Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and GOP presidential hopeful Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida have both recently called for a constitutional convention to add amendments that would do things like force Congress to balance the budget and prohibit bureaucrats from making laws. But not everyone is convinced a convention is a good idea.
“The increasingly frequent departures from Constitutional principles are destroying the Rule of Law foundation on which this country was built,” Abbott recently told a crowd gathered at the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Annual Policy Orientation.
“We are succumbing to the caprice of man that our Founders fought to escape,” he added. “The cure to these problems will not come from Washington, D.C. Instead, the states must lead the way.”
Abbott wants the Texas Legislature to join the governing bodies of at least 33 other states in order to initiate a constitutional convention to add nine new amendments that he unveiled in a 92-page plan late last week. (See the plan in full below.)
Abbot’s amendments would:
- Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one State.
- Require Congress to balance its budget.
- Prohibit administrative agencies — and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them — from creating federal law.
- Prohibit administrative agencies — and the unelected bureaucrats that staff them — from preempting state law.
- Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
- Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.
- Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.
- Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.
- Allow a two-thirds majority of the States to override a federal law or regulation.
The nine additions would, as a whole, significantly dial back the federal government’s power and eliminate future presidents’ ability to sic federal agencies on groups or businesses for political reasons, as we’ve seen in recent years with the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal entities.
Pointing to President Obama’s recent gun control edicts, Abbot’s plan also notes that it would significantly limit presidents’ ability to legislate via executive fiat.
“The President has taken executive actions to infringe the Second Amendment rights of millions of lawful gun owners, even though the entire point of the Bill of Rights was to protect Americans from invasions of their liberties,” the Texas governor’s plan says.
It would also protect states’ rights from certain Supreme Court rulings.
“In modern America, the policy preferences of five robed unelected septuagenarians will trump even the most politically popular legislation on virtually any topic — from voting rights to abortion to religion to speech to criminal procedure to guns to healthcare to the environment,” reads the plan.
Rubio, meanwhile, is calling for fewer but equally powerful additions to the law of the land. He promised voters during a recent campaign stop that, if elected, he would call a constitutional convention to add a balanced budget amendment and impose term limits on members of Congress.
“I can promote such a convention, but I cannot make it happen without the American people. That’s why I’m asking for your help today,” he said. “To any American worried about the debt we’re leaving our children: Join me in this effort. Press your state representatives to convene a convention of states.”
Abbott and Rubio certainly face an uphill battle in calling for a constitutional convention, considering just 19 states currently enjoy the firm GOP control likely needed to get their legislatures on board with the Republican-backed plan. Remember, the governing bodies of 34 states must pass legislation calling for a convention to get the process started.
In addition, watchers on both sides of the aisle are bringing up familiar worries about a convention being hijacked by all manner of special interests.
Right-of-center The American Spectator’s Larry Thornberry calls Rubio’s plan a bad idea, writing in a recent column:
No one knows what would come out of a constitutional convention, but there is every reason for dreadful surmise. Considering the temper of the times, the Bill of Rights would likely take a severe beating. Specifically, I doubt the First Amendment would survive, and we would become like other Western democracies that are cutting back on freedom of expression. It is particularly sad to see countries like Canada and the UK undergoing a kind of reverse Magna Carta. Centuries of slow accretions of freedom are being canceled in the name of political correctness (aka left cultural tyranny) by the elite lefties who punch way above their weight in Western politics and who would doubtless have a lot to say about what came out of any constitutional convention.
And MSNBC’s Steve Benen, a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” calls the Rubio plan “the most dangerous idea” in the candidate’s platform.
Benen writes:
No one can say with confidence how such a convention would play out since there is no precedent for such an event and the relevant constitutional language adds little clarity. Probably the most significant question is scope: Rubio says he wants a narrow convention focused solely on the amendments he likes, but there’s a real possibility that once the constitutional door is open, convention delegates could consider literally any changes, “even if it included overhauling the entire constitutional system” of the United States.
But not everyone has taken such an alarmist view of a potential convention to amend the Constitution. Among those who don’t think a convention would go so badly is libertarian-leaning economist and political philosopher Thomas Sowell.
In a recent column, he notes that any changes would have to meet a high standard approval before being added to the Constitution as a result of a convention.
“The idea that a convention of states could run amok and rewrite the Constitution overlooks the fact that it would take the votes of two-thirds of the states just to convene a convention, and then three-fourths of the states to actually pass an amendment,” Sowell helpfully reminded his readers.
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