Dear Friend,
One of the committees I serve on is the House State Affairs Committee – and it took a really dangerous step before 2023 came to an end.
The committee passed a pair of resolutions requesting what’s known as an “Article V Convention” – a national convention that can be called by the states to propose new amendments to the United States Constitution. It’s one of two ways that the U.S. Constitution can be amended (the other is by amendments proposed by Congress itself.) Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, a constitutional convention must be convened if two-thirds of state legislatures (34 states) call for it.
However: the Constitution does not provide any guidelines or rules for such a convention.
Meaning that a group of people convening to rewrite our Constitution could be totally unelected and unaccountable. There is nothing that could limit the convention to a single issue, so the delegates could write amendments that revoke any of our most cherished rights – like our right to peaceful protest, our freedom of religion, or our right to privacy. There are also no rules preventing corporations from pouring money into the convention to influence its outcome.
Right now, there are four major campaigns for an Article V Convention: the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) campaign, the Convention of States (COS) campaign, the Wolf-PAC campaign, and the term limits campaign. Each has different goals, but together, they have convinced 28 states to call for a convention. That means they have just six states to go. Read more here.
The State Affairs Committee passed two resolutions calling for an Article V Convention.
The first one (House Concurrent Resolution 693) proposes a constitutional amendment establishing term limits for Congress. The second one (House Concurrent Resolution 703) proposes an amendment that would force a so-called “balanced budget” requirement on Congress (which is really just a backdoor way for right-wing extremists to impose cuts on Social Security and Medicare).
I voted no on both resolutions and there was even a Republican community leader who testified against these resolutions too. Unfortunately with Republicans in the supermajority both resolutions not only passed but are being fast-passed to the House Floor. I urge you to contact your State Representative ask them to vote no on HCR693 and HCR703. Protect our U.S. Constitution — do not let extremists bend our most important founding document in their favor.
Onward,
Rep. Eskamani