It's Time to Evict the Constitutional Squatters By Rita Peters, Esq., National Legislative Strategist for the Convention of States Project

Attachment: 3984/Article15-TimeToEvictConstitutionalSquattersCOSA122022.pdf | 





When our government’s 
“interpretations” of the 
Constitution don’t seem to 
square with what we read in 
black and white, it is usually 
because they don’t square 
with the Constitution. 

 

IT’S TIME TO EVICT THE  

CONSTITUTIONAL SQUATTERS 

RITA DUNAWAY, ESQ., NATIONAL LEGISLATIVE STRATEGIST FOR CONVENTION OF STATES ACTION

Updated November 2022

    

There is only one way to deal with 
squatters.

As a law school student, I remember be-
ing outraged when I learned that if a 
landowner does not begin the legal evic-
tion process within a prescribed period 
of time, a brazen trespasser can actually 
acquire title to real estate.

It’s called “adverse possession,” and it’s 
happening today in a context that is less 
tangible but far more alarming. Today in 
Washington, D.C., we have a Congress, 
President, Supreme Court, and a slew of 
administrative agencies acting as consti-
tutional squatters.

They are brazen trespassers, having taken 
up residence in jurisdictions that belong 

to the states—openly claiming power to 
mandate state recognition of marriages 
that defy the states’ constitutions, to reg-
ulate businesses out of existence, to dictate 
farming and conservation practices, and 
to bully state and local education depart-
ments into accepting federal programs.

They have even injected themselves into 
our personal business, mandating that 
we buy certain health insurance policies, 
for instance.

The American people have grown so ac-
customed to seeing the feds occupy this 
territory that many no longer bother to 
consult their pocket Constitutions in an 
effort to identify any source of authority 
for these actions. The Supreme Court de-
cisions upholding them are so lengthy and 

contrived that most Americans have given 
up on understanding them, concluding 
that the Constitution must be too complex 
for ordinary people to comprehend.

While a simple reading of Articles I and 
II appears to indicate that neither Con-
gress nor the President has any legitimate 

power over education, health insurance, or 
the environment, we are “jargoned” and 
“precedented” into submission by dense, 
complex judicial pronouncements inter-
preting federal laws like the Affordable 
Care Act, which rival the works of Tolstoy 
in length and might as well have been 
written in his native tongue.

Regular, hard-working people raising fami-
lies probably have no clue how the Anti-In-
junction Act figures into their health insur-
ance situation, but they know the upshot is 
that they must buy the insurance the feds 
want them to have, or be punished. “Theirs 
not to reason why, theirs but to do and die…”

As a young lawyer fresh out of school, I 
often failed to question the judgments of 
more seasoned attorneys, always assuming 
they knew something I didn’t. I’m sure that 
was true enough, plenty of the time. But as 
time went on, I came to understand that of-
ten what seemed like a bad judgment call 
to me really was a bad judgment call. And 
it was my duty to point it out in the proper 
tone and forum.

Continued on back page





We will lose the 
protection of original 
constitutional 
boundaries if we 
fail to enforce them 
through Article V. 

Continued from front page

Here’s what I’m getting at: The average 
American isn’t so ignorant, nor the aver-
age judge, congressman, president, or bu-
reaucrat so brilliant, as we might think. 
The Constitution is for us, and it is not so 
complex that we should despair of under-
standing it.

When our government’s “interpretations” 
of the Constitution don’t seem to square 
with what we read in black and white, it 
is usually because they don’t square with 
the Constitution, and our President, 
Congress, courts, and countless busy bu-
reaucrats are really acting without proper 
constitutional authority.

The feds have rudely pitched their tent on 
the front lawn of our liberty, and it’s time 
we served them their eviction notice.

Just as landowners have the right and 
duty to invoke a legal process (eviction) 
to deal with squatters in property cases, 

the American people have the right and 
duty to invoke a particular constitu-
tional process to restore the balance of 
power among the national government, 
the states, and the people. It’s found in 
Article V of the Constitution, and it’s 
called a Convention of States for pro-
posing amendments.

But here’s the rub: Just as legal property 
owners lose their title if they fail to act, 
so we will lose the protection of original 
constitutional boundaries if we fail to en-
force them through Article V.

You don’t have to take my word for it. In 
a law review article published last year, 
Boston College Law School Assistant 
Professor Richard Albert explained:

“There are several other more flexible 
modes of constitutional change that do not 
rely on the mechanistic procedures of Ar-
ticle V in order to keep the constitutional 
regime current and reflective of the new 
social and political equilibria. They result 

in unwritten changes to the Constitution 
that may be as constraining as a formal 
amendment. That the United States Con-
stitution is both written and unwritten is 
therefore now uncontroversial.”

What Albert describes as the “un-
written” Constitution, achieved by 
“more flexible modes of constitutional 
change,” is just like the “unwritten” le-
gal title that squatters achieve when the 
rightful owner fails to defend his prop-
erty. Ultimately, it comes to have the 
same force and effect as a written deed 
to the family farm.

Every student of American history knows 
that legitimate government depends upon 
the consent of the governed. The legal 
title to government is vested in us, and 
with it the right and duty to defend our 
title against trespassers.

I urge you to join with Convention of 
States Action to evict the constitutional 
squatters. 

(540)441-7227 | 

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