Constitutional convention talk refuses to go away

June 26, 2006

I mentioned a few weeks ago that some of the less-sane members of the GOP base are openly considering a [tag]constitutional convention[/tag] because of the Senate’s failure to pass an [tag]amendment[/tag] banning [tag]gay marriage[/tag]. Unfortunately, talk of such a ridiculous idea seems to be increasing, not decreasing.

Two weeks ago, the far-right Family Research Council hosted a meeting of “the top leaders of the marriage movement — Catholic, Protestant and Mormon leaders among others — [who] discussed the possibility of an unprecedented Constitutional Convention.” Yesterday, Bob Novak reported that the campaign is beginning, in earnest, including possible appeals to state legislatures.

The provision of the Constitution’s Article V requiring such a convention if called by two-thirds of the state legislatures has never been used. Fear of throwing the Constitution open to general amendment has overridden support for specific issues. However, key advocates of barring gay marriages think the constitutional convention strategy will keep the issue alive.

A recent memo circulated within the anti-gay marriage coalition lists Princeton Professor Robby George, Tony Perkins and Chuck Donovan of the Family Research Council, and conservative financial consultant Frank Cannon as favoring the strategy.

I still find it hard to believe any serious person would even raise the possibility of a constitutional convention with a straight face, but here we are, nearly a month after the New York Sun first reported on the issue. Instead of watching these guys get laughed off the stage, discussions about how to proceed are underway. It’s genuinely breathtaking.

For what it’s worth, Article V explains that two-thirds of state legislatures (34) can bypass Congress and call for nationwide constitutional convention. There, lawmakers can propose any amendments they want, and those backed by three-quarters of legislatures become part of the Constitution.

The odds of any of this moving forward are next to nothing, but the fact that some major conservative groups are actively discussing and plotting strategy on the idea says a great deal about just how radical the conservative movement has become.

Perhaps it’s my ignorance of history, but this sure seems quite similar to the temperance movement leading up to prohibition. Is this observation completely wrong? If not, am I too optimistic to hope for a similar eventual outcome? (meaning the repeal, not the plethora of byzantine liquor laws around the country).

  • A constitutional convention is a recipe for disaster for everyone. Rightists may find that it passes a lot of things that they don’t like, such as legalizing gay marriage and things that leftists don’t like, like, perhaps repealing the income tax outright.

    What is also at risk is that the constitutional convention could conceivably appoint a dictator in a time of crisis and dissolve Congress, the Presidency, and uh, suspend the Bill of Rights. Legally, they can do that. There are no constitutional limits whatsoever on a constitutional convention.

  • Let them call it … then load it up with progressives and make an amendment that bans making amendments that effectively remove rights away from American citizens.

    Just a thought …

  • If we’re lucky, they’ll also vote to secede, and we’ll get our country back.

  • “There are no constitutional limits whatsoever on a constitutional convention.” – Will O\’The Wisp

    Only the requirement to have their constitution ratified.

    But you guys are missing all the real fun on the right wing blogs (which I have only skimmed). The Master Swiftboater himself, Jerome R. Corsi, has discovered the evil Bushite plot to overthrow U.S. sovereignity and create a new North American Union of Canada, Mexico and the United States. Even the Canadians are getting twichy.

    So how better to achieve this than to have a constitutional convention and invite the Canadian Provinces and the Mexican States (they are both federal systems, after all) to the convention? Then they can fix all their problems with the current constitutions in all three countries. (I’m thinking particularly the restriction of Bush running for a third term. After all, he has a war to win.)

    But actually, I think the progressive and liberal MAJORITY of this country should prepare themselves to take control of a constitutional convention and make it work. After all, one of the authors of the original constitution thought we should have constitutional conventions every twenty years. Which means we are two CENTURIES late. In fact the Constitution is going to be 220 years old next year.

  • but the fact that some major conservative groups are actively discussing and plotting strategy

    is it official now that “wingnut religous” = “conservative” ? I don’t think we should give them that all-encompensing label. They have a single-interest self-interested agenda and giving them the broader label associated with a long-standing political tradition gives them a larger political legitimacy than they deserve. It’s the next step down the road that allowed Bush to label Jesus Christ as a *political* philisopher without anyone bothering to make the distinction between religion and political philosophy. When did we so casually allow religion and religious advocacy to become synonymous with government?

  • is it official now that “wingnut religous” = “conservative” ? I don’t think we should give them that all-encompensing label.

    But if this label does indeed stick, couldn’t it work in our favor? Like how the rightwing managed to make “liberal” such a dirty word. Conceiveably we could make “conservative” a dirty word for the broad middle of the electorate.

