The Other McCain

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Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States

Posted on | February 21, 2014 | 54 Comments

by Smitty

Ellis at the L.A. Times serves a moot point as though it were wisdom:

But, seriously, a second Constitutional Convention? It could never succeed, chiefly because the secrecy, elitism and the rest of 1787 reality could never be duplicated in our time. (And ought not be.) Besides — and here I feel an obligation to defend the legacy of the founders — the current gridlock in Congress is not a function of anything in the language of the Constitution.

Gerrymandering and primary election politicking are surely part of the problem. So too is the plutocratic character of our political culture in what has become, in effect, a second Gilded Age. But the core problem in getting legislation through the House and the Senate are procedural rules adopted by both bodies over the last century.

In the Senate, the culprit is the filibuster. Its history is long and labyrinthian, but, in the form it has assumed over the last 30 years or so, a supermajority of 60 votes is required for passage of any and all legislation. (The “nuclear option” weakened the filibuster when applied to some presidential appointments, but not to legislation.)

I think these are tangential points, at best.

  • The House has been frozen in size since 1910; it is relatively less representative.
  • The States as such have had no voice in DC since 1913 and the 17th Amendment. Senators are far more beholden to their party than their state, and generally rich enough to ignore the peasantry back home.
  • The beloved IRS has had eminent domain over the American wallet since 1913 and the 16th Amendment. Recently it has been an iron rod in the service of the White House.
  • The Federal Reserve has successfully demolished the purchasing power of the dollar since 1913.

In response to this, Michael Farris is offering the sort of leadership that the GOP would, were the Republican elite not a pack of anemic, spavined, emasculated examples of the species homo bureaucratus. John McCain, you broken down old tool, I mean you.

An Article V convention, properly controlled and pondered for years beforehand to get it right, (in other words, the precise opposite of ObamaCare), is Exactly. What. We. Need.

We’re going to recover this country from Progressive collapse, Ellis. Do try to keep up.

via HotAir headlines

Comments

54 Responses to “Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States”

  1. Socialism: Organized Evil
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:00 pm

    It seems mind-boggling that the 17th Amendment was ever ratified in the first place.

  2. smitty
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:08 pm

    Federalism was seen as a bug, not a feature. A century and $17Tr in debt later, that may have been a premature view.

  3. Kirby McCain
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:15 pm

    If we can’t stop the progressive collapse we’ll document the hell out of it.

  4. PalmBayConservative
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:25 pm

    Awesome to hear you’re in support of a Convention of States.

  5. K-Bob
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:26 pm

    Well done, sir!

  6. WarEagle82
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:27 pm

    If the States, which created the Federal Government, fail to rein it in in the next few years, the Republic will collapse. It is inevitable.

    I think a well planned, controlled convention may be the only option left to us.

  7. dkmkc2000
    February 21st, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States http://t.co/uaa3YzVj1j #TCOT

  8. RS
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:41 pm

    . . . properly controlled and pondered for years beforehand to get it right . . .

    I fear we don’t have years. It may be too late already, inasmuch as no one inside the Beltway wants to see his/her power diminished.

  9. smitty
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:46 pm

    No, you have to take the time to get it right, or you’re only going to get hijacked and worsen matters.

  10. smitty
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:47 pm

    I heard Farris’s pitch last Fall. Most lucid talk I’d heard in years.

  11. RS
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:50 pm

    I don’t disagree with you; I, too, fear something being hijacked. But I also worry about where we’re headed in the next several years, regardless of what happens in November or in 2016. I worry that the patient is too far gone.

  12. PalmBayConservative
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:54 pm

    Did you know that was started by the people, via state legislators back in 1889? It was almost a Convention after years and years of campaigning and applying to congress to do it. They were one state shy of a convention. But eventually, it passed the congress and senate in 1912

  13. PalmBayConservative
    February 21st, 2014 @ 9:57 pm

    I hope people understand, this is all that’s left. No other way. If this fails ,we submit or we fight.

  14. Bob Belvedere
    February 21st, 2014 @ 10:46 pm

    There is one other option, if the Convention Of The Several States fails. And we should be ready to execute it, just in case.

  15. Bob Belvedere
    February 21st, 2014 @ 10:48 pm

    It may, indeed, be terminal.

