Don’t Ignore This Warning by Mike Rothfield of Foundation of Applied Conservative Leadership

H. L. Mencken once said, “For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” 

Mencken’s words aptly apply to a “Convention of States,” also known as an “Article V Convention,” “Constitutional Convention,” — or as I have known it for 30 years, the “Con Con” — the cure-all hoax to “fix the federal government” that takes root among some grassroots activists every time a Democrat occupies the White House. 

It offers the quick fix and masks a danger worse than any Socialist proposal to the Biden or Pelosi agenda. 

Promoters of this terrible idea would have you believe the answer to all that ails us is clear — all we have to do is pass new amendments at a Constitutional Convention to limit what the federal government can do. 

They’ll tell you this solution is simple, and contrary to the belief of some “fearful” nay-sayers, nothing bad will happen. 

First of all, the Constitution already does this… which politicians and courts too often ignore. 

How will new “rules” change that?  They won’t.  If you cannot force change now, (and you CAN… that is what FACL teaches you, but it takes time, effort, and organization) you will not force change then. 

Worse, the Con-Con itself will be manned by career politicians (from Red and Blue states) and Leftists (at least from Blue states).  Once assembled, they will do as THEY please, not as you or I please.  No “rule” will prevent it.  History shows again and again that conventions write and rewrite their own rules. 

The arguments are so absurd for a Con-Con, I struggle to try to be fair to the sincere but misguided folks who promote the agenda. 

If you’re receiving this email, chances are you’ve been actively fighting FOR liberty legislation and AGAINST threats to liberty at the state level for a while now. 

So it should be obvious to you that state legislators are at least as big a threat to your liberty as their federal cohorts… if not more so. 

One only need examine what the states have done in response to COVID-19 to get a sense of how little they can be trusted with your liberty. 

After all, it was Governors — Democrat AND Republican — who forced businesses to close, robbed children of over one year of their lives, and authorized jailing mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers for trying to open their businesses so they could pay rent and put food on the table. 

And most state legislatures — Democrat AND Republican — refused to do a single thing about it. 

Despite that, the “Convention of States Project” would have you believe these very same turncoat state politicians can, and should, be trusted to open up the U.S. Constitution for alterations at a convention. 

To be sure, there are some limited-government champions in states across the country. 

But they are not in the majority.  If they were, you wouldn’t have to work so hard to kill bad bills and pass good ones! 

What’s more, these few champions of liberty will likely not even be invited to a convention. 

In fact, some states have already made clear their intention to send the very same State House and Senate leadership that you struggle against every legislative session. 

Can a convention really be limited? 

In recent years, Con-Con promoters have spent millions of dollars from wealthy donors to enlist a team of so-called “experts” to reassure conservatives that a convention will be safe because it will be “limited,” and delegates will be “forced to follow rules” their own state legislators will set. 

They go on to insist the rules of the convention itself will bind them down further and will likely follow Mason’s Manual, which is currently used in most states. 

This includes Nebraska, where Con-Con operatives recently succeeded in bringing their resolution back from the dead by “suspending the rules” and vote trading. 

You see, the resolution was nearly dead in committee, so an attempt was made to usurp the normal process.  When that attempt failed to garner the required votes, it was fully dead under the rules. 

So the bill sponsor, Republican Senator Steve Halloran, traded some votes and agreed to support some Big Government legislation if opponents of the convention would agree to vote to break the rules and bring his Convention of States resolution back to life. 

Yes, the bill sponsor voted to GROW the government so he could maybe one day LIMIT the government — and he broke the rules to do it! 

And they were able to do that under Mason’s Manual, the legislative procedure most argue would be used at a convention. 

In Kansas, a state which also uses Mason’s Manual, Con-Con politicos have been frustrated by the State Constitution, which requires a voter-ratified two-thirds majority to pass this type of legislation, a threshold they have never been able to achieve. 

So Convention of States insiders conspired with the Kansas Senate President, Ty Masterson (also a Republican) — in direct violation of the State Constitution and the will of the people of Kansas — to “deem” the resolution passed if a simple majority was achieved (it wasn’t).  This is the same trick-play Nancy Pelosi uses in Washington. 

