The following excerpt was written by John Tomasic and published on the Colorado Statesman.
Colorado state legislators Lori Saine and Vicki Marble plan to introduce a resolution this session directed to Congress and calling for a states convention to amend the U.S. Constitution in order to reduce the power of the federal government.
“They usually just put state resolutions through the paper shredder, you know?” said Marble on Thursday. “But they can’t do that with this resolution. They have to at least keep it in a file.”
That’s because the resolution is tied to Article V of the U.S. Constitution, she said, which allows two-thirds of the states to band together and propose amendments to the Constitution. It’s not an easy feat to pull off for many reasons — one of them being that the states have to be in agreement about what they plan to propose.
Marble, a senator from Fort Collins, was speaking at a noontime event organized on the west steps of the Capitol to boost grassroots support and lay out the plan.
The Convention of States project has been in the works for years but has recently gained more interest.
One of the state leaders, Aaron Dukette, said the project has notched 12,457 petition-signers and boasts 40 legislative district captains in Colorado.
The motivating idea is that the federal government has overstepped its constitutional mandate, that it “has its hands in almost every area of our lives,” as the group’s literature puts it, and that as a result, citizens are being drained of their democratic power and future generations will be doomed to “inherit a bankrupt nation run by an unaccountable bureaucracy.” The idea is to put more power into the hands of state lawmakers who are more accessible and accountable to citizens.
Speakers at the event decried Republican and Democratic leadership in Washington. They pointed out how disillusioned citizens have been no matter who is in charge.
“All the promises are just dust in the wind,” said Randy Corporon, an attorney and occasional conservative radio host in Colorado. “It’s the system that’s the problem.”
“People tell you, ‘Oh, just get my guy elected and he’ll fix it,’” said Saine, a Republican representative from Firestone. “Well, they don’t fix it.”
She told the crowd that lawmakers were considering the state budget bill inside the building.
“We’re in there battling another tax increase,” she said. The crowd booed. “The convention of the states isn’t revolutionary; it’s restorationary. Let’s get back to the government as the founders conceived it. Let’s put the restraints on government because we can’t trust Washington to restrain itself!”
