A Legal Treatise on the Law of Amendment Conventions—For Free!
A spate of new applications from state legislatures for a “convention for proposing amendments” make it more likely that we will have an amendments convention in the near future. In order to get ready for this historic event, lawyers, legislators, and others involved in the process need a reliable guide to the law governing amendment […]
How Do We Know an Article V Amendments Convention is a “Convention of the States?” Because Both the Founders and the Supreme Court Said So
Article V of the Constitution authorizes a “Convention for proposing Amendments.” However, it does did not specify how the convention is to be composed. People unfamiliar with constitutional history sometimes claim the makeup of an amendments convention is either a complete mystery or subject to the determination of Congress. Nonsense. For one thing, the Supreme […]
The Lamp of Experience: Constitutional Amendments Work
(This article originally appeared in the American Thinker.) Opponents of a Convention of States long argued that there was an unacceptable risk a convention might do too much. It now appears they were mistaken. So they increasingly argue that amendments cannot do enough. The “too much” contention was first promulgated in modern times by apologists […]
A Modern Quasi-Convention of States
Many opponents of an Article V convention seem to think that it would be a nearly unique event, for which the “only precedent” would be the 1787 constitutional convention. Some even go so far as to oppose non-Article V gatherings among the states. As regular readers know, the idea that a convention of states would […]
The Santa Fe Convention: A 20th Century Convention of States
For over 300 years, American states (and before Independence, American colonies) have cooperated with each other as equal sovereigns to address common problems. One device for doing so is the formal, diplomatic meeting of state delegations (called “committees”) consisting of delegates (called “commissioners”). Meetings of state commissioners may be bilateral—as when two states form a […]
The Framers’ Bloopers
The Constitution’s Framers were very great men, but they were not gods. They made mistakes. By “mistakes,” I’m not talking about matters of political judgment, such as how much to accommodate slavery. I mean drafting errors of the forehead-slapping kind. Consider first a matter of style: The Constitution in its final form was drafted by […]
A Summary of How States Push Back Against Washington
The Cato Institute has published a new paper by Professor John Dinan that summarizes all the credible ways in which the states can and do push back against Washington, D.C. The only omission to this excellent summary is the states’ amendment powers under the Constitution’s Article V. (Although the states have never forced Congress to […]
What About that Warren Burger Letter Against An Article V Convention?
Groups opposed to calling an Article V convention often cite an old letter written by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger opposing such a convention. It is strange that those groups should be quoting Berger, because they also purport to oppose the liberal activism—notably the abortion decision of Roe v. Wade—practiced by the Court when […]
Comparing an Article V Convention to a National Party Convention is Absurd
Some alarmists are comparing an Article V convention to the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. The argument is that an amendments convention can be manipulated or stampeded just as a national party convention can be. The comparison is absurd—so much so that it shows mostly a lack of knowledge of the Article V process. First, […]
Who Says History is Relevant to Article V? Well, the U.S. Supreme Court, For One!
In 1988, Oxford University Press published Russell Caplan’s book Constitutional Brinksmanship. It revealed some of the extensive history behind the Convention for Proposing Amendments in Article V of the Constitution. More recently, we have learned much more about that history. We now know that there were over 30 multi-colony and multi-state conventions before the Constitution […]
Madison and the Amendments Convention: A New Chapter in a Brand New Book
A new book, edited by Professor Neil H. Cogan, has just been issued in which well-known constitutional scholars from across the political spectrum explore issues of state interposition, nullification, and secession. I am among the contributors: I wrote the second chapter, which is entitled James Madison and the Constitution’s Convention for Proposing Amendments. The book […]
May state legislative applications limit an Article V convention? Subject, yes; specific language, probably not
Some constitutional scholars believe state applications for a convention for proposing amendments may limit the convention to voting “yes” or “no” on a specifically-worded amendment. A prescribed-wording application, they say, reduces the fear of a “runaway” convention and places the state legislatures in the equal position with Congress that Article V of the Constitution was […]