    The Left is so entrenched in government at all levels and the people are so brainwashed with Leftist Thinking, that nothing short of a Second War Of Independence [not Revolution] may be our only hope.

  16. Josh_Painter
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 1:15 am

    RT @smitty_one_each: Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States http://t.co/uaa3YzVj1j #TCOT

  17. Adjoran
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 2:16 am

    Unfortunately, Farris merely asserts that “one state, one vote” is the rule. That is not specified in the Constitution, in Article V or anywhere else. It is certainly true the previous Constitutional Conventions used that principle, but they had little choice if they wanted all states to participate. And while our practice generally follows English common law, there is no way to enforce rules existing before the Constitution or the practice of other nations.

    You can argue all you want, but that would be a matter of dispute from the beginning.

    Even more daunting is the practical problem. You need 34 states to call such a convention and 38 to ratify any amendments. There are 17 states which have voted Democratic in the last four general elections, another three they won 3/4, and another five states carried twice by each party. Presuming the Democrat-dominated states would oppose the conservative theme of restraining the federal government, it gets pretty hard to get to 34. With the 21 states carried the last four election by Republicans and the two carried three of four, even winning the five evenly split states only adds up to 28, six states short.

    This of course doesn’t even address the need for a further four states to ratify the Amendments presented.

    If you could really get that sort of consensus, you wouldn’t need the convention. There is none. Oh, you can find polls where people say they are against debt and fear the federal government’s power, but polls are not votes and they do NOT vote that way. In fact, even the polls showing people against debt show the same people unwilling to entertain cuts in almost any federal program except foreign aid, which amounts to a tiny fraction of the budget.

  18. Adjoran
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 2:19 am

    They passed and ratified the 18th before you could say, “Last call!” so don’t be surprised what a popular wave can bring. Such waves don’t come along often, though, and that’s a good thing.

  19. Adjoran
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 2:46 am

    The idea that “the Federal Reserve has successfully demolished the purchasing power of the dollar since 1913” is just not true. For instance, a dozen eggs cost about 20 cents back then. By simple inflation calculation, the “real” price in 2012 would be $4.78, but that is quite misleading because wages were much lower back then. The relative value of the eggs for an unskilled laborer today would be $19.90, for the average skilled laborer $27.69, so it is evident that by any measure the purchasing power of the dollar has increased, not been “demolished.”

    The same is true for any (unsubsidized) commodity available then and now, but the prices, even adjusted, don’t tell the whole story. The quality and safety of most items is much better and more reliable today, not reflected in the numbers. And there are so many things a worker can buy today that even J.P. Morgan or John Rockefeller could not buy at any price then.

    Of course, the real truth is the FRB has nothing to do with the purchasing power of the dollar at all. Their task is to regulate the currency so it matches the economy. If there is too little currency, deflation occurs, which as we have seen can practically kill an economy. Too much currency leads to inflation and rapidly rising prices and interest rates, which is also harmful. The Fed aims for a low rate of inflation, about 2%, simply because the economy adjusts much better to low inflation than to low deflation, so they always want to err on that side rather than the other.

    Of course, a general understanding of how the economy and monetary policy works would avoid such misstatements.

  20. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:03 am

    One state one vote is longstanding precedent. Claims about arguing all one wants seem futile in the face of the clearly established way such conventions have been held. And many have been held.

    Only one “Constitutional Convention”, out of many conventions held among the states, has ever happened. Under the existing Constitution, none may happen again.

    The rest of your comment simply underscores the fact that the oft-cited “runaway convention” faces more difficulties than a regular one. As for it being difficult, try chaos.

  21. NeoWayland
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:40 am

    I’d argue that a properly controlled Article V convention is exactly what we don’t need.

    Considering that the current party leadership from both major parties would be doing the “controlling,” all we could expect from such a convention is less freedom and more control.

  22. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:51 am

    The process is controlled by the state legislatures. Party leadership has very little pull with those folks.

  23. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 6:59 am

    The problem with that particular worry is that it’s not a factor you can account for. It’s like worrying if a marriage will last or a battle plan will work (or perhaps they are the same thing?). The best plan is to soldier through it without faltering, regardless of possible failure.

