| ALERT |
March 27, 2012
Please Forward this to everyone you know!
Oppose HJR 3: “Amendments Convention” or Con/Con
HEARING & VOTE: Tues. March 27, 2pm, Room 116
Please attend if you can.
This is an Emergency Alert. Please contact the committee and ask friends and family to do the same because the vote is Today.
MESSAGE: Vote NO on HJR 3. Do not put our Constitution at risk by asking Congress to “call a Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments.” Have you witnessed the ferocious battles in Congress over the debt ceiling? Can you imagine what that same battle would entail in a Constitutional Convention which could put our whole Constitution at risk as the “amendments convention” considers multiple versions and multiple amendments? Article V of the Constitution does not provide any way to limit an “amendments convention.” We don’t trust the politicians with our Constitution.
To EMAIL members you can send an email with your concerns to the whole Committee to the Secretary Samantha.cotten@ohr.state.oh.us
Or contact them individually by clicking on this link and then click on each member
Call the members of the House State
* Most important to call or contact:
*Chair Ron Maag: (614) 644-6023
Representatives:
*John Adams (Majority Whip) (614) 466-1507
*Louis W. Blessing, Jr. (614) 466-9091 (Speaker Pro Tempore)
Jim Buchy (614) 466-6344
Courtney Combs (614) 644-6721
Rex Damschroder (614) 466-1374
Mike Dovilla (614) 466-4895
Randy Gardner (614) 466-8104
*Cheryl Grossman (614) 466-9690 (Assistant Majority Whip)
*Matt Huffman (614) 466-9624 (Majority Floor Leader)
Philip Rose (614) 466-1366
Robert Sprague (614) 466-3819
Louis Terhar (614) 466-8258
Ron Young (614) 644-6074
*Ronald Gerberry (614) 466-6107 (Ranking Minority Member)
Ted Celeste (614) 644-6005
Kathleen Clyde (614) 466-2004
Teresa Fedor (614) 644-6017
Tom Letson (614) 466-5358
Matt Lundy (614) 644-5076
Bill Patmon (614) 466-7954
Michael Stinziano (614) 466-1896
TWENTY CRITICAL QUESTIONS ABOUT AN “ARTICLE V AMENDMENTS CONVENTION” OR CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION THAT MUST BE ANSWERED
- How would Delegates be selected or elected to a Constitutional Convention? (Would each state have one delegation vote like the original Constitutional Convention or would delegates be apportioned according to population like the House of Representatives giving large states the largest number of delegates?)
- What authority would be responsible for determining the number of Delegates from each state?
- What authority would be responsible for electing the Delegates to the convention?
- Would Delegates be selected based on Population, number of Registered Voters, or along Party lines?
- Would Delegates be selected based on race, ethnicity or gender?
- What authority would be responsible for organizing the convention, such as committee selection, committee chairs and members, etc.?
- How would the number of Delegates serving on any committee be selected and limited?
- How would the Chair of the Convention be selected or elected?
- What authority will establish the Rules of the Convention, such as setting a quorum, how to proceed if a state wishes to withdraw its delegation, etc?
- What authority would be responsible for selecting the venue for the Convention?
- Would proposed amendments require a two-thirds majority vote for passage?
- How would the number of votes required to pass a Constitutional Amendment be determined?
- What would happen if the Con Con decided to write its own rules so that 2/3 of the states need not be present to get amendments passed?
- Could a state delegation be recalled by its legislature and its call for a convention be rescinded during the convention?
- Would non-Delegates be permitted inside the convention hall?
- Will demonstrators be allowed and/or controlled outside the convention hall?
- Would congress decide to submit Con Con amendments for ratification to the state legislatures or to a state constitutional convention as permitted under Article V of the constitution?
- Where would the Convention be held?
- Who will fund this Convention?
- If these questions cannot be answered (and they CANNOT!), then why would any state legislator even consider voting for such an uncertain event as an Article V Constitutional Convention?
“Occupy Wall Street” endorses Article V—Amendments Convention
http://algoxy.com/ows/strategyofamerica1.html This is how an Article V Convention can be hijacked by those with a very different agenda than those who want to limit the federal debt.
Barry Goldwater said: "[I am] totally opposed [to a Constitutional Convention]...We may wind up with a Constitution so far different from that we have lived under for two hundred years that the Republic might not be able to continue."
HJR3 is a Call for a Constitutional Convention or an “amendments convention” to consider whether an increase in the federal debt should require approval from a majority of the legislatures of the states. Have you witnessed the ferocious battles in Congress over the debt ceiling? Can you imagine what that same battle would entail in a Constitutional Convention which could put our whole Constitution at risk as the “amendments convention” considers multiple versions and multiple amendments?
There is no way provided in Article V of the U.S. Constitution to limit the number of amendments which can be proposed in an “amendments convention,” even if the states, as in SCR1005, try to limit it. Article V states, “Congress…on the application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…” (that’s amendments in the plural).
The highest authority to ever speak on an amendments convention was Chief Justice Warren Burger. He said, “I have repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda…Our 1787 Constitution was referred to by several of its authors as a ‘miracle.’ Whatever gain might be hoped for from a new Constitutional Convention could not be worth the risks involved…” .
Letter from retired Chief Justice Warren Burger opposing a Constitutional Convention, June 22, 1988
More information from Phyllis Schlafly on a Call for a Constitutional Convention:
Copy of the Bill: http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/res.cfm?ID=129_HJR_3
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Representative Maag
Cosponsors: Representatives Adams, J., Adams, R., Henne, Beck, Ruhl, Grossman, Stebelton
| Applying for an Article V amendments convention. |
BE IT RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF OHIO:
| WHEREAS, Article V of the Constitution of the United States provides authority for a convention to be called by the Congress of the United States for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution upon application of two-thirds of the legislatures of the several states ("amendments convention"); and |
| WHEREAS, The General Assembly of the State of Ohio favors the proposal and ratification of an amendment to said Constitution which shall provide that an increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate states; now therefore be it |
| RESOLVED, That, as provided for in Article V of the Constitution of the United States, the General Assembly of the State of Ohio herewith respectfully applies for an amendments convention to be called for the purpose of proposing an amendment which shall provide that an increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate states; and be it further |
| RESOLVED, That the amendments convention contemplated by this application shall be entirely focused upon and exclusively limited to the subject matter of proposing for ratification an amendment to the Constitution providing that an increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate states; and be it further |
| RESOLVED, This application constitutes a continuing application in accordance with Article V of the Constitution of the United States until at least two-thirds of the legislatures of the several states have made application for an equivalently limited amendments convention; and be it further |
| RESOLVED, That the Clerk of the House of Representatives transmit duly authenticated copies of this resolution to the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, each member of the Ohio delegation to the United States Congress, and the presiding officers of each house of the several state legislatures, requesting their cooperation in applying for the amendments convention limited to the subject matter contemplated by this application. |