The following was written by COS Regional Captain James Peters. This was originally published in The Daily News-Record in response to an anti-COS themed Letter to the Editor.
Those who oppose the Convention of States Project always love to call it a Constitutional Convention. Or even better, they shorten it to a Con-Con.
They want you to think that allowing our citizens to work through our state legislatures to fix some of the broken things in our federal government is an evil, dishonest Con.
It was a Virginian, Col. George Mason who looked at the original Constitution and suggested the second part to Article V, “. . . on the Application of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments . . .”
Mason did it because he feared the federal government would become too powerful and would never amend any part of our Constitution to limit its own power.
His proposal was accepted and added without any discussion or any dissenting votes.
Since the Constitution was ratified in 1787 there have been 27 Amendments added (not 26, Mr. Jost) to that original document.
Each one of those amendments was proposed by at least two-thirds of both the House and the Senate.
They were then sent to the states for a minimum of three-fourths of the states to ratify.
Since 1787 Congress could propose any amendments they wanted, but it is the state legislatures who must ratify any proposed amendments.
We have trusted our state legislatures to ratify all 27 amendments.
So why must those proposed amendments come from inside the Beltway and not from the very states that will eventually decide whether to ratify them?
Today it takes at least 38 of our 50 states to ratify any proposed amendment.
In his Open Forum article, Timothy Jost suggested — “It could repeal the First Amendment and create a theocracy.”
If someone came up with a crazy idea like that, does he really believe they could get 76 State Houses and State Senates to vote for it?
Remember, 49 of the 50 states have bicameral legislatures and must have agreement by both chambers before any legislation is passed.
Convention of States is proposing amendments in three specific areas.
First, fiscal responsibility.
49 of our 50 states have a balanced budget amendment in their constitutions, but our federal government does not.
An amendment in that area would require the federal government, by law, to make and then live within a budget.
Second, term limits.
Think of the people you know in our federal government, on both sides of the aisle, who should have left Washington years ago.
They are supposed to be there to serve their constituents, not to become millionaires enriching themselves on our tax dollars and generous “donations” from large corporations.
Third, power and jurisdiction.
Especially during COVID-19, we saw the federal government control our health care systems, education, travel, sports, dining, churches, entertainment, and many other areas of our daily lives.
Our federal government took advantage of the saying, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”
Right now, the federal government is preventing states like Texas from protecting its own citizens (and the rest of us) from invaders from more than 150 different countries.
Over the last ten years, Convention of States has worked with state legislatures to submit nearly identical proposals for a convention in just those three specific areas.
It takes 34 states to each agree to hold a convention and we now have 19 states whose legislators have voted to do just that.
Virginia is not yet one of the 34 states we need.
Sadly, some have believed the lie of a runaway convention.
If someone wants to propose crazy ideas as Mr. Jost has suggested, they will have to work very hard to get at least 34 state legislatures to agree to their insane proposals, just to hold a convention.
Our Founding Fathers purposely made it very difficult to change our Constitution and that is the reason it takes so many people in so many states to even get the process going.
The 5.4 million grassroots supporters of Convention of States are helping to educate our citizens in all 50 states on how to use Article V of our Constitution to save our Constitution.
Our great nation is now nearly 33.8 trillion dollars in debt, and some of that debt is owed to countries like Communist China.
Our Southern borders are wide open to anyone who wants to come in, and we have federal legislators who are dying in office of old age.
If you believe everything in our country is just fine, then don’t support Convention of States, but if you agree that we need to do something in these three areas, then join us by signing the the petition.