  24. NeoWayland
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 7:39 am

    Don’t misunderstand, I think a convention is the best option. I just think that once the “planning” starts, the state legislatures will step aside “for the duration of the emergency.” If will all look very voluntary of course, but they will be co-opted.

  25. Art Deco
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 8:04 am

    We are definitely in need of a comprehensive constitutional restructuring, but the specific complaints you offer are badly misconceived.

    Popular election of senators changes the modal senatorial type: you get people adept at fund-raising and publicity campaigns rather than people adept at building relationships with small-time pols. State legislatures have offered only feeble complaints at the escalating manipulation of state and local government by the Congress and the federal judiciary since 1916 bar one issue: race relations. (It sort of tainted the cause of local discretion when it was most vigorously defended for the purpose of allowing local sheriff’s and local judges to abuse resident blacks; of allowing local voter registrars to give the brush off to black taxpayers; and of allowing state legislatures to insist that blacks be transported all over hell-and-gone to attend school, that merchants cut up their premises so blacks are not seated next to whites, that blacks be debarred from state universities, and that blacks be debarred from any sort of public employment which would have them supervising anyone else). Having state legislature elect senators will not do squat. Eliminating the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, and the implied powers clause and allowing a biennial conference of state legislators to make revocable delegations of power to Congress might restrain centralization.

    An amendment to repair public finance is much in order. Replacing central banking with a specie based currency would be, in the words of Sir Alan Walters, ‘crackers’. Eliminating income taxes is a bad idea as well. Try these:

    1. Define the tax base in detailed language in an appendix to the constitution and eliminate the discretion of any legislative body to deviate from it and offer any kind of special deduction, exemption or credit; debar the use of income taxes to confer favors on discrete economic sectors. Incorporate the same non-descriminatory principles into the administration of sales taxes, property taxes, value added taxes, estate taxes, &c.

    2. Making exception for some small indemnity programs (e.g. disaster relief), require all intergovernmental transfers to be according to a formula which takes into account population and per capita income and require all such transfers to be un-restricted.

    3. Replicate in the federal constitution language you find in state constitutions requiring balanced budgets. You can provide for a manual over-ride in case of a banking crisis or general mobilization, but vest in some body other than the U.S. Congress the discretion to declare whether we are in a banking crisis or general mobilization.

    Something has to be done about the judiciary. Some suggestions:

    1. Mandatory retirement for all judges at age 76 (adjustable upward as life expectancy improves).

    2. Mandatory minimum age of 32 for municipal courts and 39 for all other judges.

    3. Periodic retention referenda and occasional recall for all judges not elected (and especially for all federal judges).

    4. Extending to legislatures the right to interpellate judges under pain of contempt.

    5. Explicit language debarring ‘living constitutionalism’

    6. Extending to conventions of state legislators and local councillors the franchise to strip judicial opinions of their status as binding precedent, to debar further citation of such decisions, and to debar their placement in case reporters.

    7. Reform of legal training: reduce the standard law degree to one calendar year preceded by no more than about 18 months of preparatory certificates in the arts-and-sciences and business but supplemented with office apprenticeships.

    Of course, the opposition would never countenance any of this. There are vested interests who like the crooked status quo just fine. The truth is, reconstruction of free and popular government will require either political violence (what Gottfried Dietze called a dffidatio) or the replication of what went on during the period running from 1785 to 1789 or 1933 to 1945 or 1954 to ? when extant institutions were simply disregarded by a critical mass of the authorities.

  26. Quartermaster
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 10:47 am

    You have as yet to answer the question of who controlled the currency before the FRB came around. Your JP Morgan Legend does not suffice. If you seriously believe the FRB does not control the value of the currency, then you are insane.

    I will grant that purchasing power is influenced by things other than the currency supply, but that supply, which the FRB has enabled has led to exactly what we have seen as loss of purchasing power over the years.

  27. Quartermaster
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 10:48 am

    And chaos is the destination on our current path.

  28. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:34 pm

    There are 7000+ state and territorial legislators.

    The vast majority of whom, being politicians, will likely crave MORE power, not less.

    The Article Five Process is a way for them to get more power. They aren’t going to let some distant clown in DC wade into their territory and boss them around. Especially since almost NONE of them receive any help from party leadership at all. At the state level, it’s often the other way around.

