There are a number of volunteer activities that can contribute to our mission as a passed state to “Build an engaged army of self-governing grassroots activists”. This document will help you to know how to conduct one of those activities namely “Composing and sending a ‘Letter to the Editor’ opinion piece to keep the Convention of States Action missions in the forefront of peoples thoughts”. In this current age where printed media seems to be a dying art there are still many newspapers and other digital media outlets that people depend on for local information. A considered opinion or fact piece that is published in the editorial section of a local paper or an online news outlet has the legs to light a conversation amongst the readers of that publication. With this in mind be aware of what and who you are representing and compose your ‘letter’ to address the desired audience. Sometimes you may be writing to reinforce an idea or action that is being acted on in the State Legislature, or you may be writing to introduce the Convention of States Action Arizona to a group who is unaware of us, and our goals. This document provides you a set of tools to assist you in becoming an integral part in moving the Convention of States Arizona forward in these times of necessity. The tools and their use is: A partial list of printed newspapers in Arizona, to give you a starting point, an extensive set of ‘letter to the editor’ for you to use as guides or ‘cut and paste’ when appropriate, and directions to Convention of States web site for guidance and resources in composing subjects for publication.

Attachment: 1782/Letter_to_the_Editor.pdf

Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan Fellow Patriot, You have chosen to volunteer in a cause to restore our Federal government to what the framers  of our Constitution intended using Article V of that constitution, a protection provided by the  framers to check a government that has moved beyond its limited and enumerated powers.  You  can play a most important part in this effort as a volunteer to help us get the job done. There are a number of volunteer activities that can contribute to our mission as a passed state to  “Build an engaged army of self-governing grassroots activists”. This document will help you to know how to conduct one of those activities namely  “Composing and sending a ‘Letter to the Editor’ opinion piece to keep the Convention of  States Action missions in the forefront of peoples thoughts”. In this current age where printed media seems to be a dying art there are still many newspapers  and other digital media outlets that people depend on for local information. A considered opinion or fact piece that is published in the editorial section of a local paper or an online news outlet has the legs to light a conversation amongst the readers of that publication. With this in mind be  aware of what and who you are representing and compose your ‘letter’ to address the desired  audience. Sometimes you may be writing to reinforce an idea or action that is being acted on in  the State Legislature, or you may be writing to introduce the Convention of States Action  Arizona to a group who is unaware of us, and our goals.  This document provides you a set of tools to assist you in becoming an integral part in moving  the Convention of States Arizona forward in these times of necessity. The tools and their use is:  A partial list of printed newspapers in Arizona, to give you a starting point, an extensive set of  ‘letter to the editor’ for you to use as guides or ‘cut and paste’ when appropriate, and directions  to Convention of States web site for guidance and resources in composing subjects for  publication. List of newspapers in Arizona. This list, included in the appendix, is partial and is only a gateway into the many public venues  available to a person who wants to enlighten and engage fellow citizens. Do not let this be your  complete resource list, You should also consider and search for publications that are local and  present other points of view, for example consider Arizona New Times, this is a great place to  introduce a view of independent self-governance to an opposed audience and perhaps present a  view on current legislation that would recruit new followers to join us. There are also many  Planned communities with an active HOA, that publishes a periodical for information to the  members. This would be a great resource to initiate a “Meet and Greet” for interested members .  You are only limited by your imagination. Page 1 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan Letter to the Editor examples The appendix of this manual has several “boiler plate” examples of letters to the editor that you  are free to cut and paste from or use in their entirety. Be sure to proofread before using any of  these examples as they may contain references to territories or legislative actions that are not  relevant to our current situation. In all instances, be aware that the Convention of States Action  Arizona does not support candidates for office nor do we endorse or support political parties.  You can get information on current Legislative action to use as subject material from our  Legislative Liaison person or by looking online at  azleg.gov    . Convention of States website A complete list of resources,  and recommended guidelines are available from the  Convention of  States website .  (the volunteers will not necessarily know who fills these roles) This site has a  wealth of information to help you become better informed about our mission and goals. There is  also a Convention of States University that has courses to help you understand the methods and  requirements of good citizen participation in our work. Once you have written a letter to the publication you should follow up by letting your District  Captain (if you know who it is) know that you have acted on this by sending them a copy of your text and a submittal date along with the name of the publication you have written to. This will  help us coordinate any further efforts that should be implemented and we would all know when  to watch for and read your letter. Page 2 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan Partial list of publishers in Arizona Writing a Letter-to-the-Editor in Arizona In order to send a letter-to-the-editor to newspapers in Arizona, please go to Arizona Republic Casa Grande Dispatch Flagstaff Arizona Daily Sun Kingman Daily Miner Lake Havasu City Today's News-Herald Mohave Valley Daily News Prescott Daily Courier Sierra Vista Herald Tucson Arizona Daily Star Yuma Sun Page 3 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan Example #1  Dear Editor, The federal government has grown too large; they have flooded local governments  with regulations and mandates. They’ve left us and our posterity with a crippling federal debt.  