There is an effort underway to revive the “Article V Convention” effort which we managed to defeat last year. I am sharing with you some important information about this. Please read this carefully.
The Nightmare Amendments from COSP’s “simulated convention” show why
North Carolina should oppose SJR 36 (COSP) and all applications for an Article V convention
By Joanna Martin, J.D.
Our federal Constitution delegates only a handful of powers to the federal government.
But everyone ignores our Constitution – even State Legislators have no idea what it says.
The mess around us is the result of ignoring our Constitution.
The Convention of States Project (COSP) says we must amend the Constitution in order to “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government”, and we can get amendments which do that at an Article V convention (A5C). The COSP application in North Carolina is SJR 36.
But our Constitution already limits the power and jurisdiction of the federal government to a mere handful! Furthermore, it is impossible to rein in the federal government by amendments because amendments can’t take away powers which weren’t delegated in the first place!
Accordingly, COSP can’t produce even one amendment which would fix the federal government’s violations of our Constitution.
During September 2016, with great fanfare and hoopla, COSP staged a 3-day “simulated convention” at Williamsburg, Virginia, apparently to “prove” that at a convention called by Congress under Article V of our Constitution, the Delegates would not “runaway” and propose a new Constitution, but would do nothing more than propose wise amendments which would “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government”.
The Delegates to the simulated convention produced six amendments: One for term limits, and five which would dramatically increase the power of the federal government.
The texts of the six amendments approved at the simulated convention, and how Delegates from each State voted, are HERE
(no link provided)
HERE
(no link provided)
is the list of Delegates from each State. The Delegates from North Carolina were Representatives Bert Jones and Dennis Riddell, and Senator Norman Sanderson. They voted for all six of the amendments!
- One of the amendments would make Congress’s existing - and unconstitutional - practice of spending wildly on whatever they want, constitutional for as long as Congress continues to approve increases in the debt.
- Another would delegate to the federal government dictatorial new powers over individual Americans such as I witnessed in Communist East Europe and the Soviet Union: it delegates to the federal government total power over the “movement” or “transportation” of “persons” across state lines! That amendment also would delegate to the federal government additional soviet style dictatorial powers over Americans.
- Under our existing Constitution, only Congress has the power to make law [Article I, §1], but one of the amendments would transform into "law" every word, order, dictate, ruling, opinion issued by anyone in the Executive Branch of the federal government.
- Another would authorize Congress to impose a national sales tax & a national value added tax.
- Another would legalize the regulatory administrative law state and rulemaking by federal executive agencies. All those rules and rulemaking are now unconstitutional as in violation of Article I, §1, and as outside the scope of the enumerated powers.
So the amendments don’t “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government” – they would increase the powers of the federal government by delegating new dictatorial powers over Americans and by legalizing powers the federal government has already usurped.
One assumes that Delegates Bert Jones, Dennis Riddell, and Norman Sanderson didn’t understand the ramifications of the amendments they voted for and were misled by others at the convention who held “insidious views”.
The convention lobby is funded by powerful moneyed interests [primarily the Koch Brothers of Texas and George Soros]. They want a new Constitution for this Country. The way to get a new Constitution is at an Article V convention. That is what this push for a convention is all about; and they are exploiting State legislators to get it, by telling them that at a convention, they can get amendments to “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government”.
Statecraft is serious business – it takes systematic study of original source documents to master. I respectfully suggest that the ignorance and gullibility of the American People - including State Legislators - is so great today that we have no business tinkering with our Constitution.
For more information, see: COS Project's "simulated convention" dog and pony show and what they did there.
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I know a lot of well-meaning people who are so distressed by the federal government’s abuse of power that they are ready to grasp at the straw of “an Article V Convention” as the way to fix it. I am absolutely convinced that it will not work as they expect. The States cannot dictate to such a convention what their actions must be. The people of the States would not get to vote on whether to accept the report. Article V does not allow for that. It gives the States the choice of either the Legislature voting to approve the changes proposed or to hold a convention in each State where chosen delegates would make the decisions, not the voters. The danger of having our Constitution totally rewritten to violate our God-given rights is simply too great for me to support this effort.
God bless,
Rep. Larry G. Pittman
