Marco Rubio is calling for a Constitutional Convention along with Tom Coburn. He states it will be a very limited Constitutional Convention and citizen rights won't be touched, but, he wants to set up term limits on House Representatives, Senators and Judges.
According to Article V, Congress shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, "on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States," meaning 34 state legislatures would have to submit similarly-worded applications calling for specific amendments or specifying the same type of amendments to be considered. Once an Article V Convention has proposed them, then the amendment or amendments would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 states) in order to become part of the Constitution.
It is one of those dreamscapes that Republicans sell to the deeply religious to change the status of religion under the US Constitution. Rubio is desperate and will try anything to win.
April 6, 2015
Can a group of states ban together (click here) for the first time since 1787 to change the Constitution at a convention? It all comes down to a matter of math and a few important numbers: 5, 27, 34, 38, 535 and 9.
The second method has never been used. It involves petitions from at least 34 states to call a constitutional convention, where one or several amendments are proposed. The amendment or amendments are then sent on to the states, where 38 states are needed for ratification.
If you are really interested in big questions involving constitutional conventions, there is an excellent overview available from Thomas Neale at the Congressional Research Service. It discusses the background of the Article V process and some current movements underway to bring some issues to national prominence using Article V.
Currently, the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, a group that tracks petitions, says there are 27 active petitions on this issue that have been filed with Congress. The group is targeting 13 additional states, hoping to get seven states to approve balanced budget resolutions. That magic number of 34 would force the 535 members of Congress to act....
...There are deep political and legal disagreements about these concepts, as well as the proper role of Congress in determining convention rules, so the issues could come down to number 9 – as in the nine Justices of the Supreme Court....
According to Article V, Congress shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, "on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States," meaning 34 state legislatures would have to submit similarly-worded applications calling for specific amendments or specifying the same type of amendments to be considered. Once an Article V Convention has proposed them, then the amendment or amendments would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states (38 states) in order to become part of the Constitution.
It is one of those dreamscapes that Republicans sell to the deeply religious to change the status of religion under the US Constitution. Rubio is desperate and will try anything to win.
April 6, 2015
Can a group of states ban together (click here) for the first time since 1787 to change the Constitution at a convention? It all comes down to a matter of math and a few important numbers: 5, 27, 34, 38, 535 and 9.
The second method has never been used. It involves petitions from at least 34 states to call a constitutional convention, where one or several amendments are proposed. The amendment or amendments are then sent on to the states, where 38 states are needed for ratification.
If you are really interested in big questions involving constitutional conventions, there is an excellent overview available from Thomas Neale at the Congressional Research Service. It discusses the background of the Article V process and some current movements underway to bring some issues to national prominence using Article V.
Currently, the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, a group that tracks petitions, says there are 27 active petitions on this issue that have been filed with Congress. The group is targeting 13 additional states, hoping to get seven states to approve balanced budget resolutions. That magic number of 34 would force the 535 members of Congress to act....
...There are deep political and legal disagreements about these concepts, as well as the proper role of Congress in determining convention rules, so the issues could come down to number 9 – as in the nine Justices of the Supreme Court....