  29. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:36 pm

    It truly is. People that don’t understand this are in for a nasty shock.

  30. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:40 pm

    Not only that, but “adjusting for inflation” is an admission of a loss of purchasing power.

    People not on welfare pay a much higher portion in terms of work hours on coffee and transportation than they have ever had to do in my lifetime.

  31. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:43 pm

    I like getting ahead of the curve with that name. Labels matter.

    They want us to microstamp our ammo. That’s what we should put on it.

  32. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:44 pm

    Heh.

    It’ll take forty years just to process all the iPhone video people will turn in.

  33. K-Bob
    February 22nd, 2014 @ 5:50 pm

    By the way, folks, we discuss this issue every Monday over at Scoop’s. Also I have some useful info over at ArticleFiveProcess.

    It’s well worth your time to learn about the application process, the way conventions are held, and who attends. Also who “controls” the conventions. We cover it all at both sites. Plus we have lots and lots of links to useful stuff, including what I call “the source code,” which is the major body of work done by Legal and Historical Constitutional scholars on the process.

  34. NeoWayland
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 1:35 am

    That assumes that ANY of this goes by the rules.

    A “planned” convention will co-opt them, just as it has on everything from education to retirement planning. They’ll be offered power, money, and a seat at the table but they will never see the chains that will prevent them from acting.

  35. Adjoran
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 2:55 am

    Morgan is a legend, but his control of the currency ended a long series of panics, recessions, and bank runs. 1907 was the second panic from which he had rescued the country personally, so there was no objection. His recommendations did not have the force of law, but were followed because it was more or less universally accepted he was the only one who knew what he was about.
    Both the Treasury (in the form of silver and sometimes gold certificates) and private banks (by issuing their own currencies backed by US bonds they purchased) issued currency. Before Morgan, every issuer just tried to meet their own estimate of demand (Treasury was authorized by Congress to issue, but the amounts were not specified as it was not an appropriation).
    In the existing agrarian economy, money typically flowed to the farmers in the hinterlands on harvest, prompting banks to raise their interest to attract it back to them to be loaned again next season. But this process often created shortages of currency in the ebb and flow, resulting in panics, bank runs, etc. especially as industrialization and urban growth created new needs for currency.
    Everyone understood some system was needed, but it was not until Morgan died that Congress was forced to act, creating the Federal Reserve by organizing the banks which issued currency into regions managed by Presidentially appointed Governors. Thus the issuance of currency was first lawfully brought under central control, but the power to issue Federal Reserve Notes on its own authority didn’t come until 1933.
    Federal Reserve banks are all privately owned but operate under federal charter.

  36. Adjoran
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 2:59 am

    No, perhaps I was unclear. The dozen eggs which cost 20 cents in 1913 would cost $4.78 in 2012 if the price were adjusted for inflation of the currency alone. People make more today than in 1913 and have more purchasing power in real terms. Do you pay $4.78 for a dozen eggs? You would if your purchasing power had not in fact INCREASED since then.

  37. Quartermaster
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 7:25 am

    Morgan was not the legend. The story you told is the legend. While you allude to the problem, you don’t really deal with it well.

    Banks often issued their own currency based upon the specie they held. Consequently, no one controlled “the” currency because there was no one currency, although there was a single monetary system, the value of which was controlled by Congress, IAW the constitution. Money was gold and silver. Currency was paper.

    Because so many banks issued currency. Morgan could not save the currency by himself. He was able to save the banking system, with some help.

    The FRB solved nothing except to consolidate the issuance of currency, and then proceeded to drub its value.

  38. Art Deco
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:15 am

    The economist Alan Walters had a curt description of advocates of a gold standard: “crackers”. There’s a reason for that. Contrast the experience of 1929 to 1933 with that of 2008 to 2009 and you see the disutility of gold fetters.

    Nominal prices are not that important. Real incomes are important. Real income per capita has increased four-fold since 1929. People today are not injured by the fact that the purchasing power of a unit of currency is lower. Inflation is only ever a problem while it is occurring and while expectations of inflation linger. It is not a problem retrospectively.