With all this overregulation we’ve given up our choices– we’ve give up our liberty! Let’s stand  up and say, “We’ve had enough!” The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution states, “The  powers not delegated to the United States by Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are  reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Federal funding and most court  interpretations of the Tenth Amendment have served to keep state power in check. If thirty-four  (34) states call for a Convention of States, as outlined in Article V of the Constitution, the states  can propose amendments to the Constitution. Think of the possibilities which will never take  place today in Washington, DC. 1) State and federal powers could be more clearly enumerated.  2) Term limits could be set for Congress. 3) A balanced budget amendment could be proposed.  Any proposed amendment would require the approval of three-quarters of the states. The  Convention of States is the final safeguard left to us by our Founding Fathers who knew that one  day we may need to impose fiscal restraints or limit the powers of the federal government.  Use  it … or lose it! Will we continue to lose more liberty? Check out ConventionOfStates.com. Example #2  Dear Editor, It is time to rein in the federal government. We need fiscal restraints to deal with  the exploding national debt of more than $20 trillion. The federal government needs to balance  their budget like families across this nation. We also need to rebalance the power between states  and the federal government. Washington, DC is a bureaucratic maze. In addition to  Congressional legislation we have federal agencies publishing so many regulations that it’s like  having another branch of the government. All of this is imposed upon the states and WE the  people. Although we have some well-meaning representatives in Washington, they have to deal  with the federal leviathan, the partisan politics and a system where seniority shows favoritism.  Imposing term limits on the servants who come to Washington and never seem to leave may be  the only way to deal with this broken system. How do we do it? Fortunately for us the Founding  Fathers anticipated a day when citizens would need to address issues like this. Article V of the  US Constitution allows states to call for a Convention of States where amendments can be  proposed. It takes thirty-four states to call the convention and thirty-eight states to approve an  amendment to the Constitution.  Example #3 Today we have a federal government that continues to over step its bounds. We can’t vote our  way out of the mess Washington D.C. has made. We have a runaway bureaucracy, bloated  government, massive deficits and well over $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. When the  framers wrote the U.S. Constitution in 1787, they knew the people would need to be involved if  Page 4 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan this republic were to last. The framers knew it was natural for a government to grow and become oppressive. So, a few days before the Constitution was finalized, the delegates unanimously  decided to put a tool in place to bring the government back under control of the states. That tool  is the amendment process detailed in Article V. The first method is congress and the second  method is our states. Since congress won’t correct itself by bringing the federal government  under control, it is time we used the second part of Article V to make the corrections needed. Go  to ConventionOfStates.com and learn about the solution as big as the problem: an Article V  Convention of States. It’s time to restore these great United States of America to what our  founders intended them to be.   Example #4 Article V of the Constitution has been described as a safety valve put in place by our Founding  Fathers. They wisely anticipated that a day would come when the federal government would  become too dominant and usurp power that belongs to the states. Article V is the mechanism  built into the Constitution to allow the people to take back their power and their rights. We the  people can rein in an out of control government. Check out ConventionOfStates.com and read  about the Article V Convention of States project. It’s “a solution as big as the problem”.   Example #5 It really doesn’t matter who is in the White House or which party controls Congress; it is the  tendency of each of the three branches of the federal government to take more and more  authority upon itself and exert more and more control over the states and their citizens. The  founders of our republic realized that and wrote the Constitution so as to limit the powers “we  the people” thereby grant to the federal government, to set up checks and balances between the  legislative, executive, and judicial branches and to reserve all other powers to the people. A key  element of the Constitution is Article V, which provides that a Convention of States be held upon application of at least two-thirds of the states, to propose amendments to the Constitution. Such  amendments then become law if ratified by at least three-fourths of the states. The federal  government has grown ever larger and more powerful over the years, and it has long been  evident that there is a need to amend the Constitution to limit the federal government, restore  checks and balances and return usurped powers to the states.  Example #6 “Laws With Loopholes” One doesn’t have to look far beyond today’s headlines to find evidence that the federal  government has successfully inserted itself into virtually every crack and crevice of our daily  lives. Many of us who are self-proclaimed “constitutionalists” call out our elected officials,  admonishing them for not adhering to the limitations of the Tenth Amendment, wherein the  Page 5 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan powers not specifically delegated to the Federal government by the Constitution are reserved to  the States.  