U.S. House finally adopts rule to count Article V Convention applicationsFebruary 3, 2015
3:33 PM MST
It only took 226 years for Congress to begin to take seriously its duty under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Two weeks ago a new rule for the U.S. House was put into effect providing for a means to count incoming state applications for an Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments. An astounding fact being that Congress has never officially tallied these applications before. So, the inquisitive might wonder, why now?
More than a tweet is needed to answer this question as the Article V Convention topic can be difficult to comprehend and sometimes inscrutable when compared with the bumper-sticker mentality driving today's mainstream punditry. But what’s so important about this latest development is that logic can only conclude that if Congress has never officially counted state applications for an Article V Convention until now, this means that for 226 years a critical chunk of the constitution has been effectively embargoed from the American people. It would be as if we never had a State of the Union address because Congress refused to keep a calendar.
“No, the president doesn’t need to address Congress because we don’t know what day it is,” would be the explanation.
Now this might sound silly but it’s not an entirely off-base analogy. To wit, Congress must call a convention once 2/3rds of the states apply, and there have been over 700 applications from 49 states far exceeding the current 2/3rds threshold needed of 34 states. We know this is the number because an organization named Friends of the Article V Convention (FOAVC), of which I am a co-founder, did a forensic study of the congressional record to unearth these documents. You can see FOAVC's repository of Article V applications here.
For a quick breakdown, Article V of the constitution provides two means to amend—Congress and the convention. 75% of the states must concur before an amendment proposal is ratified. We’ve amended the U.S. Constitution 27 times via the Federal legislature, but in order for the convention to come alive, states need to send applications to Congress.
When 2/3rds of the states apply, the constitution is unequivocal: Congress “shall call” an Article V Convention—a duty universally recognized to be non-discretionary. But how would Congress ever know the threshold has been met if they’ve never even counted the applications? It's not too far of stretch to presume the inaction has been purposeful.
More than two centuries ago one of the first Article V applications for such a convention arrived at Congress and it is instructive as to why there’s never been a count.
In 1789, James Madison announced from the house floor: “The most respectful and constitutional mode of performing our duty will be, to let it [the Article V Convention application] be entered on the minutes, and remain upon the files of the House until similar applications come to hand from two-thirds of the States.”
Since then, more than 700 applications from 49 states have been submitted, and yet Congress never tallied them. And since there was no formal method established to count, Congress has conveniently ignored the convention provision thereby preserving an unconstitutional monopoly over the power to amend.
The result has been disastrous. The Federal Government has continued to ramp-up its powers and authority without this unique form of oversight (well, maybe "under-sight" is more accurate) and the American people have been denied a fundamental check-and-balance that was purposefully designed into our form of government. Much of the corruption, largesse, and unaccountable attitudes we see in Washington today could be quite possibly due to the absence of the bottom-up, corrective powers of the Article V Convention.
But in the last few years through movements on the right and left more Americans have been made aware of this “time capsule gift from our Founders” and its express purpose to contend with an overreaching Federal Government.
This is where the inscrutable and complex nature of the Article V issue has worked in favor of Congress. Congress definitely does not want a convention because they would rather retain their monopoly power to amend. But all this might be changing since Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio offered the rule change last month to finally count the applications. Will Congress act when they publish this list of applications? Maybe.
I’ve been covering the growing “Fiver” movement since 2004 and in the last couple years more has transpired toward the convening of our nation’s first Article V Convention than in previous decades. Repeal of Citizens United to restore free and fair elections, a balanced budget amendment, or term limits are ideas that have broad, popular support, but unlikely to receive serious attention from Congress because these amendments contain and reduce congressional power. Today more than a hundred state legislators are on the case within the ranks of the Assembly of State Legislatures which I’ve recently written about here, here, and here.
All this burgeoning activity toward realizing our Founder’s vision by convening America’s first Article V Convention has most likely goaded Congress into action. In our information driven society it was only a matter of time before congressional negligence on Article V would start to besmirch electoral results—in a self-serving world certainly a motivational stimulant for recalcitrant legislators.
So Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio offered the rule change that will go down in history as the moment when Congress officially started to take it’s oath of office seriously with regard to Article V leading to the opening of a new front for redress and reform. Dan Marks of ArticleV.org first formally asked Congress to count and this following Bill Walker's efforts to hold Congress accountable through his lawsuit, "Walker v. Members of Congress." Other pivotal leaders in the Fiver movement include Judge Thomas Brennan, Lawrence Lessig, Mark Meckler, Michael Farris, John De Herrera, Nick Dranias, and many others.
http://www.examiner.com/article/u-s-house-finally-adopts-rule-to-count-article-v-convention-applications
