So when the Framers wrote, and the states ratified, these words:  "a convention for proposing amendments", what did they have in mind?

This is a radically incorrect/incomplete recitation of what happened in the months before and the years after the 1787 Philadelphia Convention.  There is significant, recent scholarship on the actions of the states in commissioning their delegations, the debates related to the scope of the convention, and the ratification process.  Much of what you wrote above is fake history/mythology that has been accepted as fact for generations.  I suggest you start with this:

http://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2017/03/Farris_FINAL.pdf

Oh please.   I rattled off from memory about 5 minutes of high points and you want me to apologize for it not being the most elaborate discussion?

And your law review article.   By Michael Farris?    Members of the site should know that this "scholarship"  is literally the 99:1 minority view, and its author until recently was LITERALLY the head of the organization pushing for the fucking convention of the states.  

Beyond that, my take is that the entire article consists mainly of post hoc characterizations Mr. Farris postulates to pretend that there were not issues with the way the Constitution of 1787 came into being (my favorite is his claim hat although the 13 states had agreed to and were bound by the PERPETUAL Articles of Confederation, somehow their intention in calling a convention specifically limited to proposing revisions to those very Articles was somehow never intended to comply with the ratification requirements of the Articles .. LOLOLOLOLL!!!)

Those characterizations barely rise to the level of Bill Clinton's deposition testimony explaining why a blowie was not sexual relations.    No amount of context overcomes the rightful objections of the state most rightly aggrieved by the manner of adoption of the 1787 document, Rhode Island.  Their citizens rejected it outright in a referendum.   The contemporaneous writings show that they were told explicitly that they and North Carolina could try to run their own countries on opposite sides of the 'union' if they didn't come along.   The votes and speeches of the eventual Rhode Island adoption, by only two delegates, are a matter of historical record.  

More importantly, there is no authority or enforceable mechanism he can articulate or point to that suggests a ConCon of state delegates would not again result in a runaway with a brand new document.   Nor does anything in that article address my greater points about the fact that the current political environment guarantees a bad result.   The media propaganda, the tech information filtering, and the absolute corruption in both the Democrat and Republican parties would absolutely taint this process.   Whatever Farris has written, I think even he would agree with me that we're not dealing with the caliber of people who were driving the amendment train in 1787.    And, what, if they go off the tracks what do you guys think will happen?   That the US Supreme Court would step in?   The Court that punted on Obamacare, the elections, and so many other issues?   The Supreme Court that would no doubt be disbanded in any document coming out of a runaway convention?   Ever hear of the "political question doctrine?"

I do not doubt that those of you advocating for a "convention of the state" have good faith believes, deeply held, that there need to be big structural changes to fix the country.   I'm just convinced that there's no earthly way that the convention would or could be limited in scope and I fear the result would be the shocking (SHOCKING!) promulgation of a brand new commie constitution, with some grotesque ratification provisions of its own completely ignoring the requirement of the current document which DID happen in 1787.  (Unanimity required by the Articles, 9 of 13 permitted by the new constitution).   In fact, I believe there are leftists and media mavens who are absolutely salivating for the such a convention.  

It would be a circus.   And if I'm right and you're wrong, there would be no way to stop things except to go to civil war.   Even if the states could "limit" their delegates, once the new document pops out signed by all the delegates and with some new ratification mechanism, there's no stopping it.   Further, now that the libs have both houses of Congress, they would probably pull the same move as with the Articles and actually vote to grant their imprimatur to the new document.   Its just not a risk I can justify.   To each his own, of course, but I'll argue about it every time you guys bring it up acting as if there's zero risk of an absolutely mindblowingly bad outcome.  

Toss in no more lifetime benefits for congress critters after out of office. Could curtail the ones who just want to do it for the "retirement package". Pres and VP only get a 5yr pension.

The Articles of Confederation were pretty good in retrospect.

So we're just going to ignore the original intent of language in Article V?  Did the Framers make a mistake in providing two ways for amendments to be proposed?

So, if the trend is to not respect the current one, what makes you think they would respect a new one that does not go their way?

That's the hazard of opening the Convention. They'll pile all their people in and do pretty much what they want.

Bye bye 2nd Amendment.

I suspect the folks (from Rhode Island and North Carolina especially) who were pointing at the ratification provisions in the Articles of the Confederation would ask EXACTLY THE SAME QUESTION.

Because your rhetorical question reveals exactly the risk!   The answer is that THE PEOPLE AT THE CONVENTION that gets called almost CERTAINLY WILL ignore that second way of ratification.   They'll shit out a brand new constitution with COMMIE PLUS provisions and its own less onerous ratification provision, probably a straight up popular vote in which all persons, citizens or not, will be entitled to vote.    And that's why we can't do the convention of the states.  

Its why that scenario has never been used in the entire history of the republic, even for things where there was no controversy.   Too risky.

They can propose any and all amendments they want. They still have to be ratified by the states.

Sigh.    Again.    That's what Rhode Island and North Carolina said about the ConCon that ran away in 1787.     Because the Articles of Confederation said ratification had to be unanimous.  