So, after how many years of “admonishment,” how’s that worked out? Simply pointing to  existing law and demanding compliance is not enough. The Supreme Court looks at existing law  and exploits it every day, finding loopholes in the beautiful but often vague and ambiguous  language of the Constitution, creating more power and broader authority for the Federal  government, power that the Founders never envisioned nor intended, allowing interference in  public education, land use and building codes, water resources, energy production, medical and  health issues, lending practices, the possession and sale of firearms, and voting rights, just to  name a few.   Those loopholes can be closed, the language can be clarified, and the original intent of the  Framers of that great document can be restored. Can be, but never will… at least not by  Congress.  It can be done, however, according to Article V of the Constitution, by the people in the states,  with full transparency in the free marketplace of ideas… an Article V Convention of States led  by our locally-elected state legislators, the government closest to “We, the People.”  Take action today! Join the movement at ConventionOfStates.com.    Example #7 “A Simple Test” Over 2¼ centuries ago, the Founders of this nation created a new form of governance and  enshrined its tenets in our Constitution. That document not only set forth the individual rights of  each citizen, but it also established the federal government and charged it with defending and  protecting those rights. There are those today who would accuse our federal government of overreaching its authority,  who say that it’s out of control, who complain that Washington, D.C., is no longer responsive to  the wants and needs of the states.  Well, here’s a quick test for the accuracy of those charges – ask yourself if the majority of the  most recent actions of the federal government have been, as required by the Constitution, to  defend and protect the rights of its citizens, or have the majority of its actions been to limit them, to diminish them, to reduce or abridge them? Page 6 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan If your honest answer is the same as mine, then you’ll be relieved to know that the Founders of  this great nation predicted that this day would come, that in its drive to amass centralized power,  the federal government would eventually place itself beyond the reach of the states.  Thankfully, they provided a remedy – Article V – to be used by the state legislatures to cure any  defects identified during the course of self-governance. Article V gives our state legislators the  power and the responsibility to remind the federal government that it is a creation of the states,  that its legitimacy emanates entirely from the states, and that its authority and its ultimate  existence is derived wholly from the consent of the governed. Please take a moment, if you haven’t already, and inform yourself on this critical matter by  examining the information provided at the Convention of States Project website below, and join  the movement. Then pick up the phone or send off an eMail informing your state representative  that you support an Article V Convention of States, and that you encourage him or her to support any legislation that helps keep Arizona on the growing list of states determined to reign in the  federal government. ConventionOfStates.com Example #8 SUBJECT: TERM LIMITS “Remembering Patrick Henry” “Give me liberty, or give me death!” That was Patrick Henry’s hope 2¼ centuries ago for our  new American form of representative democracy. Today, given what we’re seeing as  Washington’s priorities, many of us have sadly resigned ourselves to the belief that we will  probably see death before we see liberty. If there’s one thing that the American citizenry needs to be reminded of, it’s that we, the People  in the states deliberately joined together to create the federal government in the first place.  Washington, D.C., did not exist until it was created by our Constitution. The Founders expected us to be ever-vigilant, to ensure that, in exchange for its existence, our  federal government never strayed outside the enumerated powers enshrined in that Constitution.  To assist us in meeting that tremendous responsibility, they drafted Article V, empowering state  legislators to join together and instruct Congress to call a Convention of States to propose  amendments to the Constitution, if and when the need became obvious.  Page 7 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan One such amendment, if proposed at Convention and then later ratified by ¾ of the state  legislatures, could impose maximum term limits on all federal officials and forever change the  incessant insanity that is Washington, D.C., no matter which party is at the helm. In their wisdom, the Founders wisely anticipated the day when the federal government would fail or refuse to respond to the demands of the states. They left us Article V to repair the defects in  government perceived by We the Governed. They placed their trust in us… their confidence…  their faith. To do anything less is to dishonor their legacy. Inform yourself at ConventionOfStates.com and join the movement. Then call your elected state  representatives and urge their support for an Article V Convention of States. Example #9 “Yes, We Can!” In 1995, the Supreme Court ruled that the voters of a sovereign state don't have the right to  legislatively impose term limits on their own locally-elected federal delegation. The ruling stated specifically that if the states want to establish term limits on Congress, then they “must come  through a constitutional amendment properly passed under the procedures set forth in Article V.” The prospect of seeing an amendment to the Constitution that would impose term limits on all  federal officials, including the judiciary, is the primary reason that I support the Convention of  States Project.  