Article V News
By Vickie Deppe – March 2022
Dozens of Article V applications and related measures are active in state legislatures across the country. These include:
Balanced Budget
BBA applications are active in Georgia and South Carolina. In North Carolina the Compact for a Balanced Budget Amendment has been referred to committee.
Convention of States Project
Convention of States Action reports that Massachusetts’ Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs reported favorably on the CoSP application on February 1.
The Iowa Senate has two active CoSP applications, one with and one without term limits.
Multiple renditions of the CoSP application are circulating in South Carolina: one in the House, one in the Senate, and a second in the Senate containing delegate selection and oversight provisions. CoSP applications have also been filed in the New Jersey Assembly and the New Jersey Senate, as well as the Maryland House and Senate. In the New York Senate, Joint and Concurrent Resolutions have been filed. CoSP is also active in Hawaii, Kansas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In Wyoming and South Dakota the CoSP application failed owing to bipartisan opposition.
Term Limits
The Arizona Senate Government Committee passed a term limits application. Though the vote fell along party lines, the measure has both Republican and Democrat sponsors. A similar measure failed in committee in the House.
Tennessee has two term limits applications pending. A version that originated in the House has been passed and sent to the Senate. Another has been introduced in the Senate. Both await action in the Judiciary Committee.
Other term limits applications are pending in the Georgia House, the Georgia Senate, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, the Missouri House, the Missouri Senate (SCR 25 and SCR 30), Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, the South Carolina House, the South Carolina Senate, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
A Wolf-PAC application has been filed in Massachusetts and has been reported favorably by the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs.
Beyond Nullification: An application for a convention has been introduced in West Virginia to provide the states with a means to act collectively to overturn federal law.
Applications for a convention to set the number of Supreme Court justices at 9 are active in Mississippi and Wisconsin.
1979 Convention
Resolutions demanding that Congress call a fiscal controls convention were filed in Utah and South Carolina earlier this year. Noting that the 34-state threshold was met and sustained for decades beginning in 1979, they argue that Congress was derelict in its duty to call a convention 40 years ago and maintain that it’s not too late for them to fulfill their constitutionally-mandated obligation. Utah’s HJR 9 was tabled and South Carolina’s S1006 is pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Delegate Selection and Oversight:
The Iowa House has introduced two delegate selection and oversight bills: HF 2173 and HF 2327. DSOs have also been introduced in Kansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and West Virginia.
Rescission efforts are underway in North Carolina and Oklahoma. In South Dakota, a measure that passed in the House failed in the Senate.
