involved in politics for about 10 years. At first he thought the secret to making change was to elect better people to office. He got discouraged when those efforts made no change.
Michael Farris convinced him that the problem wasn’t the personnel. The structure that the Founders created had become broken over the years. The purpose of COS is to restore the balance that the Founders created.
Article V of the Constitution provides for two ways for the Constitution to be amended. The first is the method we’ve used with every other amendment: two-thirds of Congress proposes an amendment, and then it moves to the states for final ratification.
The problem is that Congress will never pass amendments to limit their own power, so the only solution is to use the other method: a Convention of States for proposing amendments.
He went on to say that there are two competing visions of America. The first vision is that America is at its root a terrible place and must be disintegrated. The other vision believes that America was founded on an ideal laid out in the Declaration of Independence. While we’ve never fully arrived, we’ve gotten closer to the ideal than any other country on earth.
He ended with a story about Captain Levi Preston, a farmer who fought in the Revolutionary War. Years later, he was asked to share his experience and explain why he fought. He said that he didn’t care about the Stamp Act or tea, and he never read the great revolutionary writers. The reason Preston went to war, he said, was because “we had always governed ourselves, and we always intended to. Those redcoats intended that we shouldn’t.”
speaks from her home in Bear.
After Mark finished speaking, we heard from Ginny Watkins, the new Grassroots Coordinator in Delaware. Ginny is a nurse at Christiana Hospital, a mother, and a grandmother. She described how she’d been watching in dismay as the government seemed to become more out of touch with the people, and she realized that she needed to get involved.
Ginny said that she observes three types people. First are the people who have given up hope. Second are the ones who go on social media and talk about all the problems in the country. But the final group are the ones who realize they need to get involved to make a difference, and those are the ones who will change things.
In Delaware there are 41 districts, and COS is looking for a District Captain for each one. Ginny encouraged everyone to find a role and take action.
Finally we heard from Kimberlyn Allen, a real estate agent and mother, who is a District Captain in Delaware. Kimberlyn said, “If people fought, bled, and died for our freedom, we should get involved.”
Kimberlyn described her activities as following up with petition signers, training volunteers, and posting in Stand Up Delaware on Facebook. Last Christmas she attended meetings with state representatives to try to build relationships with them.
In-person meetings have been limited due to COVID-19, but the state has still gained at least 10 new District Captains during the last few months. Ginny Watkins ended by saying that she hopes to begin meetings again in September.
“It’s been a huge honor to be involved,” she said, “so I can tell my family that I’ve left them the best America that I can.”
