Talk:Convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution

Article title

I'm not sure about this article title (Convention to propose amendment to U.S. Constitution). Shouldn't it be more like Convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution, or Convention to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution? In any event, whatever the title of the article is, it should be in the opening sentence, as per the usual Wikipedia style. --JW1805 04:01, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• • • There are many ways to read something. This title included. Read "amendment" as a verb and you don't have to worry about the rest. Either way there is no way to argue difinitively: to amend any part of the constitution is to amend the entire document. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.207.207 (talk) 07:39, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a very important subject I'm interested in. Why aren't there any sources that I can further research?

There are: See, chapter fourof the online book, Treatise on Twelve Lights.

See also, www.article5.org/Webbrief.pdf. This 780 page,1708 footnote reference contains all the verification material you will require or, should you choose to go even further in research, gives references to source material. Included in the reference are all congressional record sources, tables summarizing all applications, a total of 208 United States Supreme Court suits supporting the calling of a convention, examination of all aspects of the question and finallly a detailed, complete and total legal explaination based on Supreme Court rulings and original works by the Founders explaining why the corrections were made to this article.

I have been following article5.org and cc2.org for a while. Are there any independent scholarly articles which address the method for calling a convention? Article5.org alleges that there are enough applications to call for a convention, but it would be interesting to hear what legal scholars have written about this subject. I would be happy to summarize the Walker suit claims, but I am not sure where to look for the counter arguments to create a more balanced wikipedia entry. Any suggestions? Biomedeng 00:09, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes Biomendeng, the definitive scholarly study is, IMO, Russell L. Caplan, Constituitonal Brinksmanship, Amending the Constitution by National Convention (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 240pp. Caplan's fifth chapter refutes the claims that all applications to date can be counted toward the two-thirds prerequisite. See esp. pp. 105-108 “Agreement of Subject Matter.”

Style

"They knew that there would be circumstances in which Congress, for self-serving reasons, would ignore valid pleas to amend the Constitution and so the framers established an alternate means of proposing change in the Constitution."

this sort of founding-fathers worship is inappropriate in tone, as is much of the article. 80.168.29.18 09:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Application count

An earlier post of this article indicated that 33 of the 34 applications for a con-con were submitted by the states on the subject of overturning Roe v. Wade. In fact, there were 16 pro-life applications submitted from 1973-1980, less than half the requisite number of 34. A useful statistical rundown on subject matter of earlier state applications for the Article V Convention is the chart in The Congressional Record, 92 Congress 1 (Oct. 19, 1971), p. S16519.

  Someone has recently edited these total upward, so that in two or three categories, including taxation, applications have already exceeded the requisite two-thirds of the states.  Please document these claims.

Elburts 07:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

One paragraph indicates that Hawaii has never submitted an application, while another paragraph later says that all states have submitted applications, including 1 for Hawaii. Which is it? Majohnson 669 (talk) 03:54, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Questioning Content

I don't understand this piece of the text. Looks interesting, though. I wonder what it really means.

"A federal court case considered but rejected the claim that Congress must call a convention based on the sum total of all applications to date. The court further extended the Coleman doctrine, based on Coleman v. Miller (307 U.S. 433, 1939)that Congress could use military force to compel ratification of proposed amendments by state legislatures. An appeal of the ruling was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. In the suit it was asserted that failure to obey the text of Article V in fact granted the government the right to veto the direct text of the Constitution and that all members of Congress had, in fact, joined against the lawsuit in order to establish this right of veto for themselves. At no time in the lawsuit did the government reject or deny this assertion even when required to do so under Supreme Court rules. [1]"

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus 11:43, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

--- It means that there have been more than 600 applications for a convention over the years and we only need 34. The supreme court made sure that the applications are only compiled annually and not collectively. Thank the Lord!! Don't let them secure an unchecked bailout!! 2008 Ask your state to withdraw their application now!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.207.207 (talk) 07:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Possible Scope

I was tempted to make the following part of the main document in the Possible Scope section, but decided not to since it seemed closer to an editorial than a report.

