Episode 6 Show Notes- Restoring Power to the People: Draining “The Swamp” through a Convention of States

 

Episode Description

What happens when political parties put party loyalty over the country? What happens when the establishment and elite decide they know what’s in your best interest rather than you do. The government has usurped the authority of the people, and it is time to return power back to the rightful authorities- ‘We the people.’ The corruption of Washington can be corrected with some minor changes through a Convention of States. There are those wishing to grant government ever more power and undo the system the founders’ setup. It is time to act to ensure the vision and foresight of the founding fathers remains intact, and those holding office put country before party.

Intro

Welcome everyone to another episode of The PAS Report Weekly Roundup Podcast. I already discussed factions during a previous episode on censorship. Over the years, career politicians have entrenched themselves within the system. They have abdicated their responsibilities to the constituents they serve. They have granted an enormous amount of power to the bureaucracy with little to no real oversight. As always, if you want to review the sourcing of my material, you can visit my website- https://pasreport.com.

While the founding fathers institutionalized safeguards, there are those who have circumvented the safeguards in their pursuit of power. Both parties are guilty, and accountability is non-existent. Some radicals are calling for a complete overhaul of our system including the abolishment of the Electoral College, modifying the Senate to make it a representative based institution, adding justices to the Supreme Court for ideological purposes, and even calling for changes in voter eligibility. I wrote a series entitled The Undoing of America, which explains how individuals want to systematically do away with our Constitution, and remake America in their image.

While the founding fathers were brilliant, it has become apparent that there are things they did not foresee. Rather than take the radical approach and destroy our institutions and the concept of liberty, We can make minor changes to correct the defects that exist. The challenge is these changes require amending the Constitution, which is no easy task.

Before I discuss the changes needed, I want to explain how the Constitution is amended.

 

Article V

Our founding fathers understood that there may be times where we need to amend the Constitution. They provided a couple of pathways in Article V of the Constitution. At the same time, they made the process difficult.

They believed in the Constitution so much that they wanted to make sure there was widespread support if the Constitution needed to be amended. Without agreement and necessity, it is very challenging to push through a Constitutional amendment. The founding fathers wanted a substantial national agreement, and agreement in most of the states (we are called the United States for a reason), that an urgent problem exists, and the only remedy is to change the Constitution.

 

Federalist 43

James Madison argued that by making the process extremely difficult, it guards against the ability to change the Constitution too much, which in the eyes of Madison would render the Constitution useless. He said, “It guards equally against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable.” (Federalist 43)

 

Federalist 85

Alexander Hamilton argued that by making so difficult to amend the Constitution, it serves as a barrier against the encroachment of national authority. Hamilton understood well that if you make it easy to amend the Constitution, those in the national government will abuse it to take power away from the people and the states, which will ultimately lead to tyranny. (Federalist 85)

There are two ways to amend the Constitution, and a two-step process in each way.

 

The first way to amend the Constitution

Two-thirds of Congress votes to amend the Constitution. This would require nearly 285 of 435 members of the House of Representatives and 67 out of 100 Senators. Obviously, a substantial number of Democrats and Republicans would be needed to push the amendment past stage 1. If an amendment passes Congress it then must be ratified by three-fourths of the States either through the State legislatures or through State Ratifying Conventions. 38 out of 50 states must be in agreement. (U.S. Constitution)

Obviously, this is a very difficult task. It is difficult to get to a simple majority in Congress let alone an overwhelming majority. In order to understand the magnitude of the difficulties consider this:

• First 10 Amendments (the Bill of Rights) was passed in 1791.
• Amendments 13 (abolishing slavery), 14 (equal protection/citizenship) and 15 (right of citizens to vote) were done following the Civil War.
• So out of 27 amendments, 15 were ratified by 1870.
• Take out prohibition and the repeal of prohibition, and we are talking about 12 amendments, mostly noncontroversial, in 149 years=1 amendment every 12.5 years.

However, all 27 of our amendments were passed and ratified using this method. This highlights the challenges the second way faces to correct the defects currently present within the system.

For our purposes, the first way is useless. Since many of the simple fixes we need impact Congress, it is near impossible that members of Congress will vote against their self-interests and limit their power.

 

The second way to amend the Constitution

The second way to amend the Constitution is to start the process in the States. It bypasses the Congress and allows for the amendments to be proposed that Congress does not want us to propose. The Congress will not be able to play a role in developing the Conventions agenda. This method is also referred to as the Convention of States. (Convention of States)

In order to have a Convention of States, the process includes:

• A Convention of States is a convention called by the state legislators for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution.
• In order to have a Convention of States, 34 state legislatures must pass a resolution called an “application” calling for a Convention of States. These applications must request a Convention of the States for the same subject matter and are then delivered to Congress.
• Congress cannot reject a Convention of States as long as the applications deal with the same issue.
• Each State would choose their delegates and would determine the number and selection process of the delegates they will send.
  • The selection process could be through an the election of one or both houses of the State legislator, appointment by the governor, or direct vote by the people.

