Last week, Rick Santorum, Convention of States Senior Advisor and former U.S. senator, delivered an impactful testimony before the New Hampshire House State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee. His presentation was swiftly recognized as “his best . . . yet.”
Fiery, persuasive, and dynamic, the senator went scorched earth against common lies and misconceptions about Convention of States, charging legislators to shun the propaganda and embrace their responsibility as guardians against federal encroachment.
Here, we revisit the top four moments from that speech:
1. If your house is burning
Santorum pointed out that, as the federal debt spirals out of control and neither party appears willing to decelerate spending, “fiscal collapse” has become all but a “certainty.” In light of that, he chided the opposition for fretting about using the Constitution instead of taking action to evade crisis.
“If your house across the street is burning, and you have to cross the street to put the fire out, there’s a risk [in] crossing the street,” he said. “But if your house is burning, you cross the darn street.”
2. The efficacy of amendments
Even as they argue for not using the parts of the Constitution that they don’t like (e.g., Article V), our opponents contend that calling a convention is pointless as “Congress doesn’t follow the Constitution anyways.” Santorum strongly disagreed.
“Look at the amendments,” he encouraged. “We actually do follow those.”
“Do we not limit presidents to two terms? We follow that. Do women have the right to vote? Well, I would look around here, and I would say the answer is yes. We follow those amendments. Why do we follow them? We follow them because it is darn near impossible to pass an amendment to the Constitution. The hardest, highest bar is to add an amendment to the Constitution. . . . And so, in order to pass something, you need broad consensus. . . . My guess is you need 80, 85% of the public to agree to get 70% of the states to pass.”
3. A runaway Congress
Critics who cite fears about a “runaway convention” would probably agree that we already have a runaway Congress. If that’s the case, why aren’t they also up in arms about the fact that Congress — which is not limited to considering amendments that reduce government power — could propose any amendment it likes whenever it wants?
“A convention simply does one thing: it proposes amendments,” Santorum pointed out. “Tomorrow, the Congress could propose an amendment to eliminate the First Amendment. They can do it tomorrow. Do you see people running around saying, ‘Oh, I’m worried that Congress might propose an amendment that’s gonna take my rights away’? Nobody worries about that.”
Why not? Because 38 states must ratify Congress's proposal before it takes effect — the same threshold required of any amendment proposed at a convention.
4. Reclaim your power
Santorum, perhaps better than anyone else, has mastered the art of appealing to state legislators to, as Hamilton said, use Article V to “erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”
“The Founders, remember, had something in common,” he told the committee. “The Founders were state legislators. They didn’t want the power in the federal government.”
“People say, ‘Don’t touch this Constitution.’ It has been touched, ladies and gentlemen. It has been touched, and it has been fundamentally changed, and [those changes] shifted the power away from you to Washington.”
“The reason it’s important for you to have this call and to do this convention is to reassert your authority,” he concluded. “Everybody needs a boss, everybody needs a check. You are the check to the federal government, and for 250 years, you haven’t used it.”
Thank you, Sen. Santorum, for your powerful testimony and for serving as an invaluable advocate for Convention of States. With more voices like yours speaking out in state legislatures, we are confident that momentum will continue to rise!
Read more about the New Hampshire committee hearing here, and sign the Convention of States petition below to urge your state legislator to support the call!