[All the same, it has to be noted that Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation (the governing provision for amendments to that document) requires unanimous consent of the states for amendments proposed by the Congress to go into force, and makes no provision at all for Congress to authorize a Convention to draft even individual amendments, much less a new constitution to replace the Articles. Nevertheless, as was noted at the time (though no one much minded), it exceeded its authority and unconstitutionally (the Articles were the then constitution) delegated its power to draft amendments to the Convention.

Given sufficient popular support, there is no reason the current US Congress, provoked to action by two thirds of the states demanding a new Convention, could not follow the example of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, exceed its own authority, and call, instead of the expected Convention of the States, a Convention of the People.

It's a pretty safe bet, after all, that no Convention of the States will consent to removal from the federal government of its most undemocratic features, those that accord equal power to the states regardless of population, or in any manner that departs from apportioning power according to population in the direction of apportioning it equally to the states.

Recall, too, that the Philadelphia Convention itself exceeded its own (already illicit) authority and wrote a whole new constitution for the United States. And the Convention then directed that the lawful procedure then in place for ratification requiring unanimous consent of all the states be ignored in favor of a cheeky declaration in Article VII of the new constitution, itself, that it would go into force immediately among the first nine states to ratify it.

Since, if one were demanded, no one would accept that an Article V Convention would have less power than the one in Philadelphia, it is clear that regardless of what Congress told it to do it could simply proceed to draft a new constitution at will, and then also propose an altogether novel method of ratification, one requiring consent of the people consulted in the way that has become customary in our time, and utilized fairly recently in Iraq, the method of a national referendum, perhaps requiring a super-majority.

Who in America today would accept that a Convention drafting a new constitution for the United States of America cannot and ought not to submit its work for ratification, not to the separate states as though the United States of America ought still and forever to be regarded as their mere fabrication and creature and the constitution itself as a mere pact among them, but to the people at large? Who would deny that America is entitled to a constitution actually accepted by us, the people of the United States, rather than merely beginning with an empty brag that it was? Who would reject the opportunity to have, in the US, something better approximating a government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

And then, depending on what its work looked like, the Convention's production, along with its daring and novel rule of ratification, would be accepted with some degree of the worshipful praise we are used to in connection with the document produced at Philadelphia, or rejected with some contrary degree of vigorous condemnation.]

Gaius Sempronius Gracchus 12:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Tone/Neutrality

This article (or at least parts of it) has a tone that doesn't seem appropriate for an enclopedia and seem to have a viewpoint the author(s) are trying to express (apparently in support of a convention), for instance:

Against oppressive government of any kind, royal or otherwise, the authors of the great charter of American liberties, the United States Constitution, sought...

and

Among the advantages of the convention method is that it empowers the states and localities to override the D.C. beltway and to trump oligarchy and/or plutocracy. Due to unfortunate political and economic realities, issues that need to be addressed are often stymied in the nation's capitol. Thus extraordinarily pressing matters requiring amendment of the constitution, and finding Congress either unwilling or unable to take action, may reach resolution via the convention route. (OK, toned that down) Elburts (talk) 10:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

as well as various other portions. I'd appreciate someone with a bit more background in this area taking a look at this article and cleaning up the tone and identifing what is and is not NPOV. kenj0418 (talk) 21:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

REPLY. To impliment Article V would be a revolutionary undertaking. Indeed the Framers of Article V, were contemporaries of and/or former members of the continental army. They were quite the contrary of neutral. I'm not sure that it is possible to give Article V its due by addressing the issue in the spirit of neutrality. It was intended as a radical method to address a national crisis -- such as a Federal government beyond reach of ordinary means toward reform.Elburts (talk) 10:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

That's not what neutral means. The issue is that the language should neither be positive or negative. The exception to that is when listing the ways critics and supporters have viewed the system. I'm in agreement with Kenj0418 that a lot of cleanup is needed to improve NPOV in this article.

