Below is Prof. Rob Natelson's full statement endorsing the particular efforts of the Convention of States Project.
Ever since publishing my basic research conclusions about the Constitution’s amendment procedure, I have wondered how we might employ that procedure to heal our country’s political wounds. Events have driven me to conclude that Citizens for Self-Governance's Convention of States project (COS) offers the most balanced and complete approach.
Like most other Americans, I realize that our federal government has become dysfunctional and occasionally abusive. I realize that our social and political fabric has become badly torn. Like many others, I want to help make things better.
In my view, doing so requires that we work together toward five specific goals:
The first goal is to save our country from the “debt threat.” Our federal government has run a deficit for almost every year in the past half-century. Acknowledged federal debt exceeds $170,000 for every household in America. That doesn’t count state or local government debt nor the much greater burden of federal contingent debt. Unless we reverse current trends the debt threat will impose more poverty and savage political warfare on our children and grandchildren.
Saving America from the debt threat requires changing the way the federal government spends and borrows money. Experience shows this can be done only by adopting one or more carefully-crafted constitutional amendments.
Our second goal to reverse the trend toward government by the privileged few. Our Founders believed that federal officials should come from, and return to, the people every few years. We should enact reasonable and generous term limits for Congress, for the Supreme Court, and perhaps for other key officials just as we adopted term limits for the president six decades ago.
Our third goal is to protect our fellow citizens from government persecution. Increasingly, we learn of federal offices being “weaponized” into instruments of attack. Regulatory agencies, the IRS, politicized courts, prosecutors, officials who marginalize citizens for their religious beliefs, and destructive immigration politics pursued for short-term political advantage, all have become a feature of daily life. This is not what America is supposed to be.
Fourth, we must stop federal judges and other officials from dictating decisions of the most local and personal kind. Federal mandates should not impinge on such deeply personal questions as birth and death, family and marriage, health and faith. Federal mandates are a prescription for ever more bitterness and strife, and regretfully, that prescription is daily being filled.
Finally, we need to return government to the people. One proposal I find appealing, although it might be too much for the next convention, is the “Bring ’Em Home Amendment.” Members of Congress would to meet in their respective state capitols for most of their session, with all sites linked together electronically. In other words, members of Congress would be at home, where the professional lobbyists would have a harder time getting at them and citizens would have more access to them.
Those are our five goals. I think the overwhelming majority of Americans would agree with most, if not all, of them.
The next question is, “What is the best way to achieve them?” It seems to me that our solutions should be
- Sufficient rather than partial;
- Lasting rather than temporary;
- Proven rather than speculative;
- Workable; and
- Constitutional and legal.
I am greatly encouraged by the fact several organizations have built on my research findings to offer responsible amendment proposals. In my view the COS model, in particular, strikes the right balance between limits and flexibility.
COS represents a solution that is sufficient rather than partial, permanent rather than temporary, proven rather than speculative, workable, and constitutional and legal.
It is constitutional and legal because it is the precise solution the Constitution itself prescribes for crises like ours.
It is potentially sufficient. No thoughtful observer thinks merely trying to “elect good people” or even adopting a single constitutional amendment will be sufficient to solve America’s problems. The Convention of States application offers, in my view, a balanced, responsible approach. It is broad enough to address our problems without going too far.
The COS approach also offers a cure that is as potentially lasting as any political cure can be. No one, except perhaps a few opportunists, wants us to remain in a constant state of anxiety, fearing that if just one election goes “wrong” malignant forces will assault us anew. We want protections that are more permanent than that. Our models are the patriots and heroes of the Founding Generation, of the Civil War, of the World Wars: citizens who stepped forward with lasting solutions so they could return to their daily lives.
The Convention of States approach is also proven. We know from experience that constitutional amendments really work. In fact, they are usually more respected than the original Constitution. The First Amendment, for example, has protected free speech and the press for more than two hundred years. Before we adopted the Twenty‑Second Amendment, Americans fiercely and recurrently argued about whether particular presidents, or presidents in general, should be elected for third or fourth terms. The Twenty-Second Amendment put those arguments to rest.
It is frightening to think what America would be like if we had heeded the misguided souls who claimed the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights were “unnecessary” or “wouldn’t work,” or defended the privilege of presidents to remain in office for life, or opposed amendments abolishing slavery and guaranteeing equal rights. Thank God our ancestors did not listen to them!
Finally, the convention of states approach is workable. We have over 300 years of successful experience with similar gatherings. Scores of inter-colonial and interstate conventions over the centuries have perfected the protocols and procedures. You don’t have to look that up in a history book. Just ask anyone who attended the simulated convention of states in Williamsburg in 2016 or the actual convention of states in Phoenix in 2017.
The Convention of States movement offers a way to save our children and grandchildren from the debt threat to restore the federal government to the people and to its mission of service and to repair our national fabric, and smooth the savage waves of public discord.
For any American who cares about his country, no other political cause deserves a higher priority.
About Professor Rob Natelson
Robert G. Natelson is by far America’s most-published active scholar on the U.S. Constitution's amendment process. He is the author of the legal treatise entitled State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters. He is also the author of research articles on the subject published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Tennessee Law Review, Florida Law Review, and many other scholarly and popular outlets. Numerous media outlets have quoted or published his commentary on the amendment procedure, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and The Hill.
Professor Natelson’s academic career spanned 25 years and three universities, during which he became widely recognized as an insightful and prolific constitutional researcher and writer. He now heads the Article V Information Center in Denver, a source of non-partisan information about amending the Constitution, and he serves as a senior fellow at two policy centers.
Professor Natelson has advised reform organizations across the political spectrum, but this is his first endorsement of any specific amendment campaign.
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