Congress has been violating the constitution

A New Year’s Resolution for ALL Presidential Candidates

Joel S. Hirschhorn

[Note: I wrote this article before becoming aware of Mike Gravel's candidacy.]

No matter how awful you think our government and political system have become, odds are you do not know about this travesty of justice, an incredible failure to honor our fabled Constitution. This failure has removed the sovereignty of we the people, and made Congress much more powerful than it should be. Let me acknowledge that even though I have been pegged as “Democracy’s Mr. Fix It,” until recently I too was ignorant about this blatant disregard for a key part of our Constitution.

Our Founders were acutely aware of the need to create a mechanism for we the people to, when necessary, circumvent the political power of the federal government. They built in a critically important form of direct democracy that, however, our elected MISrepresentatives have refused to implement. Here it is: Article V of our Constitution specifies two distinct routes to amending our Constitution: “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…”

Conventions to consider constitutional amendments should be seen as peaceful revolutions – a remedy specified in our Constitution for addressing a national government and political system that no longer serves public interests. Congress has been so corrupted for so long that it has blatantly ignored the constitutional provision for conventions. It wants exclusive power over amending our Constitution in violation of the Constitution itself.

The key point is that our Founders gave states this route to address excess federal power. All of the twenty-seven amendments thus far incorporated into the Constitution were proposed by Congress. Granted, Article V has sparse language. But clearly Congress “shall” call a convention to order when the only stated requirement is met, namely that two-thirds of state legislatures request a convention. There are NO other stated requirements. So, have state legislatures requested a convention and has Congress fulfilled its constitutional, legal responsibility and called for one?

What has Congress done? Congress has never obeyed Article V and certified that a national Constitutional convention must be held – remember, NOT by itself to amend the Constitution, but solely at its discretion to propose amendments – just as Congress has done in the past. Then, it would be up to state legislatures or state conventions to actually pass or not pass any proposed amendments. Congress has never even established a procedure for tracking state requests for a convention. Congress’ power-grabbing behavior is by itself sufficient reason why Americans should want a convention – one possible amendment would be to amplify the language on conventions to make Congress more responsible.