Then the convention came up with a brand new Constitution with ITS OWN ratification provision, 9 out of 13 instead of unanimous.

And once they had 9 under the new document, the set up elections and proceeded under the new government as if the Articles were no longer in effect.   It was another year before North Carolina and Rhode Island finally capitulated because they didn't want to be left behind as their own 'mini-countries'

You can keep saying what you're saying, but the fact you're ignoring the risk that the ConCon runs away, pops out a new constitution with Commie provisions and free shit and contains ITS OWN ratification provisions different from the current constitution (again, probably a straight popular vote in which all residents, legal or not, citizens or not get to vote) would be the exact scenario that happened previously and COULD occur and there would be nothing to stop it.  

Standing around waving the old constitution when the new one is claimed by all the lefty media to have been lawfully adopted won't do much good.   Especially when the new one provides for your special rendition to a camp of strict regime for 'insurgency'

Wake  up guys, calling a ConCon would be like assisted suicide to the United States.

You keep bringing up RI and NC.  Both state legislatures took action to proceed with ratification of the Constitution under the process established at the convention prior to the Constitution going into effect.  Same for the other 11 states.  Do you have cites to any historical evidence that there was a majority view in either state that the convention ran away?  Again, what do these words mean to the Framers:  "a convention for proposing amendments"?

It seems to me that giving the shitbirds who have been roto-rooting our collective backsides for the past 200 years free reign to legitimately rewrite the constitution as they see fit is an inherently bad idea.

There is more danger of this being co-opted.

Not needed.  Follow the document as written.

What other chance do we have now that would avoid this?

They're not paying any attention to the constitution we already have, what makes you think they'll pay any attention to your updates?

FPNI.

The part in red is where you are wrong.   The blue part is where you are infuriating, since my entire point is that the "process established by the convention" contradicted the process required by the "Perpetual" Articles of the Confederation, which was the existing charter to which all those states were ALREADY BOUND.   That's exactly the risk we're talking about with your ConCon and so, yeah... infuriating.

That said, lets get back to the part in red where you're simply wrong.  

Under a new Constitution (again, which did not have ratification unanimous consent of ALL the states as required by the Articles), they conducted a federal election, convened the electors, declared the president and VP under the new government, held an inauguration, convened the Congress, achieved quorums in both the House of Representatives and Senate, elected the Speaker of the House and Pres. ProTemp of the Senate,  and started passing legislation -- including the Judiciary Act of 1798, and the package of stuff that became the bill of rights!  Indeed, courtesy of WIKI, here are the new laws that were passed in that first session of the first congress WITHOUT having met the ratification threshold of the Articles:

June 1, 1789: An act to regulate the time and manner of administering certain oaths, ch. 1, 1 Stat. 23
July 4, 1789: Tariff of 1789, ch. 2, 1 Stat. 24
July 27, 1789: United States Department of State was established, originally named the Department of Foreign Affairs, ch. 4, 1 Stat. 28.
July 31, 1789: Regulation of the Collection of Duties on Tonnage and Merchandise, ch.5, 1 Stat. 29, which established the United States Customs Service and its ports of entry.
August 7, 1789: Department of War was established, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 49.
September 2, 1789: United States Department of the Treasury was established, ch. 12, 1 Stat. 65
September 24, 1789: Judiciary Act of 1789, ch. 20, 1 Stat. 73, which established the federal judiciary and the office of Attorney General

They did ALL OF THAT before November of 1789 when North Carolina ratified, and more than half a year before Rhode Island came along kicking and screeming.   The new government was revved up and GOING.   The basis for doing so was the lower ratification threshold in the new document produced by the ConCon and not under the rules that the states already agreed prior to that were supposed to govern alterations of the national charter.

And Rhode Island did not ratify until May of 1790!  

Even then it was not until, during the second session of the First Congress the new Senate threatened to pass a law that would ban all financial interaction, trade, etc. with Rhode Island.  That's really when R.I. finally capitulated.   Anyway, this document is apparently from the Senate archives from 1790:

[ Attached File


Its hard to read, but let me get that first sentence for you:   "An Act to prevent bringing food, wares, merchandise from the State of Rhode Island & Providence Plantations into the United States and to authorize a demand for money from said state."

So, look, you're just wrong.  The Articles required unanimous consent.   The new constitution said 9 of 13 states.    They were holding elections, seating officials, passing laws, all that stuff.  All at a time they didn't have that unanimous ratification required by the Articles, but only the lesser approval specified in the new document.   They finally got that consent, a year after their government was revved up, but really only by legislatively putting a gun to the head of that last hold-out.

Applying that to the ConCon you guys are proposing, those in this thread advocating for such a convention say "it can't run away, and even if it does you need ratification by the states as called for by Amendment V to the current constitution."    BUT.  If they pop out a brand new constitution, if they exceed their 'mandate' and out comes the Commie Constitution with every Leftie's wet dreams in it (and no 2nd Amendment!), the history shows that they CAN have it say "this goes into effect upon a popular vote of all persons who reside in the United States whether or not they be naturalized citizens."   And they CAN and WILL achieve that LESSER threshold (just like the founders did with the Constitution of 1787) and then hold elections, convene the legislative body, start passing laws and all that under the NEW DOCUMENT.   And anyone who doesn't like it is in the same boat as NC and RI were in December 1788 and January 1789 when they watched elections getting held under the new Constitution even as they still had not ratified.   Out of luck.  