What happens at the Convention of States

Once a Convention is underway, the Commissioners from each state can propose, discuss, and vote on amendments. (Convention of States)

• Each amendment passes the convention through a simple majority of States (26), with each state having one vote.
• Once the amendment is passed, it is then sent back to the States for ratification.
• 38 States would need to ratify the amendment for it to become part of our Constitution.
  • Congress can delegate the State legislatures as the ratifying bodies, or
  • It may choose to have States call for ratifying conventions.

Convention of States Action is an organization fighting hard to push State Legislators to call for a Convention of States. Mark Meckler, President of this organization, has been leading the fight, and he has made great progress as 15 States have passed a COS resolution, COS resolution passed in one house in 7 states, and 13 states have active legislation for a Convention of States.

And many thanks to Professor Rob Natelson. If it wasn’t for his work and research, we wouldn’t be this close. He is the foremost authority on the topic, and his research is one of the main drivers behind the movement. You can visit conventionofstates.com for more information on their work.

 

What changes are necessary to correct the abuses within the system

There are several changes that must be made to correct the balance of power and to stop the abuses within the system. In order to fully drain the swamp.

1) Congressional Term Limits– Easily one of the least controversial of all amendments. Our founding fathers did not want career legislators. Rather than wanted people with convictions and ideals to run for office, and push their policy (I.e., a farmer has an issue, runs for Congress, gets issue debated and voted on, leaves office once problem is resolved or avenues exhausted). They wanted civilians to run for office and did not want a permanent political class.

There were disagreements about whether to include term-limits on members of Congress when the Constitution was being developed.

• Madison argued against term limits in Federalist 53 stating, “greater the proportion of new members, and the less the information of the bulk of the members, the more apt will they be to fall into the snares that may be laid for them.” He felt if too many new members were elected, they would lose the foresight and wisdom of the more seasoned elected officials. (Federalist 53)
• Jefferson and anti-federalist, Melancton Smith, suggested including term limits. In an essay widely credited to Smith, he believed term limits can serve a useful check on those “elected for long periods, and far removed from the observation of the people…inattentive to the public good, callous, selfish, and the fountain of corruption.” (University of Chicago/Anti-Federalist 11)

However, while term-limits were not included, it was not considered a threat because term-limits were built in when you consider life expectancy. In 1787, life expectancy was approximately 34.5 years old (when infant mortality numbers removed, life expectancy was around 50 years old). (Constitution Center)

Today, people are living much longer and can therefore hold office much longer. Numerous examples of members of Congress serving 30, 40, even 50 years. Members of the House should not be able to serve more than 4 terms of 8 years. Members of the Senate should not be able to serve more than 2 terms of 6 years.

2) Increase in age for Elected Positions– The age to serve in the House is 25, the Senate is 30, and the President is 35. Put it in perspective. Who’s more responsible a 25-year-old in 1787 or a 25-year-old in 2019? The age should be tied to life expectancy. Do you really want a Congress person, who has no real-life history to be making important policy decisions? AOC example

3) Tying Congressional Salaries to Budget Deficit– Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have been highly irresponsible when it comes to spending our taxpayer dollars. Some examples of the wasteful spending include:

• $490.6 million on office furniture (It appears that prior to 2018, government bureaucrats didn’t have desks, cabinets, etc. to work with)
• $721,661 on pianos (No federal department or agency should need a piano. Just sayin’)
• $11,800 on a foosball table for one federal agency (How many people would be fired for playing foosball during work hours?)
• $250,000 was spent so that children of Pakistan could travel to the United States and attend Space camp and visit Dollywood. (I’m glad children from Pakistan get to go to summer camp, while I wonder what I can afford to do with my kids this summer.)
• $43 million to build a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) station in Afghanistan. (Consider this, out of every 1,000 Afghanis, only 29 have cars)
• $1.04 billion to expand San Diego’s trolley service by a total of 11 miles (So a wall to protect 329 million Americans is not necessary, but a trolley that serves .04% of the population is necessary?)
• $1.2 million was spent to research the social habits of monkeys. This was in addition to $1.2 million to get monkeys to drink alcohol excessively to determine what effect it has on their long-term body tissue (I guess we couldn’t find any human alcoholics that the study could have been conducted on.) Apparently, we love to study monkeys because we also spent another $171,000 to teach monkeys how to gamble, and according to the doctoral student conducting the study, “Luckily monkeys love to gamble.