If Convention of States Project political operators and their own hand-picked bill sponsors can’t be trusted to follow the rules, just how can you expect anyone to follow so-called “rules” convened to rewrite the Constitution? 

It defies all logic! 

What they did in just those two states is a perfect example of the vote trading and rule breaking that will happen if a convention is called and your fundamental rights are on the line. 

And it will not be conservatives trading and cheating then… it will be the hard-Left, bankrolled by George Soros and others.  In fact, they also fund groups calling for a Con-Con (for Left-wing purposes).

(Mark Meckler founder of Convention of States with Joanne Blades of the Soros funded MoveOn.Org)

Let’s take a look at the Red Fox Four Score on this issue. 

*** More money/people:  -1

Both sides will raise some money on this issue, but it can (and does) divide liberty activists into opposing camps, leaving support for vital projects that can actually advance liberty or thwart Big Government in the lurch. 

The fact is, Convention of States is overwhelmingly funded by a handful of wealthy donors, not grassroots donations.  Consistent conservative leaders who oppose the Con-Con risk alienating some of our own donors who, in honest frustration and fear, have been taken in by the Con-Con hype and happy-talk. 

*** Help friends:  -3

This is where it gets painful.  Good legislators who support great causes get wrapped up in these fights, become a danger to liberty, and then can’t be trusted as a bill champion on vital legislation. 

And good legislators who do not support the Con-Con are branded as enemies by convention supporters.  This further waters-down what was already a very small “champion” universe. 

*** Hurt enemies:  -5

No liberal has ever lost his or her seat over this issue — this is almost exclusively a fight within the conservative movement.  If the Left ever sees the very real opportunity to seize power at a convention, this might change. 

And tax-and-spend Republicans love this issue because they can cover up the truth of their liberal voting records by focusing on their support of “limiting” government, and then they don’t have to worry as much about primary election problems. 

*** Policy Ratio:  -10/0

If it passes: -10.  This is speculative, but Congress already tries to openly ignore the Bill of Rights.  This gives Big Government lackeys the opening to repeal what they don’t like, edit what suits them, and pass things like packing the courts, ending the electoral college, and installing a Universal Basic Income. 

There is no upside to a convention.  The dangers of a runaway convention are very real, especially since the media and billionaire Leftists like George Soros WILL be involved. 

(Does anyone really believe hard-core Leftists will simply walk away dejected and consider themselves down for the count if a Con-Con is called?) 

If it fails, then nothing happens.  There is NO upside to this battle for conservatives, except to stop it in order to protect our liberties from frustrated “friends.” 

*** SCORE:  -19 to -9 — one of the worst scores I have ever seen for a serious proposal.

Whenever Democrats take control of the federal government, going all the way back to President Jimmy Carter, their cries for a convention reach a fever-pitch. 

They’ll tell you they don’t support either side in D.C., but then celebrate when Big (federal) Government RINOs like Senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio proclaim their support! 

There is no doubt that D.C. is broken. 

Federal government power has far exceeded its constitutional authority. 

But it can’t be fixed by sending a bunch of modern-day politicians to a convention so they can modify (or do away with) our founding document. 

The states have allowed the federal government to become the behemoth it is today. 

They have done so by accepting Big Government federal “mandates” just so they can get their hands on more federal taxpayer dollars. 

States need to get their own houses in order and start fulfilling their own constitutional duties. 

They can shrink the federal government — right now — by refusing to accept and spend federal taxpayer dollars on unconstitutional Big Government programs. 

To sum up, there is no way to predict what constitutional amendments the delegates to a convention might adopt. 

The only Constitutional Convention in U.S. history — in 1787 — went far beyond its mandate.  Charged with amending the Articles of Confederation to promote trade among the states, the convention instead wrote an entirely new governing document.  A convention held today could set its own agenda too. 

Now, if America’s leaders looked like Washington, Madison or Henry, maybe, maybe it might be OK (though even Patrick Henry opposed the final product, even AFTER the Bill of Rights was added). 

But as the late Supreme Court Justice Warren E. Burger said, “[T]here is no way to effectively limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention.  The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda.  Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey.  After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda.” 

It is past time for this harebrained scheme to die and for all limited-government advocates to band together and clean up their own local and state governments. 

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