The United States was fortunate to have more than its fair share of enlightened political leaders when our nation was founded. Our nation’s Founders agreed to adopt the greatest political document in history — the U.S. Constitution. This document resulted from several critical compromises and has stood the test of time.
The Constitution defines the authority provided to the federal government and notes that any rights not provided to it remain with the states and the people. The Constitution also provides a range of checks and balances between three separate and equal branches of government — legislative, executive and judicial.
The Constitution includes a Preamble that serves as an executive summary of the Founders’ intent. When you review the language of the Preamble, it becomes clear that the federal government has expanded far beyond the scope intended by the Founders. The Preamble also recognizes the need for the nation’s leaders to exercise their stewardship responsibilities to the nation and future generations. As a result, it includes language that charges federal leaders to not focus on today but also on our posterity.
The Founders recognized that the United States would never be perfect. Therefore, the Constitution included language noting that we should constantly strive to form a more perfect union. It also provided a way to amend the Constitution to help achieve this objective.
Article V of the Constitution provides two ways to amend the Constitution to help achieve needed reforms. Since its adoption in 1789, the Constitution has been amended 27 times, including the initial 10 amendments referred to as the Bill of Rights.
All of the amendments resulted from the first way to achieve them under Article V. Specifically, at least two-thirds of the House and Senate must pass a proposed amendment and at least three-quarters of the states must ratify it.
Contrary to the Founders’ intent, most of the members in Congress today are career politicians rather than temporary public servants who come from a cross-section of American society. As a result, like most people, members of Congress want to keep their jobs and are hesitant to address issues that may affect their ability to keep their jobs, including tough choices on spending and taxes.
Fortunately, the Founders recognized that Congress may become so out of touch and out of control, or that specific issues might present such a conflict of interest, that the states might need to assert their rights to propose amendments. The most pressing of such problems is controlling federal spending and mounting debt burdens.
As a result, Article V of the Constitution provides a second means to achieve a constitutional amendment. Namely, if two-thirds of the states file an application with Congress for a Convention of States to propose one or more amendments to the Constitution, then Congress must call the convention. This congressional duty is explicit, ministerial and non-discretionary, i.e., members do not have a choice.
Shockingly, recent research has discovered that in 1979, 39 states had active applications for a Convention of States to propose a fiscal responsibility amendment to the Constitution. Of the 39, 30 were limited to fiscal responsibility and nine were for a general, or “plenary,” convention. Therefore, the scope of the Convention of States can be limited to the single issue of fiscal responsibility. Any amendment proposed by the Convention of States would have to be ratified by at least three-quarters of the states.
Despite this discovery, Congress has never called for a convention, partly because Congress never assigned responsibility to collect, store and count the applications as they have with ratifying proposed amendments. It was also because Congress did not want to be limited in its ability to spend and add more debt that serves to mortgage our nation’s and families’ futures.
Given this, it is time for the states to assert their rights under Article V of the Constitution. Specifically, if Congress does not call a Convention of States or propose their fiscal responsibility amendment, then state attorneys general and authorized legislatures should sue Congress to force action. Failure to do so will effectively moot the equal right of the states to propose amendments under Article V in the future.
Adopting a fiscal responsibility constitutional amendment is the only way to force Congress to make the tough but necessary choices to restore fiscal sanity and sustainability. No nation is exempt from the laws of prudent finance. Our debt bomb is ticking. The time for action is now!
