My name is Dan Dunne. I am third generation Idahoan and a retired Lieutenant Colonel from the Army Reserve. I consider myself a lifelong small-government conservative.
I’ve always been proud of both by state and my nation but have become increasingly concerned about the direction I see us headed. With each passing year, the federal government has grown. With that growth has come increasing intrusion into our lives and more undermining of our liberties.
To push back against government overreach I became part of the Tea Party leadership. While working in this capacity, I began hearing from several conservative friends that there was a national organization which was working to initiate a constitutional convention or "Con-Con."
As a devotee to our Constitution, I found this extremely concerning. A constitutional convention is a forum to rewrite our constitution. As my friends warned, this could ultimately lead to destruction of our Bill of Rights.
As Sun Tzu said, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” As a military man, I decided that it was time to research this organization that wanted to destroy our beloved Constitution.
At the invitation of a neighbor, I attended a Convention of States Action meeting. I wanted to confront this organization that was attempting to destroy the Constitution I had sworn to protect. I also wanted to understand their strategy and tactics so that I could more effectively counter them.
At the meeting I asked all of the hard questions. I took their reading materials home and studied them. I also studied Article V of the Constitution. Now, I am part of the COS Idaho leadership team.
I discovered that I and many other well-meaning conservatives had been fed anti-Article V propaganda by advocacy groups such as the John Birch Society and the Soros-funded Common Cause. In fact, COS was not working towards a Con-Con as claimed. It was working towards a Convention of States, a very different beast entirely.
Whereas a constitutional convention is a forum to rewrite the entire Constitution, a Convention of States is a forum to bypass Congress to propose amendments. A constitutional convention is extra-constitutional in its very nature, while a Convention of States is sanctioned by the second clause of Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
The Founding Fathers provided the second clause of Article V as an instrument for the states to rein in an overreaching government. They anticipated that Congress may become part of the problem, so this clause allows the states to propose amendments without any endorsement by Congress.
Once 34 states have passed resolutions to address the same topic areas, a Convention of States is called. At the convention, delegates will write proposed amendments addressing the topic areas. The delegates cannot exceed the boundaries of the state resolutions. If the states have called for fiscal responsibility, the delegates cannot discuss gun control.
The convention would then vote on proposed amendments. In the voting, each state gets one vote. Small states have equal power with large states at the convention.
Proposals which are approved by the convention are then sent to the individual states for ratification. Once ratified by ¾ of the states, a proposal becomes an amendment to the Constitution.
In my research, I’ve discovered that there are numerous safeguards to prevent a Convention of States from morphing into a Constitutional Convention.
We’ve been trying to rein in government overreach via electoral politics for years with only limited success. Perhaps it time to try a constitutional approach. If we can just get past the propaganda, all conservatives will get behind this movement. I’ve come to believe that constitutional amendments initiated by a Convention of States are the best way to make the federal government answerable to We the People again.
