Time for an Article V Convention? – Updated

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) talked about an Article V convention on the House floor. An Article V convention may be the only way to undo the damage the current Congress and administration are inflicting on this republic.

Mike Church talked about it on his radio show.

ObamaCare is now the “Law of the land” so we can move on to the next phase of stopping it: amending the Constitution. There are 2 methods at our disposal the first is to wait for Congress to craft the amendment repealing ObamaCare the second is for 2/3 of the State Legislatures to call for a convention to propose such amendments. On 9 April, 2010 we will convene a meeting to explore this option “A meeting to discuss the causes and remedies to our federal crisis.”

You will hear that Article V is dangerous in the hands of the states. Please consider what Article V has resulted in in the hands of Congress. And lest anyone be lobbied to believe that “The Founding Fathers did not intend for the States and the people to use this power, i present the history of the Article as recorded in James Madison’s notes of the Federal Convention.

Read the whole thing. The founders did intend for the states to use this method when the federal government runs amok. Article V states:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

The idea seems to be gaining some steam.

Red State:

I LOVE this last option.  The power is solely with the people and the states.  This is the people’s and the states’ strongest weapon and will likely terrify Democrats as their folly in hoisting the freedom and liberty robbing legislation upon the American people becomes apparent to them.  I think it was a reporter from the Weekly Standard or National Review who said this health care victory would be Obama’s Borodino.  The Battle of Borodino was when Napoleon overextended his hand by suffering tremendous losses in this victory and then had to retreat his forces through the brutal Russian winter.  I heard Glenn Beck this morning expressing skepticism at what good would it do for the GOP to win the House back in November.  This is exactly the reason why.  Pelosi would be under tremendous pressure if 2/3 of the state legislatures submitted their applications to convene an Article V Convention.  If she didn’t yield, she would be violating her oath to uphold the Constitution and would have a tremendous blowback from the American people.  If Pelosi doesn’t yield, then guess what?  That’s right.  If a new GOP Speaker (Hello, Mr. Boehner) was sworn in, then it completely changes.  If the GOP won back the House in November, John Boehner as Speaker would call the convention if Pelosi didn’t.  I am not sure if the Senate would have a say in this.  I’ll have to do some more research but they would be well advised not to stand in the way of the will of the people.  On top of that, they would be violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution as mandated by our founding fathers.

The state legislatures could submit their amendments at the Article V Convention and would have to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures, not federal legislatures.  The power is completely in the states’ control, not U.S government control.  This is why Congress would likely want to repeal the bill.  They wouldn’t want to lose their power and would spare them the embarrassment.  This would make a GOP House and Senate’s job that much easier to repeal Obamacare.  They would simply tell Obama that if he vetoed a repeal bill, they would call for the Article V convention. At last count, 38 states were considering or have taken some action against Obamacare because it will create an unsustainable financial burden on the states.

This is another good reason to get involved in local politics. It’s highly unlikely New York would ever join in, but states like New York won’t be needed if the 38 states considering action against ObamaCare joined together the damage could be undone.

The founders were brilliant, and they had the foresight to give us a remedy for the exact situation we find ourselves in today. This is the hope and change we’ve been waiting for. The ultimate check on the federal government.

Update: Here is why an Article V convention is probably the only way this thing will ever get repealed. We can’t have Republicans promising to tinker around the edges of a disastrous policy. It won’t work.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.