public:cb_mirror:myth_busting_congress_will_control_the_convention_txt_blogposts_16161
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Myth Busting: Congress will Control the Convention
| Myth Congress will control the convention process. Congress will select the delegates and set the rules for the convention including how votes will be cast. They can even set the scope for the convention. Congress is authorized by the Necessary and Proper clause (Article I, Sec 8) to set the parameters around the convention. Fact Congress has no authority to control the convention beyond setting the time, place and purpose for the convention (Sec 3.9.2). Congress is not authorized to by the Necessary and Proper clause to control any other aspect of the convention. How do we know? We know from common sense. We know from the ratification debates. We know from case law. And we even have Congress itself rejecting, on multiple occassions, the notion that it can control this process Just using common sense, we know that the founders didn't authorize Congress to control the convention. Remember why the convention was put into Article V in the first place : To give the people a way of amending their Constitution should Congress fail to act. George Mason, during the Constitutional Convention, even observed that… > …no amendments of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive… unless the states had the authority to propose and ratify amendments without the need of Congress. source: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_915.asp And these people who wrote Article V also wrote Article I. So you would have to assume a fair amount of stupidity on the part of the founders to think that they would grant to Congress in Article I the power to interfere in a process designed to circumvent them in Article V. From the ratification debates… We know from the ratification debates in Pennsylvania that the states control the process from beginning to end, not Congress > “That the proposed Federal Constitution cannot be very dangerous while the legislature[s] of the different states possess the power of calling a convention, appointing the delegates and instructing them in the articles they wish altered or abolished.” source: https://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/History/History-idx?type=turn&id=History.DHRCv2&entity=History.DHRCv2.p0720 From case law… In a case involving the ERA in the 70's and 80's, a US District Court had this to say about Congress's authority in the amendment process… > First, it must be recognized that Congress' power to participate in the amendment process stems solely from article V… Congress, outside of the authority granted by article V, has no power to act with regard to an amendment, i.e., it does not retain any of its traditional authority vested in it by article I source: https:%%//%%www.leagle.com/decision/19811636529fsupp110711473 Congress doesn't even think it has this authority Over the course of our nation's history, Congress has proposed over 40 bills that would exert some kind of control over the convention process. All of these bills failed. So not even Congress believes it has the authority to interfere in the convention process. > Anyone who thinks that failed bills creates a legislative precedent needs to go back to law school > - Michael Farris, Chief Counsel Alliance Defending Freedom source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzMN7WTJC3Q&t=1088s **< Back to every other argument** |
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| Login Required to view? | No |
| Created: | 2022-07-06 07:22 GMT |
| Updated: | 2024-07-16 08:36 GMT |
| Published: | 2023-07-07 05:00 GMT |
| Converted: | 2025-11-11 11:59 GMT |
| Change Author: | Brent Dunklau |
| Credit Author: | |
public/cb_mirror/myth_busting_congress_will_control_the_convention_txt_blogposts_16161.txt · Last modified: 2025/11/11 11:59 by 127.0.0.1