A resolution that would have seen the state of Montana call for an “Article V Convention” designed purportedly to amend the U.S. Constitution has likely failed for good after it did not pass on its third reading in the state’s Senate Wednesday.
The Senate split 25-25 on its final vote on Senate Joint Resolution 2, a day after the measure squeaked through its second reading by a vote of 26-24.
On the final vote, 10 Republicans voted against the bill, along with 15 Democrats, while 24 Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Ryan Lynch, D-Butte, voted in favor of the resolution.
In the Montana Senate, it seems, neither party has a firm understanding and appreciation of the dangers associated with the call for a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution.
Let’s begin with the article of the Constitution wherein the procedures for amending that document are set forth. Article V reads, in relevant part:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress
A careful reading of that powerful provision reveals the many terrors which would lie along the road to revising our union’s founding document.
For many years now in the pages of The New American I have mapped the many pitfalls along this path in the hopes that patriots would wisely choose to ignore the siren and seductive calls of those who would try to convince them that the only way to restore liberty is through an Article V convention.
For now, lawmakers in Montana have chosen to refuse adding their state to the roster of other states whose legislators have been beguiled by the billionaires who’ve spent substantial sums sowing confusion among the ranks of Republican and Democratic state legislators so as to compel them to back this or that measure that would expose the Constitution to their secular and socialist machinations.
In service to those who’ve only just begun reading The New American, or to those who are feeling persuaded to support an Article V convention (Con-Con), I’ll highlight below one of the numerous irrefutable facts about the process and how the product of such would be not the current Constitution with the addition of only a few necessary amendments, but rather an entirely new Constitution whose spirit and substance would be stripped from it and the limits and protections it now provides tossed onto the scrap heap of history by those who care nothing for the Constitution or the wise men who framed it for us.
First, there is the claim by many backers of the Con-Con movement that they are not, in fact, calling for a constitutional convention. Lies.
For example, one of the most active and adversarial groups propelling the states down the path of convention is Convention of States Action, based in Houston, Texas. On their webpage entitled “Responses to Objections,” COS Action claims that the convention it supports “is not a constitutional convention” and that it “cannot throw out the Constitution because it derives its authority from the Constitution.”
It’s curious that the COS Action people go to such lengths to deny that they are calling for a constitutional convention, yet they have no problem calling what happened in Philadelphia in 1787 a constitutional convention and admitting it was called for exactly the same reason as the COS: to propose amendments to the existing constitution.
This is the last paragraph from the report of the Continental Congress calling for the convention of the states held in Philadelphia, begun in May 1787:
Resolved that in the opinion of Congress it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several states be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the states render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government & the preservation of the Union. [Emphasis added.]
Change a few words, modernize the language a little bit, and this is precisely the same call being made by the COS organization, yet they consistently deny that they are calling for a constitutional convention. They cannot have it both ways.
One must wonder whether COS and like-minded groups want to hold a “convention of delegates who have been appointed by the several states” for the limited (“sole and express”) purpose of revising the Constitution.
Do they not claim that when the states agree to the proposals that would come out of such a convention, the Constitution will be able to save the Republic from the “exigencies of government” and preserve the country?
Of course they do! Their websites and literature say exactly that, almost word for word!
If they were intellectually honest, then, they would stop denying that their “convention of the states” is a constitutional convention, or, on the other hand, they would scrub from their literature any reference to the convention of 1787 as a constitutional convention. Because, as the history I’ve cited above reveals, if the Philly convention was a Con-Con, then so is the “convention of states” they are promoting.
So, constitutionalists, next time pro-Article V proponents tell you the desired convention of the states is not a constitutional convention, ask them if the convention in Philadelphia of 1787 was a constitutional convention. When they admit that it was, then read them the call from the Continental Congress reproduced above and my comparison of it to their own Convention of the States literature, and watch the verbal tap dance begin.
The map of history shows the many pitfalls that pock the path toward an Article V convention, pitfalls from which this union would not be able to escape.
