The Phoenix convention of states, September 12, 2017
Article V News
Vickie Deppe – October, 2022
Members of the Article V Coalition visited dozens of offices on Capitol Hill last month to drum up support for and HB 8419 and HCR 101, which require the Archivist to log, count, and notify Congress regarding Article V applications and provides for Congress to call a convention based on the 34 or more balanced budget amendment convention applications in force during the period from 1979-2019. David Biddulph, co-founder of the Let Us Vote for a Fiscal Responsibility Amendment Campaign notes “the parties are no longer divided on the need to reduce inflation. Even Speaker Pelosi has gone on record saying that reducing the deficit will help reduce inflation.” Additional information is available at https://letusvoteforfra.org.
HCR 101 has also attracted more high-profile media coverage. The New York Times ran a somewhat lengthy hit piece in which a substantial amount of ink was given to former United States Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI). Feingold characterizes support for a convention as “crazy,” casting hyperbolic gloom-and-doom scenarios that ignore the Constitution’s stringent ratification requirements while erroneously contending that the process is a complete mystery. Having served in the Wisconsin legislature for a decade before his 18-year stint in the United States Senate, one would think he would be intimately familiar with the legislative rules, ad hoc committees, and interstate compacts that provide ample precedent for how the convention would operate. Feingold should also be cognizant of the fact that state legislators are no less competent than anyone roaming the halls of power in Washington, as most of them served in state government before arriving in Congress—just as he did.
It is well that Sen. Feingold has left Congress, as his support for popular sovereignty and federalism are limited to his personal opinions regarding the agenda being advanced by We the People through our state legislators. Claiming to revere the founding generation and its belief in bloodless revolution even as he heads an organization that purports to guard against the concentration of power, Feingold ironically calls for a “serious national conversation” about revoking the states’ constitutional authority to impose reforms on Washington and entertaining “new ways to move forward with constitutional change,” not because of anything the states have done, but because he’s afraid of what they might do. Perhaps we should give our state legislators a chance before we pass judgement on them