Resolving that one issue, I believe, would go a very long way toward eliminating many of the  most pressing issues that we face. Washington, DC, without a doubt, has become the most  powerful, some would say corrupt, city in the world, and no one who enters its enormous sphere  of influence can help but be changed by it… and usually not for the better. We keep sending good people to Washington, only to see them disappear into the meat-grinder  that is Congress, and come out the other side just so much baloney! If there were Term Limits  and the candidate knew going in that their term was limited by constitutional edict, I firmly  believe that they would think twice before casting a vote on legislation that could have a severe  impact on the very communities to which they themselves will eventually return… to live among the rest of us, to work at a job like a normal person again, outside of the Beltway Bubble, forced  to bear the burden of whatever laws Congress might pass with little or no concern for the  unintended consequences they have on the daily lives of real people throughout this country. And for those who fear that removing the “perks” of congressional service will cause a brain  drain such that no one of any consequence will want to run for office, I would submit that if the  Page 8 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan folks up there running things right now are the best and the brightest that money, power and  prestige can buy, then I think it's time to give some of us poor, stupid people a chance… we  couldn't possibly screw it up any worse! Our best and last chance may just be an Article V Convention of States. It's finally come to the  point where it really doesn't matter who we elect anymore, because sooner or later, once they  become a member of an elite class who literally exist above the very laws that they impose upon  the rest of us, coupled with the realization that they can stay there forever if they just play by the  rules, there's no longer any incentive for them to exercise any discretion whatsoever. We need to  change those rules, because eventually, there's not a dime's worth of difference between any of  them, and frankly… I'm running out of dimes. Join the movement! ConventionOfStates.com Example #10 SUBJECT: GENERIC “Convention of States Project Update” Fifteen states have thus far approved and filed applications with the US Congress for a  Convention of States to be called for the purpose of proposing amendments to the US  Constitution. Once 34 states send their applications to congress, a convention MUST be called. These applications are authorized under Article V of the US Constitution. As defined in plain  language, it is a grass-roots, state-driven effort independent of congress, with the sole purpose of  gathering delegates from all the states to debate, define and propose amendments to the US  Constitution, amendments which then would be taken back to all the states for ratification.  Once ratified by 38 states, and without any congressional discretion, these amendments become  the Law of the Land, or in the words of Article V, “valid to all intents and purposes, also as part  of this Constitution.” Just to be clear, this is not a “Constitutional Convention,” which would be an extra-judicial free- for-all favored by those wishing to scrap our current form of government entirely and establish a  new one. To the contrary, a Convention of States is for those who want to defend and preserve  our current Constitution.  A Convention of States is a very well-defined, carefully regulated, public process wherein the  people of each state, through their self-appointed delegates, propose to those in the other states  Page 9 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan ideas that are limited exclusively to imposing fiscal restraints on the federal government;  reducing the size, scope and jurisdiction of the federal government; and establishing mandatory  term limits for its officials. These are ideas that currently enjoy broad support by Americans of  both major political parties, both genders, all age groups, and people from all across the  economic spectrum, ideas that congress simply refuses to address on its own. Fortunately, the Founders wrote into the Constitution a little-known but very powerful method  whereby We the People can propose our ideas for consideration by all, should there ever come a  time when Washington would fail in its duty to govern responsibly. That time has come. If you haven’t gotten involved in this yet, here’s a web site that will provide you with everything  you need to know about what has already attracted over four million supporters to the most  important political movement in modern history. Join the movement at ConventionOfStates.com Example #11 “History Re-written” More than 230 years ago, a handful of brave men and women – merchants, soldiers, educators,  farmers, clerics, physicians and lawyers – all met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Combining their past struggles against a tyrannical monarchy with their brilliant theories of a new, democratic  form of government, what they called a representative republic, they produced and signed the  document known today as the Constitution of the United States.  About ___(Fill in the blank)___ ago, I attended a meeting here in ________. It, too, held a  diverse crowd – small business owners, veterans, teachers, ranchers and retirees – all assembled  to hear a presentation devised around one paragraph, just 143 words, written by those early  Framers – Article V, where the states are given the same power and authority as the Congress to  propose amendments to the Constitution.  I learned that state legislators, without interference from the US Congress, can invoke Article V  and instruct Congress to call a Convention of States limited to proposing amendments to the  Constitution that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government; that limit the size, scope and jurisdiction of the federal government; and that limit the terms of office for its officials,  including Congress and the Judiciary.   I further discovered that Arizona, along with 14 other states (as of March 2020), has taken a  brave step toward the nation’s future, hopefully one of rational restraint and constitutional  decorum, by sending just such an application to Congress.  Page 10 of 11 Composing and sending ‘Letter to the Editor’  Volunteer Activity Plan I am encouraged now to know that the voice of the people can make a difference… the voice of  an informed people, of a passionate people, of constituents and voters determined to hold their  elected officials to a higher standard – to demand that they put what’s best for our state and for  the nation ahead of what’s best for their life-long political careers. As attendees of this community meeting, we were all encouraged to educate ourselves on this  issue that’s as old as the very nation that it helped to define, and to inform others of its little- known existence. And finally, we were encouraged to join this nationwide movement, now over  four million-strong, and to contact our state legislators and encourage them to do the same. We’ve all known for quite some time what the problems are… now we know the solution.  ConventionOfStates.com Page 11 of 11 —- ====== Document Outline ====== * List of newspapers in Arizona. * Letter to the Editor examples * Convention of States website