The following was written by Convention of States Hawaii volunteer Mark White and originally published in the Honolulu Civil Beat.
America’s Constitution preserves our right to express our opinions, but not our own set of facts. Mary McDonald’s April 26 letter, “Beware A Federal Constitutional Convention,”states several falsehoods as fact.
The Convention of States Project is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of 3.3 million supporters across all 50 states. The Koch brothers are not donors. There is no “dark money.” Instead, over 80,000 contributors, most giving under $5,000 annually, provide the support for this organization driven by We the People.
Nor is the convention associated with the Balanced Budget Amendment or Wolf-PAC groups. Those have separate resolutions that cannot combine with Convention of States.
Worse is the claim our Constitution will be rewritten. No convention authorized under Article V can change our founding document. It can only propose amendments, which afterward must be separately ratified by no less than 38 states.
There is more rewriting of our Constitution by modern nonresponsive congresses, extremist chief executives, and out-of-control supreme courts than from any Article V “convention for proposing amendments.”
What’s best for our country is to return power from Washington, D.C., back to its origins in the states for local decision-making and greater individual freedoms. That was our founders’ intent and its the intent of Convention of States.
