No matter how awful
you think our government and political system have become, odds
are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible
failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed
the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more
powerful than it should be. Let me acknowledge that even though
I have been pegged as "Democracy's Mr. Fix It," until
recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a
key part of our Constitution.
Our Founders were acutely
aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to,
when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal
government. They built in a critically important form of direct
democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused
to implement. Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies
two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: "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..."
Conventions to consider
constitutional amendments should be seen as peaceful revolutions
- a remedy specified in our Constitution for addressing a national
government and political system that no longer serves public interests.
Congress has been so corrupted for so long that it has blatantly
ignored the constitutional provision for conventions. It wants
exclusive power over amending our Constitution in violation of
the Constitution itself.
The key point is that
our Founders gave states this route to address excess federal
power. All of the twenty-seven amendments thus far incorporated
into the Constitution were proposed by Congress. Granted, Article
V has sparse language. But clearly Congress "shall"
call a convention to order when the only stated requirement is
met, namely that two-thirds of state legislatures request a convention.
There are NO other stated requirements. So, have state legislatures
requested a convention and has Congress fulfilled its constitutional,
legal responsibility and called for one?
Yes, a sufficient number
of state legislatures have requested a convention. With 50 states
presently in the Union, there must be applications made by lawmakers
in at least 34 states in order to trigger the constitutionally
specified convention option. In fact, there have been over five
hundred state applications requesting a convention and Congress
has never called for one. All the state applications are there
in the Congressional Record and Congress is ignoring them. These
are legally known as laches, things that are ignored on purpose.
As noted in Wikipedia:
"The framers of the Constitution wanted a means of sometimes
bypassing a potentially unwilling Congress in the amendment-proposing
process. They thought that there could be circumstances in which
Congress, for self-serving reasons, would ignore valid pleas to
amend the Constitution and so the framers established an alternate
means of proposing change in the Constitution." Just as an
example, consider that a convention might decide to alter or abandon
the Electoral College system for choosing a president.
What has Congress done?
Congress has never obeyed Article V and certified that a national
Constitutional convention must be held - remember, NOT by itself
to amend the Constitution, but solely at its discretion to propose
amendments - just as Congress has done in the past. Then, it would
be up to state legislatures or state conventions to actually pass
or not pass any proposed amendments. Congress has never even established
a procedure for tracking state requests for a convention. Congress'
power-grabbing behavior is by itself sufficient reason why Americans
should want a convention - one possible amendment would be to
amplify the language on conventions to make Congress more responsible.
This point is especially
important. As noted in Wikipedia, Congress has never responded
to many requests from states by calling a convention, supposedly
because those applications requested amendments on different subjects.
However, Article V does not explicitly require that state requests
must specify what amendment(s) they are interested in pursuing.
Congressional inaction has contributed to the impression that
states must petition for the same amendment(s). However, federal
courts have never ruled on this "precedent," nor should
they. We do not need any judicial decision, because Article V
does not require that states specify anything other than their
desire for a convention. Logically, to require states to signal
in advance what they were interested in doing would create the
potential for congressional refusal to call a convention. Thus,
the Founders knew what they were doing when they did not require
such notification.
As if the illegal inactions
by Congress is not enough to make your patriotic blood boil, the
Supreme Court rejected hearing a case that claimed it was illegal
for Congress to avoid calling a convention. In August 2006 Bill
Walker filed a petition of close to 1,000 pages; he noted that
49 states had requested a convention. He correctly emphasized
that "On its face, that fact alone compels Congress to call
a convention, which it has not, and compels the judicial system,
under its oath to support the Constitution, to enforce that document's
provision and declare such inaction by Congress, unconstitutional."
On October 30, 2006
the Supreme Court denied certiorari to this question in Walker
v. Members of Congress (06-244). By refusing to hear the case
it allowed the direct text of the United States Constitution to
be vetoed with impunity by Congress. What is so disturbing is
that the Supreme Court did not think it worthy or that it had
a Constitutional duty to address the power of Congress by itself
to veto an explicit clause and provision in our Constitution.
Thus two branches of the federal government violated their sacred,
sworn oath to obey the Constitution. Simply put, the refusal of
Congress to issue the call for a convention even when a sufficient
number of applying states exists is unconstitutional, and the
refusal of the Supreme Court to rule that Congress has acted unconstitutionally
was itself unconstitutional.
Imagine this: Congress
upholds its oath and issues a call for a Constitutional convention.
The states would hold special elections for delegates; the delegates
would convene and make their own rules for reaching decisions.
Once all the delegates had proposed their ideas and agreed on
what amendments should be ratified by the states, the convention
would end. The proposed amendments would then be sent out to the
states by Congress; the ratification process would begin. Once
any single amendment garnered the approval of 38 states - a high
hurdle - it would be amended to the Constitution. A host of electoral
reforms could be enacted to rejuvenate our American democracy.
If you truly believe
in our constitutional republic and representative democracy with
safeguards, then you must demand that every presidential candidate
take a clear, unequivocal position on this Article V constitutional
convention requirement. It is time for the Executive Branch to
stand up for constitutional integrity. Every single one of us
should demand from whoever becomes our new president in 2008 a
commitment to pressure Congress for a convention. He or she should
do that soon after taking office - after swearing to defend and
uphold our Constitution. Should we accept anything less?
How could candidates
for the presidency say that a clear constitutional clause is not
valid? Nor must they be allowed to do what Congress has done -
simply ignore the whole Article V convention issue. Take a stand!
Inaction means our Constitution will suffer three strikes and
have even less credibility with the many U.S. citizens and people
worldwide who already see American democracy riddled with hypocrisy.
And where the hell
is our mainstream news media? Is not obeying our Constitution
worthy of their attention?
~~~~~~~~
The subject of Constitutional
conventions and many other forms of direct democracy are examined
in the author's new book Delusional Democracy; check it out at www.delusionaldemocracy.com.
