Journal Now Available from the Latest Convention of States

The latest of a long line of conventions of states was held in September 12-15, 2017 in Phoenix, Arizona. It was called by the Arizona legislature for the purpose of drafting and recommending rules for a future convention for proposing a balanced budget amendment.

Its official name was the Balanced Budget Amendment Planning Convention, but it is known more informally as the Phoenix Planning Convention or the Arizona Planning Convention.

Nineteen states attended, making it the second-largest convention of states in American history by number of states represented. The largest was the 21-state Washington Conference Convention of 1861 (informally called the Washington Peace Conference). The gathering in Phoenix was also the first “general” (national) convention since the 1861 conclave, although there have been several regional conventions of states since that time.

David Guldenschuh, a commissioner from Georgia and convention secretary, has prepared the convention journal, which we are making available here. It has no continuous pagination, so items in the journal must be identified by sheet number, which is easy to do when working with a PDF document.