Op-Ed: The Right Tool

In my life, I have had the opportunity to work on engines. On the front of an engine is a harmonic balancer. Without getting too technical, in order to work on the crankshaft, this balancer generally needs to be removed. On one particular engine that I rebuilt, a specific tool is needed in order to keep the engine from spinning so that the bolt can be taken out of the balancer. If you do not have this tool, the job is nearly impossible.

In many cases, we have specific tools that help to make life easier or solve a problem. Without trains, shipping would be much more expensive. Without airplanes, travel would be much slower. Without the internet, communication and many other things would be much slower if not impossible today.

In crafting the Constitution, our founders gave us specific tools to deal with future challenges. They knew that they would not be able to foresee everything. One of these tools is Article V.

Article V is the power to amend the Constitution. The first ten amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights, were passed when the Constitution was first adopted. Since then, 17 other amendments have been proposed by Congress and ratified by the states. This process has been instrumental in making the USA what it is today.

Along with giving Congress the ability to propose amendments, our founders foresaw that there may be some issues that Congress would refuse to fix. A perfect example is the national debt. Currently, we are at 38.5 trillion dollars in debt. That is money that my generation and future generations are going to have to pay back. Congress has demonstrated that they do not have the will to fix this problem. So it is up to us, the People, to make this change. Without our action, our debt will grow and grow until we can no longer service even the interest.

So, how do we fix this? By enacting the second part of Article V: that we convene an Article V Convention by the states to propose an amendment to balance the budget.

In 1982, Ronald Reagan pushed for an Article V convention in order to get a balanced budget amendment proposed. With his help, 32 states passed a resolution to hold a convention. Though this fell short of the 34 needed, it was enough political pressure to get Congress to start paying down the deficit to show they were serious about the debt.

There is much debate around an Article V Convention and several unanswered questions. Let me quickly try to clarify some issues that many have with a Convention. Article V is very specific on a few things. First, what is Congress’ role should a petition for a Convention reach the threshold? Specifically, Congress is given two assignments: to call the Convention (name a place and time) and specify the method of ratification which can be by the state legislatures or by conventions that are held in each state. There is no mention of Congress creating the rules that govern the convention.

So who controls the rules and elects the leadership for the convention? The closest body in government that we can compare an Article V Convention to is the legislature. After an election, the first thing that a legislature does is elect its own leadership and adopt its own rules. This would apply in this situation. Only those delegates from the states would be able to elect its own leadership and rules. Sending experienced delegates in legislative processes will be key to make sure that the process is followed correctly.

Is a Constitutional Convention possible? No, it is not. A “Con Con” is in and of itself unconstitutional. The only Constitutional Convention was in fact convened under the Articles of Confederation because our founders recognized that as created, the union would not survive. The only power of an Article V Convention is to propose amendments which must be ratified by ¾ of the states in order to become law. The bar has been set so high that since the creation of the Constitution, we have never called a Convention much less gone through the ratification process..

Whether we are successful in getting to the 34 states required to call a convention or not, the sole act of getting close may be enough to get Congress to act. Inaction, however, will lead to a debt spiral that will destroy our country. We need to use the tool our founders gave us in order to ensure that we as a country continue to exist for another 250 years.

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