The second issue I see is that the article is very unnecessarily wordy, disorganized, and vague. Nowhere does it clearly describe the process. Even the section labeled "Process" does not clearly explain it, but instead wastes copious space meandering through odd bits of history and listing advantages, rather than simply explaining the process. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 23:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Article needs an exception for Nebraska

The article says:

When two-thirds of the state legislatures shall apply - i.e. both houses of the legislature in 34 states - then Article V of the Constitution requires the Congress to "call a convention for proposing amendments."

Nebraska has a unicameral legislature (see Nebraska Legislature), so there cannot be "both houses" in Nebraska. This should be incorporated correctly into the article. grr (talk) 10:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this "Treatise on Twelve Lights" stuff remarkable enough to be included here??

I mean the following paragraph:

"Treatise on Twelve Lights[17] is a non-profit project proposing an Article V Convention; not however for a general purpose, but to advance a single overarching Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The idea is to form a five-fold coalition (one part sacred, four parts secular) of citizens united in sufficient power to enact one arch-amendment. The associated online book by Robert Struble, Jr., concludes with a prototype text for such an amendment, organized into political, economic and cultural categories. As expressed in the book's secondary title, the intent is To Restore America the Beautiful under God and the Written Constitution. Chapter four consists of a detailed political / historical analysis of the Article V convention process."

Isn't that just another piece of individual "political poetry"? -- 85.177.62.204 (talk) 23:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Good question. Maybe we should just get rid of the "National Groups Advocating for an Article V Convention" section? The article was clearly originally written from the standpoint of advocating for a convention ([1]), so that's probably why they were included. Both those groups are really not very notable, as far as I can tell. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 23:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I deleted the entire section. It's pure advocacy. Neither is notable and both groups are fringe fringe fringe. Benwing (talk) 09:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Benwing is correct. That stuff simply does not belong in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a place to post summaries from the pamphlets of advocacy groups, or whatever that was. Blue Danube (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The disambiguation page linking to this article contains similar questionable language/advertising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_convention Meltro (talk) 06:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Good catch. I've cleaned up the advocacy material on the disambiguation page. Sχeptomaniac^{χαιρετε} 15:58, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of Talk Page

Please archive old talk page content rather than deleting it. See Wikipedia:Talk_page_guidelines#When_pages_get_too_long and Help:Archiving_a_talk_page. 64.81.170.17 (talk) 22:56, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Article problems

I have some concerns about NPOV in this article. It reads more like an advocacy piece for a particular point of view rather than an encyclopedia article. Much of the article seems to be arguing for a certain perspective on Article V conventions without citing any sources. It appears to have mostly been written by non-lawyers. I think the article could benefit greatly from some edits from a lawyer. Over the coming days, I will try to clean things up (there are a lot of grammar / usage mistakes, etc), make it more balanced, and add more cites to scholarly sources. The first edits I have made today were just rearranging the order of the article. The introduction, which should only be a paragraph or two, was longer all the rest of the article. I have shifted most of this content into the body of the article, cleaned up some of the language, and removed a little bit of the extraneous, false, or unsourced information. Aureliuslawyer (talk) 04:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks, and keep up the good work. --CapitalR (talk) 05:21, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm continuing my edits and revisions. I'm slowly working my way through the article to add in better content and more accurate information. Once I've revised the whole thing, I will go over again to polish the language and make what I've written read more smoothly.Aureliuslawyer (talk) 03:56, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the NPOV problems, especially in the section on limited vs. unlimited convention applications. I softened it up with "Some legal scholars believe..." and added a paragraph with a description and cite to an authoritative alternative view (Paulson).

NoBiggie (talk) 13:39, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

   since the u.s. constitution is a proper noun, isn't its convention clause also? in other words, the Article V Convention is a unique convention unto itself. it should be capitalized. also, there is no provision for a state to rescind their applications. if so it raises question: why rescind if an application no longer has any effect? and if those which have not been rescinded do have an effect, then according to the congressional record, the constitution currently mandates the Article V Convention. 11/15/09  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.84.218 (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)