May state legislative applications limit an Article V convention? Subject, yes; specific language, probably not
- September 12, 2013
The Article V Information Center has updated and expanded Rob Natelson’s report on the constitutionality of the “Compact for America” (CFA) plan to amend the Constitution. The original report found that the CFA plan suffered from serious constitutional defects, and that it was unlikely to survive judicial challenge. After it was issued, Rob received
READ MOREWhen interpreting a legal document, you often can get clues from looking at any predecessors to the document. For example, what did earlier drafts say? What did previous documents that served as models provide? Did the framers of the final version mirror earlier wording, or did they change it? If a phrase in an earlier
READ MOREIn 2014 the first legal treatise ever on the Constitution’s amendment process was published: Prof. Rob Natelson’s work, State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters. The work was commissioned by the Convention of States Project of Citizens for Self Governance. Over the past two years, the treatise has undergone updating and expansion.
READ MOREThis article first appeared in the Forth Worth Star Telegram. A silver lining to the withdrawal of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, from the presidential race is that we will be spared a battle over whether he met the Constitution’s requirement the president be a “natural born citizen.” The evidence is not all one way, but
READ MOREBecause of widespread interest in the Article V Information Center’s report on the legality of the “Compact for America” approach to amending the Constitution, we are reprinting it here. Distilled to its essence, the “Compact” approach is unconstitutional because it seeks to change, through state legislative action (statutes and interstate compacts), the amendment procedure specified in
READ MOREThe Wisconsin Historical Society publishes successive volumes of the Documentary History of the Constitution of the United States. As its name indicates, the Documentary History is a multi-volume set of books containing documents from the debates over the Constitution’s ratification. The Wisconsin Historical Society published fairly recently two volumes from the debates in Maryland. There
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