I can go one and on, and do an entire episode on the dumb things we waste money on. We have a $22 trillion debt, and it continues to grow. Republicans campaigned on the promise of reigning in government spending, yet deficits continue. Both parties are responsible.

Some call for a balanced budget amendment, but this will not work. Many states require budgets to be balanced, yet they are still in a massive amount of debt. My amendment would quickly make Congress fiscally responsible as their salaries will be directly tied to the budget.

It is easy to spend taxpayer dollars, and Congress does not have a stake financially. When they talk about balancing the budget, they say maybe in 10 years we can get to one. That is ridiculous and unacceptable. First, projecting ten years out is impossible as a lot can happen: war, economic collapse, natural disasters, etc. Secondly, New members will be voted in and voted out of office, so budgets will not stay the same.

This amendment would call for Congress to get to a balanced budget within three years. After the 3-year mark, if Congress continues to run deficits, their salaries get reduced by 10% for every year they run a deficit. Once Congress starts running a surplus and begins to pay down the National Debt, their salaries increase by 5% each year we generate a surplus.

Sometimes governments have to spend more money then they take in so within the amendment a provision will include a safeguard: Congress can run deficits with no penalties if there is an active Declaration of War or if there is a declared economic emergency.

4) Ensuring laws passed by Congress apply to members of Congress– Congress has a habit of passing laws that it deems are in the best interest of the people, but they include amendments exempting the law applying to members of Congress. Why? If these laws are so good, why do members of Congress exempt themselves. This includes:

• Protections against retaliation for whistleblowers (so if someone blows a whistle on a member of Congress, they are not protected under whistleblower laws)
• Social Security (changed in 1984, but some members still don’t have to pay in if in office prior to 1984)
• Affordable Care Act (tried to exempt themselves until Senator Cruz put in an amendment requiring lawmakers to comply)

So, the amendment would ensure that any law Congress passes applies to the citizens of the United States and equally to Senators and Representatives.

5) Biannual review of federal programs– Every year billions of dollars are wasted in ineffective government programs. Unfortunately, the bureaucracies rarely review whether government programs are meeting their core mission and objectives. These programs are ineffective and inefficient. This amendment would require an outside independent auditor to review and determine whether a government program is meeting its objective. If the auditors determine the program is not meeting the objective, Congress will be required to scrap the program and not provide any more funding to that program. This will give the administrators of a program the incentive to insure that implemented programs are actually going to the benefit of the public as opposed to the bureaucracy.

6) Banning gerrymandering for political power– States have made a habit of redrawing district boundaries in order to retain their stranglehold on power for the majority party. Gerrymandering should not be used as a political weapon, and this amendment would insure gerrymandering is not used for political purposes giving one party an advantage over the other. Both Democrats and Republicans have used gerrymandering as a political weapon. The United States uses a grid system for land because it is easier and more logical. The grid system was made popular by Thomas Jefferson and creates order and uniformity. Congressional districts should be based on a grid system, not on political party affiliation.

7) Only citizens will be counted for Representation– As the U.S. citizen question continues to be debated by the Court, this amendment would insure that Congressional districts are based on citizens in a given area. Citizens vote for elected officials to represent them and do what is in their, and the United States’, best interest. This amendment would prevent malapportionment where one district is over represented. Urban areas receive more representation due to the size of their population. Congressional seats are based on a per population basis where for every 750,000 one Congressional seat is provided. As the illegal immigrant population continues to swell and now stands at 20-22 million according to a MIT Study, more representation is given to urban areas.

8) Ending the Use-it or Lose-it approach– The use-it or lose-it approach when it comes to grant funding is broken and needs to be abolished. Why would we punish organizations, federal agencies/departments, states and local governments, who spend taxpayer money responsibly. If an organization does not spend the grant money awarded, not only do they have to give the unspent money back to the Treasury Department, but they will have their budget cut in the upcoming fiscal year. This forces agencies to spend money on frivolous things that are not necessary and provide no benefit to the taxpayer. Rather than punish agencies for spending less money, they should be rewarded.

 

Popular Support

The amendments listed above are nonpartisan and would enjoy widespread popular support amongst Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. These amendments would correct many of the defects within the system and return a great amount of power back to the people. Congress will never support or introduce these measures, so a Convention of States would be the only chance to get these measures through.

These amendments do not radically alter the system of governance and our Republic. Rather, they are simple, common-sense reforms that are long overdue.