    Hope springs eternal.

  • ***If we’re lucky, they’ll also vote to secede, and we’ll get our country back.***
    Comment by short fuse

    Better yet, WE will secede. Yes…we’ll take our money, and our farms, and our middle-class real estate, and all of our soldiers—and form our own society. The Rethugs and their chia-pet wingnuts can try to run their precious little world theocracy without us. Their only tax base will be the very individuals that they’ve given all the tax breaks to. Their “fodder for the fields of war” will have to be their own children….

  • Conceiveably we could make “conservative” a dirty word for the broad middle of the electorate.

    since the majority of the electorate profess to be church-going, I think it would be difficult to shift it to be a dirty word (although it would be fun to try) – I just think the better course is to constantly remind people that religion and government ARE different in America – with different traditions and different values that are not interchangeable and that the religious agenda has nothing at all to do with “government” as Americans understand it. These RELIGIOUS groups want to change the American form of government to satisfy their narrow RELIGIOUS goals and impose their RELIGIOUS beliefs on the entire population of America. Sounds much scarier, doesn’t it? Labelling them as “conservative” just doesn’t sound nearly as accurate – or scary.

  • They may only be doing this for the headlines, a little cheap publicity. They can do the horizontal lambada with each other all they want if it makes them feel good, but just let them start to make serious advances on the general population and I think they’ll get smacked down pretty quick.

    People are getting tired of all this hooha, and whatever the Dobsons say, when politicians are dumping Bush like a bucket of old concrete they aren’t going to be willing to do much about an issue that isn’t going to help them come election time.

  • “far right revolutionary” and “conservative” are two very different animals, as the conservatives of Germany discovered to their sorrow 70+ years ago.

    Billy Wilder – who I knew back in the 80s and early 90s – constantly told me how, back when he lived in Berlin in the 20s, his friends would laugh at him for his taking Hitler and the Nazis seriously as he saw them gain power here and there around the country. On the night the Nazis won the election in 1933 (or, to be historically correct, won the plurality), he packed everything he owned in two steamer trunks, took them to the Berlin train station and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. As he told me “all those people who told me I was an alarmist were dead when I finally came back 12 years later.”

    These people here – far right revolutionaries/”movement” conservatives and NOT actual conservatives – really are a threat, and anyone who looks at their rise over the past 30 years and doesn’t see that is willfully blind.

    As Upton Sinclair put it: “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”

  • I absolutely agree with Tom Cleaver (and Upton Sinclair). I think it’s premature to see Nazis around every corner, but keeping an eye out ain’t a bad idea.

    Conditions here are nothing like Germany’s in the 1920s and 1930s. But I think they could become very close, and I don’t think it would require depression and breadlines. Here, we are so spoiled, returning a shopping cart is a sacrifice. The combination of a huge jump in fuel prices (with the resultant stock market dive) and a major terror attack would, I think, produce enough panic to tip American politics towards authoritarianism, if not nazism. The degree of this country’s political polarization, along with tension over immigration, makes things even more volatile. And the Bush Congress has been setting the table. Proof of that is the lack of outrage over serious constitutional violations and acceptance of more and more secrecy.

    Even among the nazis, there were early objections regarding the authoritarian direction of the German legal system, but those voices were simply shoved aside until they, too, gave in.

    Like Tom’s example, the “move to Canada” jokes may become serious.

  • Interesting story, Tom. I’ve been wondering for a while if I’ll recognize that we’ve gotten to the critical point right before the tipping point, or if I’ll only recognize it after it has passed, when it’s too late.

  • The scary thing is that it is far easier for the right wingers to get and control a constitutional convention because the voting is done by state and because of the small state advantage. There’s no guarantee that they could — Bush won 31 states last election, so it would take all those states plus three to call a convention, and 38 to pass the new constitution. Still, it could happen.

  • Two weeks ago, the far-right Family Research Council hosted a meeting of “the top leaders of the marriage movement — Catholic, Protestant and Mormon leaders among others — [who] discussed the possibility of an unprecedented Constitutional Convention.”

    Mormons? WTF? Does this mean that marriage should be between one man and an indeterminate number of women?

    Yeah, I know, that was over a century ago. But why should I listen to a group that once endorsed polygamy preach about traditional marriage?

  • KTinOhio:

    I love it! A constitutional ammendment requiring polygamy! The larger the heterosexual marriage, the better. But why stop there? Require harems. Christian harems, of course.

  • I can see the same thugs who stopped the recount in Florida intimidating any such convention. If this Pandora’s box is opened, we are headed for civil war and/or a totalitarian, theocratic state.

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