Conservatives are pushing a never-before-tested convention
Article V to the US Constitution provides two ways to amend the nation's organizing document — the most difficult, but most dramatic way to alter American society's very foundation.
The first is for a two-thirds majority of Congress to propose an amendment, with three-fourths of states ratifying it. This is how all 27 of the current amendments to the Constitution were added, but it's a path that today is largely blocked because of intractable partisan divisions. No American under 30 has experienced the nation
amending the Constitution in his or her lifetime.
The second method — never before accomplished — involves two-thirds of US states to call a convention. The power to call for a convention belongs solely to state legislatures, who would pass and ratify amendments without a governor's signature, Congress' intervention, or any input from the president.
Some states have tried and tried — without result — to prompt a constitutional convention. They've together
issued hundreds of pro-convention resolutions or calls over 200 years to reroute constitutional amendment powers away from Washington. What's new now is the ever-evolving power coupling of a corporation-backed ideological juggernaut led by ALEC, a nonprofit organization with close ties to large tobacco and drug companies, and a determined Republican Party
increasingly dominating many of the nation's 50 statehouses.
If they were successful, a constitutional convention led by conservatives could trigger sweeping changes to the Constitution.
Their goals include gutting federal environmental standards, nixing nationwide education requirements, and creating an incredibly high threshold for Washington, DC, or a territory to earn statehood. Some would like to make it difficult, if not impossible, for someone — National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director
Anthony Fauci, for example — to work for decades within the federal government.
Former President Donald Trump, close to
announcing a campaign for a second term in office, would find much to love about the convention movement.
He's argued that Article II
gave him sweeping presidential powers akin to Richard Nixon's famous declaration that "when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." Trump also attempted to claim
that he could unilaterally end birthright citizenship (he could not) and repeatedly argued the White House didn't have to comply with congressional subpoenas.
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