March 3, 2020
by Janine Hansen, Eagle Forum, National Constitutional Issues Chairman
What Does the Convention of States Project, the Balanced Budget Amendment, Anti-Polygamy and the Right to Life Amendment have in Common? These have all been collected together by the American Constitution Foundation in their study on how to achieve an unlimited-general Constitutional Convention under Article V of the U.S. Constitution.
It is astonishing that in ACF’s “White Paper on an Article V General Convention of the States,” they combine Article V Applications from the states to Congress from the year 1789 up to some of the most recent Convention of States Project applications in 2017, in order to achieve their stated goal of a general- unlimited Constitutional Convention.
They state in their White Paper, “The American Constitution Foundation is focused on a strategy to trigger a Congressional call for an Article V convention of states for proposing amendments…This would be a plenary convention by nature (i.e., commissioned delegates have full constitutional authority to set the agenda and rules for considering and recommending amendments) and is commonly referred to as a general convention or a constitutional convention.”
In ACF’s own study, which is one of six studies they cite, they combine an incredible array of subjects, over 228 years of Article V applications from the states since 1789. ACF includes Convention of States Project, Apportionment, Federal Labor Regulation, State Taxing Power, Direct Election of Senators, Right to Life, Balanced Budget Amendment, Coercive Federal Funding, Anti-Polygamy and some General Convention calls. WOW!
As stated in ACF’s White Paper, “The strategy…promotes a general convention and disrupts the current paradigm that believes a convention can only be called based on an application for a ‘limited subject or set of subjects’ convention…”
ACF is very bold in admitting that they want a general-unlimited convention. These same advocates, under the auspices of their connections with Convention of States Project and the Balanced Budget Amendment, promised Legislators that their Article V’s were limited. That was Hogwash! Those of us opposing Article V Convention applications always said that an Article V Constitutional Convention could NOT be limited. Now the proponents of an Article V Convention are admitting that they want an unlimited convention.
Why are they admitting now that any Article V convention will be unlimited or general? “In his January 2020 The Article Convention Legislative Progress Report, Article V advocate, Attorney David F. Guldenschuh, states that, “The last half of the past decade saw the Article V movement peak, but the last two years have seen a plateauing of our efforts. We are now down to four major groups: the Center for State-led National Debt Solutions (CSNDS; the 501(c ) (3) arm of the BBA Task Force (Scott Walker-honorary chair), U.S. Term Limits, WolfPAC/Free & Fair Elections; and the Convention of State Project.”
Guldenschuh goes on to say “…there are now many movements — right, left and center — to rein in the excesses of Washington, and many of them rest their hopes in the Article V movement.” Heaven help us! They would throw our Constitution into an unlimited-general convention with all the anti-Second Amendment Bloombergers, Nancy Pelosi Pro-Aborts, Radical Socialists, and Bernie Sanders Communists and hope we would have a Constitution when they are finished!
The proponents of an Article V Convention have been forced to move to a strategy of an unlimited general convention because they have LOST! We have beaten them in state after state blocking passage of Article V applications. We have rescinded Article V’s applications most recently in Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, and Nevada. The “plateauing” of their efforts have lead to this incredible strategy called “Aggregation.” In their study AFC claims 37 states, including New York in the year 1789, to COSP resolutions in 2017 can be “aggregated” or added together to reach the magic number of 37, exceeding the requirement of 34 states to call an Article V Convention. They must have taken Common Core math!
The Aggregation Strategy of Article V Convention advocates is a treacherous way to bypass their own failure to achieve consensus in enough states for Congress to call an Article V Convention. Instead, they create a counterfeit consensus, through “aggregation,” in order to achieve a liberty destroying Article V Constitutional Convention…putting all we hold dear at RISK.
A New Strategy for the Article V Convention of States Movement: by Paul Gardiner, Ron Scott & Neal Schuerer, Feb. 13, 2020, https://huntforliberty.com/a-convention-strategy/