WATCH: The Constitution can be boiled down to four simple words

Utah Representative Ken Ivory, former president of the Simulated Article V Convention, said at this year’s Simulation that the United States Constitution can be boiled down to four simple words: “If government, which government?”

As Ivory explained, the Framers of our Republic enumerated minimal powers to the federal government, and according to the 10th Amendment, “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

“We have a sovereign people that did not delegate all power to government,” Ivory said from the Simulation event stage. “In fact, they delegated very few [powers] to government… ‘If government’—Is that power delegated to any government at all? It’s a critical question that we have to ask ourselves. The second question is: If it was among those very few powers that were delegated to government, which one? Was it delegated to a government far away, less accountable, less transparent? Or was it kept to a government close to home… where the people’s voice really matters?”

Of course, Ken Ivory and the Convention of States believe power was intended to be kept as close to home as possible. Watch Rep. Ivory’s full speech below to learn why, now more than ever, we need an Article V convention and how Article V is the constitutional mechanism that can restore the proper balance of power to our Republic.