 

Controversial Amendments that should be considered

There are other common-sense measures that should be included, but these are more controversial as they may be viewed as partisan by nature. As a safeguard built into the system, the more controversial an amendment is, the more difficulty there will be on reaching a consensus. Nevertheless, it is important to debate these measures.

The federal government has usurped an enormous amount of authority from the States, and it is time to restore the balance back to the concept of federalism where we have two levels of government, both operate independently of each other, and neither level is reliant on the other.

1) Banning the weaponization of federal funding– States have become over reliant on federal tax dollars, and federal dollars account for nearly 33% of a state budget. This is unacceptable and makes the States beholden to the federal government. (Pew) The federal government extorts States by offering money if States adopt programs the federal government wants (examples). If any private entity attempted to do this, its officers would be thrown in prison and the business would be shut down. This amendment would make sure that States can do what is in their own best interests and develop programs they believe will benefit their State.

Much of the money the federal government provides, usurps the authority of the States and gets into policy matters that was left up to the states as defined in the 10^th Amendment. In addition, by providing an outrageous amount of money to the States, the States have also become fiscally irresponsible.

2) Consolidating government departments & agencies– The consolidation of departments and agencies would lead to a more fiscally responsible government, as well as prevent redundant program and services.

3) Introducing a Fair Tax– This is a much more difficult amendment to push through, but it is worth the effort. Our current tax code is complicated, confusing, and requires an enormous amount of time, money and effort to accurately file taxes. The process can easily be simplified by introducing a Fair tax were everyone pays 15% of their income, both individuals and corporations. By introducing 15% tax rate on everyone, you eliminate the burdensome, and costly right-offs and deductions.

Why should Amazon pay $0 in federal taxes? In addition, it insures that everyone has a stake in the system. So, if you make $30k a year, your taxes will be $4,500. If you make $100k a year, your taxes would be $4,500. This is relatively simple concept and takes the guess work out of the tax system.

4) Allow Congressional committees to veto regulations issued by federal bureaucracies– While Congress makes the law, the bureaucracy will interpret the legislation, develop regulations, and implement the law. This gives the bureaucracy an extraordinary amount of power. The Bureaucrats were not elected by the people and are essentially beholden to no one. Many times, the bureaucracy will introduce burdensome regulations that was never the intent of Congress or the legislation. Members of Congress can be held accountable by the people and so it would make sense to empower Congress to determine whether regulations fall within the intent of the legislation.

 

The Myth of a Runaway Convention

There are some, many who want to see federal power increase, and remake the institutions of government that warn a Convention of States will become a runaway convention meaning that a convention called for limited purposes will broaden in scope as more amendments are introduced. Some even warn that the entire U.S. Constitution could be done away with in one of these conventions. (Constitution Center)

These claims are not only false, but they are plain dumb. Many of the people making these claims have no idea as to the process. Others are simply lying for their own political power.

Two flaws in this logic.

The first is that the Constitution does not allow the states to limit the convention to particular subjects and so delegates are free to propose anything they want. This is false as the Constitution says that the states may apply for a “convention of proposing amendments.” Just by proposing amendments, it automatically limits the convention.

The second flaw is that even if radical amendments were proposed, the reality is nothing partisan or radical would be able to get passed. Example- if a delegate introduces an amendment that radically curbs Freedom of Speech or abolishes the 14th Amendment, they would still need 26 states to approve that amendment to pass out of Convention, and then 38 out of 50 states would need to ratify it. Let’s be realistic.

 

Final Thoughts

As you can see, amending the Constitution is a difficult process as it should be. The founders created the Constitution with a firm vision in mind, and they understood that if we make it easy to change/modify the Constitution, it will ultimately become useless. Also, if the amendment process were simple, government officials would use the process to expand and broaden their powers.

While the founders did a great job in drawing up the Constitution, some minor defects have arisen that need to be correct. These minor defects have led to a system where officials have expanded their powers and have put party politics above what’s in the best interest of the country. As indicated earlier, these minor changes will alleviate the current abuses and restore power to the people.

There is nothing to fear with the Convention of States because of the safeguards the founders implemented. Nothing controversial would be able to be passed. On many of the changes I mentioned, there is universal agreement regardless of political affiliation. The right, left and center of the political spectrum need to come together to reign in the abuses.

I want to thank you for joining us. If you would like more information about the Convention of States, you can visit https://conventionofstates.com. As always, if there is a topic you would like me to analyze, send an email to podcast@pasreport.com. We are becoming a movement for change in the United States. It is time to bring accountability and responsibility back to our government. If you believe in the message and find the value in this podcast, please share this episode with others, and please take a moment to write a review on iTunes. Thank you for joining us, stay safe, and I’ll be back next week.

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