    Inflation can be adequately contained with prudent monetary policy, as it was from 1951 to 1966 and as it has been since 1982.

  39. Art Deco
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 9:16 am

    Oh, we’re all in the Matrix. Or whatever.

  40. K-Bob
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 4:57 pm

    Many things cost less per unit of work. Sure.

    A great deal of the more critical ones have gone from inconsequential on that budget (back in the forties and fifties) to major import. Eggs and bread are not really on a par with housing and transportation. 30-year mortgages are still a relatively new thing to our society.

    Meats and dairy are not commensurately cheaper.

  41. K-Bob
    February 23rd, 2014 @ 5:04 pm

    There won’t be a “planned” convention. The state legislatures send delegates who represent that state’s legislature only. They may be fired immediately and any votes cast be erased if they do not follow that particular legislature’s instructions.

    The Texas and Alabama legislatures, to name only two, are simply going to ignore anyone claiming to have control over this process. Indiana has passed a law in advance of this process declaring that failure to comply with the commissioning instructions can actually result in criminal penalties for any delegate (actually they’d be commisioners).

    So no, there won’t be any party bosses or Karl Rove style PACs running roughshod over this.

    The states have begun early meetings to discuss agenda and issues relevant to organizing one convention. Even in those meetings, each state only gets one vote.

    Further, nothing prevents competing or even co-aligned conventions. We could end up with several conventions once the ball gets rolling.

  42. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 12:52 am

    “This is the world, there is no other.”

  43. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 12:55 am

    I’ll believe it when there aren’t professional politicos and technocrats running the process.

    Until then, I’ll just look at the various attempted reforms from the last half century or so.

  44. K-Bob
    February 24th, 2014 @ 1:16 am

    While you’re busy believing later and playing wait and see, some folks are doing the hard work to Restore the Constitution. Why not pitch in? It’s going to happen, one way or another. May as well be part of the process.

  45. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 2:00 am

    Because since the 2nd GWB administration, the evidence has convinced me that the Constitution is a major part of the problem.

    McCain-Feingold, the NSA surveillance and the ever-growing security state, and Obamacare are just three examples of things found “Constitutional” and enshrined in law. I could give you hundreds of others, starting with the regulatory agencies that are a power unto themselves complete with their own court system and rules of evidence.

    Remember, the Constitution started as reforming the Articles of Confederation.

  46. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 2:06 am

    Besides the obvious repeal of the 16th & 17th Amendments, here are two that I like to toss out.

    Add “None of the Above” to all elections.

    Give each state legislature the power to choose one Federal law each year to submit to a national popular referendum. So every Congressional election, the people would vote to retain up to 100 Federal laws. If each law doesn’t get the votes, it is no longer a law.

  47. K-Bob
    February 24th, 2014 @ 4:01 am

    I like those concepts.

  48. K-Bob
    February 24th, 2014 @ 4:05 am

    The Philadelphia Convention was charged with addressing the “Constitution of the United States”. It was unique.

    A critical point you are hinting at is that some agency needs to be able to rein in that long train of abuses. That is the idea behind the Article Five Convention.

    States do have power. It’s just that they have been restrained from acting directly. (It’s a “bug” caused by the Seventeenth amendment’s breaking of the state legislatures’ control over the Senate membership.)

  49. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 6:57 am

    By accepting the amendment process, the states lock themselves into an institutional trap. I’m no expert, but just reading the words “planned convention” sparked five possible ways that the combined national party leadership could derail it because a majority of the states have to agree. Three involve spending obscene amounts of cash, one withholds obscene amounts of cash, and one costs nothing and has no countermove that I can see. Each of them would probably work.

    The weakness of a convention is that the states have to act together and they can’t cut any side deals. Anything else and it all goes back to politics. If I can think of that, I’m pretty sure all those political advisors have it plugged into their spreadsheets and their Power Point presentations.

    The only sure way out of the institution trap is a willingness to destroy the institution itself. So let me ask you, could we have America without a Constitution or a Federal government? Is that a price you’re willing to pay?

  50. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 6:59 am

    Thank you. Here’s another for you.

    All campaign donations must come from voters residing in the area affected by the election, and immediately after the election unused monies must be divided and returned proportionately to those who donated.