February 18, 2015
Jeff Hogan
Montrose, Colorado
deltanorthfork@gmail.com [request an electronic version of this article]
https://climber.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/constitutional-emergency/
See the shorter version in the Montrose Daily Press, February 8, Letter to the Editor
CONSTITUTIONAL EMERGENCY
State Legislators from every political persuasion are our last best hope for realigning the Federal Government to the limited Constitutional powers entrusted to its three branches and returning its usurped power to the States and individuals. Few realize that our Framers designed one of the seven Articles in anticipation of precisely the Constitutional Emergency we now face. That is Article V, Convention of States. The non-partisan State Legislators Article V Caucus provides updates on the progress of several Convention of States efforts underway. One hundred Assembly of State Legislators from 33 states produced the Jefferson Resolution calling for an Article V Convention during their Mount Vernon Assembly on December 7, 2013.
Most all of our society’s leaders, judges, historians, attorneys and Constitution teachers agree that since the days of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson the central government has dramatically strayed from its Constitutional restraints now that it is dominated by legal positivists administering “social justice”, who view the government is its own authority. Roosevelt and Wilson boasted of their lack of Constitutional obligations. Barack Obama disparages the Constitution, accusing it of only being “a charter of negative liberties”. Sadly, most people still don’t believe this has led to a crisis of statutory and natural law. Even many who agree we have a legal and inalienable rights disaster believe that a long preparation process is necessary before an Article V Convention could be successful. That process includes elections, education, an awakening of individual and state sovereignty and nullification of specific federal intrusions upon the States. Here’s a rebuttal to all the major criticisms of COS.
Michael Farris and Mark Meckler (www.conventionofstates.com COS) are leading an Article V movement that supports the strategies above as necessary, powerful and complementary, but that will never provide a solution on the magnitude required by today’s Constitutional crisis. Article V empowers State Legislatures equally with Congress to propose Amendments to the Constitution via a Convention of States. The unique character of COS is its mobilization network which is reaching out to State Legislators and its insistence that states define subjects, not specific amendments, in their applications for a COS to Congress. Here’s an extensive list of action and learning resources.
Three states so far, with another twenty-six in deliberations, have submitted applications to Congress for a COS based on three subject categories which are ONLY for the purpose of strengthening the Constitution’s original intent: 1) Reduced terms of office, 2) Reduced jurisdiction, 3) Reduced spending.
The 34 minimum required number of states to trigger a Convention of States has never been met, but there’s extensive state convention historical legal precedent. Hundreds of applications for an Article V Convention have also been submitted over the years.
On January 3, 2015 COS delivered an Article V Legislative Packet to all the legislators in every state. Twenty-two legislators in my state have pledged to support the Colorado COS resolutions by Lori Saine (House) and Kevin Lundberg (Senate). Our COS state organization is composed of 14 Steering and Advisor Committee members (including our State Legislative Liasion and State Director), 23 House District Captains, over 800 volunteers and 2300 signers of the petition below. 105,000 citizens from 97% of the 4,861 U.S. State House districts have taken the simple and powerful step of signing the petition at http://www.cosaction.com/ to compel their State Representatives to support an Article V Convention. I invite you to do the same. Your local COS District Captain will send you their thanks along with information of how to continue your involvement!
