Has constitutional-convention threshold already been met? It happened in 1979, GOP lawmaker says
The 34-state threshold for calling a constitutional convention has already been reached, if the U.S. Constitution’s Article V counts any state request for a convention, no matter what the topic, according to a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. (Image from Shutterstock)
The 34-state threshold for calling a constitutional convention has already been reached, if the U.S. Constitution’s Article V counts any state request for a convention, no matter what the topic, according to a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.
“We’ll have a convention,” professor David Super told the New York Times, if Congress declares that the threshold has been met “under whatever crazy counting theory the convention advocates support.”
Republican U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington of Texas, the chair of the U.S. House Committee on the Budget, said a constitutional convention should have been called in 1979 because the state threshold was met at that time. To keep track of it all, Arrington has introduced legislation that would require the National Archives to collect state applications for conventions.
A “bare-bones” website called the Article 5 Library is also keeping count, according to the New York Times. It indicates that more than 34 states have standing requests for a convention, some of which are more than 150 years old.
If a convention is called, approval of any proposed constitutional amendment would by no means be assured. The amendment would have to be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures, amounting to 38 states; 28 state legislatures will be controlled by Republicans as a result of the most recent election, according to the New York Times.
Constitutional experts disagree on several issues related to constitutional conventions because Article V has little detail, the New York Times reports.
Article V “does not say whether 34 states need to agree on the specific amendment topic or whether signaling that they want a convention for any reason is enough to trigger proceedings,” the New York Times reports. “There is no explanation of whether each state at the convention would get one vote or more, whether topics not on the agenda can be raised, whether lobbyists or special interest groups could participate, or who would referee disagreements.”
State requests for conventions in recent years have sought constitutional amendments to require balanced federal budgets, to authorize presidential line-item vetoes, to allow gun control, or to impose congressional term limits, according to the New York Times, the Sacramento Bee and NC Newsline. In the past, applications sought to make anti-polygamy laws part of the Constitution or to create a “world federal government.”
Another possible topic could be President-elect Donald Trump’s call for the elimination of birthright citizenship.
California State Sen. Scott Wiener, a Democrat, fears a “runaway convention” and has introduced a resolution to rescind his state’s seven active calls for a convention, according to the New York Times, Courthouse News Service and the Sacramento Bee.
“I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” Wiener told the New York Times.
Other states have already acted on such concerns. In the last eight years, nine Democratic-led states revoked their applications for conventions, including New York, New Jersey, Oregon and Illinois.
