Just as Sept. 17 is known as Constitution Day commemorating the completion and signing of the U.S. Constitution nearly 231 years ago, Sept. 15 could well be called Article V Day because that is the date this important feature was added to the document.
Article Five is perhaps more relevant today than it has ever been. It gives the people a legal, constitutional, non-violent work-around for the heavy handed one-size fits all solutions the federal government has foisted upon us all. In the words of legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley, we now have “an administrative state of sprawling departments and agencies that govern with increasing autonomy and decreasing transparency” resulting in the federal dominance in every aspect of our lives.
Ask yourselves or anyone you know if they think term limits is a good idea. Though some may disagree on the length of the terms, I have yet to meet anyone — who is not already in office that is — who does not strongly favor term limits. But we know Congress will never pass term limits. They may propose them while campaigning but they’re comfortable in the knowledge that it will never happen. Congress will never limit their own power or their spending. Without the language in Article V, which George Mason proposed on Sept. 15, the last day of the Constitutional Convention, we might never achieve those necessary goals of restoring a government by consent of the governed and within the fences of the Constitution.
Initially the amendment provision in the draft of the Constitution left the power solely to the national legislature (Congress). Mason forcefully objected to leaving that power only to Congress because he felt the national legislature would never take steps to return that power to the states and the people and “no amendment of the proper kind would ever be obtained by the people, if the Government should become oppressive.”
Mason prevailed without argument from his colleagues, and the language was changed creating two methods for proposing amendments. The second method gave the power to the people through their state legislatures so that the application by two-thirds of the state legislatures would trigger a mandate on Congress to call the Convention of States and there would be nothing the federal government could do to stop it. All amendments passed at such a Convention of States would then have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states just as any amendments passed by Congress must be ratified.
To date, all 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by Congress but strangely neither that term limits thing nor significant spending restraints have ever succeeded as amendments.
So far, 12 states of 34 required have passed applications for a Convention of States. There is currently a national grassroots movement in all 50 states to call a convention under Article V, restricted to proposing amendments that will 1) impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, 2) limit the power and jurisdiction, and 3) impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.
To learn more about this method of proposing amendments to the constitution, go to www.ConventionofStates.com. It all comes down to a question of who decides on the issues that affect you and your community? Washington, D.C. and its mob of unelected bureaucrats, or us? Article V may be the only way to rein in the massive national government, which, according to Turley, today has 2.84 million federal workers in 15 departments, 69 agencies and 383 nonmilitary sub-agencies.
As citizens of a free republic it is our duty to preserve it. If you would like to take a free online course on the U. S. Constitution go to: www.freeconstitutioncourse.com.
Mikie Kerr is a constitutional enthusiast who lives in Waikoloa and writes a monthly opinion column for West Hawaii Today.