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Open Letter: South Carolinians Deserve Duty over Politics

A response to four years of obstruction of procedure and order for the Convention of States resolution.

This letter was published in the The Post and Courier.

This is an open letter to the five members of the 122nd General Assembly of South Carolina House Judicial Subcommittee in response to the continued obstruction of procedure and order for Resolution H 3233 by one man, Full Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Greg Delleney, District 43 (Chester).

My name is Blake Adams. I’ve called South Carolina home for most of my life. I’ve lived in Charleston for the last 13 years. I am writing on behalf of over 20,000 petitioners in South Carolina and over 3.3 million petitioners nationwide who support our Article V Convention of States Resolution. I’m also including the recent January 2018 polling data that shows 65% of South Carolina voters support passing the Convention of States resolution to put fiscal restraints, federal restraint and term limits on Washington.

I am a husband and a father, working hard to provide a good life, saving for retirement. I’m no Constitutional expert, just a student of history, philosophy, economics, and governance. I happen to agree with most people, wherever they fall on the political spectrum, that Washington is broken. But our country has forgotten about “the manual”, our Constitution, which instructs us how to fix it. Article V of that manual provides a final check, by the States, on the National Government. If it were ever to run amok, centralizing power and advancing policies that polarize and devour our great country, the States have the ability to rein it in.

What you are seeing in Washington today would not be a surprise to the framers. They knew the National Government could eventually grow beyond the confines framed by the Constitution. You’ve read about it - Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists. Both sides made great cases. But they ALL knew the Articles of Confederation were not working, and that change was required. The question was “How do you restrain this necessary Federal Government?” How do you keep the creation from ruling the creator?

On September 15th, 1787, mere days before ratification, Col. George Mason brought forth a second mode to amend the Constitution. It was unanimously supported without debate. It was obvious then as it is today, when the Federal Government exceeds its Constitutional authority, the States need to be able to convene, just as Congress can and propose any necessary amendments. Any proposed amendments would still need to be ratified by the State Legislatures, exactly as amendments proposed by Congress do.

Let’s think about it. This second mode in Article V is the ultimate act of Federalism. It is the mechanism through which the creators of the Federal Government, the States, get the final say on WHO decides! It’s the final check the framers gave YOU, our State Legislators, to keep the Federal Government within its limits and restore self-governance. It wasn’t meant to be easy. Believe me, I know. I’ve been a volunteer for over three years. But when circumstances require action, as they do today, it’s imperative that “We the People” through YOU, our State Legislators, practice this lawful, peaceful, Constitutional recourse.

The average citizen knows D.C. is broken, but just hasn’t discovered that Article V is the solution as big as the problem. Civics doesn’t interest most of my peers. The general impression is that we, as citizens, have no voice. But I'll inform anyone who will listen, who will take the time to study Article V, of the wisdom of our framers in providing us this powerful tool. We just need the faith and courage to use it.

Do we or do we not believe in Federalism? Professionally, I have had a great vantage point of Main Street America, having consulted hundreds of small businesses since 2004. I’ve watched them struggle to make ends meet and some close up shop due to excessive Federal regulations. I've witnessed new entrepreneurship come to a halt in 2009. This recession, which greatly impacted Main Street, was a tremor compared to the collapse we are headed towards due to unbridled, profligate spending.

Over the last few decades, I’ve watched the Federal Government, under both Republican and Democrat leadership, spend us into potential oblivion. This didn’t happen overnight. Eighty years of judicial activist decisions have distorted the General Welfare and Commerce clauses to advance Federal power time and time again. Programs created in the 1930’s and 60’s, while well-intentioned, have generated over $140 trillion of unfunded liabilities, and have placed us one generation away from insolvency. As the national debt swells to over $20 trillion, D.C. has passed yet another massive spending bill.

The Federal Government will always expand and never contract. We may get a respite every now and then, but the trajectory will not stop. This is simply immoral. THIS is why I am a volunteer District Captain for the Convention of States project and why I am making this case before you. This generation is giving future generations and generations unborn a bill that will break their backs. The Federal Government will never fix itself. It’s up to you. The time to convene the States was yesterday.

One can study this evolution of the concentration of power in D.C., the lack of State representation in the U.S. Senate, the ever-expanding Federal jurisdiction, the Washington lobbyist influence. D.C. no longer follows the Founder’s principles. The Founders believed in limited government. D.C. believes in the growth of its power. The Founders believed in genuine checks and balances between branches. D.C. practices collusion between the branches. The legislative and judicial branches allow each other to legislate and manipulate the Constitution as they please. The President legislates and the resultant ‘administrative state’ is essentially unaccountable.

The proposed Constitutional amendments that would be considered by a Convention of the States under H 3233 are threefold: (1) Fiscal responsibility (taxing and spending), (2) limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and (3) limiting the terms of office for its officials, especially members of Congress. Together, these would restore the Federal Government to its proper role. The States would no longer be forced to comply with policies and laws clearly outside Congress’s purview, thereby restoring self-governance. Simply stated, all States’ needs are different; one shoe size does not fit them all. I'd much rather trust my State Legislators, who are much closer to their constituents, than the U.S. Congress, far away in D.C., with little understanding of or sympathy for individual States’ needs.

As long as the American people do not demand change, their Congressional lawmakers will continue down the present path. It requires virtue and wisdom to live under Constitutional order. It requires that YOU, our State Legislators, take action. The South Carolina Convention of States Project has confidence in the Delegate selection process, because we have confidence in you and your peers in the South Carolina General Assembly. We also have confidence that you, the members of this committee, will allow debate to progress to the full Judiciary Committee and ultimately the House floor.

To, specifically, Judiciary Subcommittee Chairman Peter McCoy, District 115 (Charleston): Our Resolution has had seven hearings over the past three years. In several of these hearings, we have been promised a vote, yet the clock was purposely allowed to expire. The recent February 20th hearing proved to be no different. Subcommittee members arrived late, or wandered in and out of the hearing, forcing a fifteen-minute delay to the hearing’s one hour of allotted time, preventing a quorum so the hearing could begin. As has happened before, H 3233 supporters, including myself, yielded our time to give the opposition equal time, in order to allow enough time for the vote. Yet again, we were betrayed.

Chairman McCoy, you are a co-sponsor of this bill and we thank you. You have the support of South Carolinians, and the bill has the support to pass both the House Full Judiciary Committee AND on the House Floor. It is time someone stands up to the obstruction of Rep. Delleney. One man should not be able to prevent a State from seeking to do its part in the restoration of Constitutional Republicanism. We have heard plenty from the opposition, hours of it, who share Rep. Delleney’s views, arguments that have been dismantled by a mountain of scholarship.

I humbly ask the members of this committee to understand that this issue transcends political parties. It truly is bipartisan. We need South Carolina to LEAD and become the thirteenth state to pass this Resolution. We were the first state in the country to file this Resolution, in 2013. Yet, we have watched twelve States pass this Resolution, with five more States currently on the brink of floor votes. It’s time for our legislators to embrace the power the Constitution gave them. This is a moment where politics must take second place behind morality and duty. Please schedule another hearing, support Resolution H 3233, and bring this to a vote so the debate can continue in full committee.

Respectfully,

Blake Adams – Charleston

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Created:	2018-03-04 21:25 GMT
Updated:	2019-01-04 10:43 GMT
Published:	2018-03-12 00:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 11:54 GMT
Change Author:	Blake Adams
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