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Answering Questions About the Voting Rules at a Convention for Proposing Amendments

November 2, 2015 Rob Natelson 0

Note: This column appeared originally at the American Thinker.
In a recent post, I examined suggestions that a convention of the states for proposing amendments adopt a supermajority rule for proposing any amendment. Most commonly suggested is that the convention replace the traditional “majority of states decides” standard with a two thirds requirement.
I explained that this […]

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How A Famous English Convention Clarifies the Role of a Convention of States

September 27, 2015 Rob Natelson 0

Note: This article first appeared on the American Thinker website.
In the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, a “convention” can mean a contract, but the word is more often applied to an assembly, other than a legislature, convened to address ad hoc political problems. The “Convention for proposing Amendments” authorized by Article V of the Constitution is designed […]

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Term Limits for the Supreme Court?

August 23, 2015 Rob Natelson 0

This article first appeared in the American Thinker.
Term limits are among the reforms being proposed by advocates of curbing federal government abuses through the Constitution’s Article V amendment process.
The idea of congressional term limits has been around for some time. But more recent discussion centers on term limits for the judiciary, especially for the Supreme […]

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“Runaway Convention” Nonsense—One More Time

August 13, 2015 Rob Natelson 0

Seldom has a claim so weak been so often advanced than the claim that a convention for proposing amendments would be a “constitutional convention” that could “run away”—that is, disregard its limits and propose amendments outside its sphere of authority.
I have little patience with the theory, partly because it is so patently based on ignorance […]

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A Convention of States in “Gone With the Wind”

August 10, 2015 Rob Natelson 0

Margaret Mitchell, the author of the hugely popular novel Gone With the Wind, was a newspaper reporter and the child of a family steeped in history. Her father, a prominent Georgia attorney, was one of the leading lights in the state historical society.
That her book has a plethora of references to historical events occurring during […]