Now, when I debate people pushing for a Convention of the States, there seems a point when they inevitably retreat to the claim that violation of the ratification rules of the Articles of the Confederation was somehow inherent and approved by the way the ConCon was called.  The professor you cite earlier has made a big thing of this.  

To resolve that, we need to talk about the Annapolis Convention.   With only five states in attendance, a small number of well known founders met in Annapolis  and issued a report where they urged the other states to send delegates to a further convention (what would become THE convention) to deal with the commerce and governance issues under the Articles of Confederation.   I want to quote in full the second to last paragraph of their report.    Despite its archaic language there's something that jumps out to me, but don't worry... I won't make you hunt for it.   Look at the part in RED!



See that!   That's the acknowledgement that their efforts to do an amendment, a revision, or even to propose a wholesale new document entire (which cannot be doubted was their goal all along) would technically need the ratification of EVERY state, just as required by the Articles of the Confederation!   They acknowledge it in their request for the Congress to convene a convention.  

Ok, so onto the formal call for the convention.   I'm not going to look up the letters of authorization issued by every state, its late and I need to get to sleep.   But by resolution of the Congress of the Confederation, it was resolved that "it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several States be held at Philladelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation..."

So there's more textual support that they intended to tinker, perhaps extensively, with the Articles, but that the call was for the Articles to remain the framework even if significantly revised.   I cannot see how anyone can take from this that the convention delegates were somehow authorized to disregard the amendment provisions (especially unanimous ratification requirement) in the Articles and propose a new document that became effective on threshold for approval that was much lower than what was in place as the "law of the land" under the Articles when the resolution to proceed with the convention was adopted.   And yet that's exactly what that ConCon did.   Probably for good reasons, practically speaking I'll admit.  The union under the Articles was not doing well.  

At any rate, there's one more trump card for my argument.   Even if any such contortion could be laid upon the proceedings by the fact of the states sending delegates, that would not taint the State of Rhode Island.     That state BOYCOTTED the the Philly ConCon of 1787!    

As for your question:



It is another question about which we'll have to agree to disagree, but I'm out of gas right now and will respond to that specifically tomorrow or over the weekend.   Cheers.

A strict vote integrity amendment. Democrats and several deep state Repubs would lose their seats permanently.

Never allow blanket mail in ballots. Mail in voting is illegal in most of the industrial world for a reason. Way to easy to commit fraud and stuff ballot boxes.
Mandatory voter role clean up before each election, no more dragging your feet.
Registration cut off 30 days before an election
No more early voting for weeks/months before an election. You get maybe 5 days to 1 week at the most to vote, that's it with a hard voting day cut off at 8pm.
Block chain ballots - reduce the chance of "finding" extra ballots in the middle of the night or printing out your own ballots. Holographic printing mandatory on ballots, like on currancy.
The courts and or executive branches can't change election law.
Voter ID required to vote showing current and correct address to establish residency.
Ballot harvesting/assistance = illegal in all 50 states.
Observers have to be allowed to closely watch all ballot counting. If you play stupid games attempting to expel ballot observers = all your districts votes become illegal and get tossed out.

The only way that doesn't turn into an utter shitshow of epic proportions is as a healing event following a war where the two sides of the US figure out which one is right and which one is dead. You're better off leaving the Constitution as it is.

Rigged or not, Biden is our next president. They'll have the votes one way or the other.

A couple years ago I was in favor of the Convention of the States idea.

Now, after seeing how easily political situations are manipulated and how badly we've been stabbed in the backs by politicians who swore fealty to small government ideals to be elected then become a swamp creature I'm against the idea.

One of the things that has always concerned me about the COS movement is the fact that their website does not specifically lay out the changes they want made to the Constitution.  
The website is a bunch of happy speak and dodges the actual list of what they want changed.

Why do the COS people not simply push for single issue stand alone amendments instead?  It's much cleaner and lacks the risk of the delegates saying "Fuck it we're going with communism."  If an amendment fails you're at the status quo.  If it succeeds then you've gained ground.

My understanding is when the project started in late 2013, polling was done to determine which constitutional/fed govt over-reach issues resonated with the greatest numbers of people.  The intent was to develop an issue-based application with maximum likelihood of getting 34 states to pass the application.  Evidently the top 3 topics were term limits, some form of fiscal restraints and reductions in the scope and jurisdiction of the fed govt.  There was and is a concern that a single topic effort would fail to achieve the necessary 34 state applications for the same amendment/topic.  For example, there are 28 or states that have passed applications for a balanced budget amendment.  However, if you read the applications, there is considerable variation in the amendment language reflected across the applications.  COS believes it is likely that Congress, in an effort to kill a convention, would decline to aggregate the applications by claiming they're not for the same amendment.  So a broader, topic approach is being pursued to avoid this aggregation issue.  The COS application allows for a robust discussion of approaches and would a package of amendments to address multiple problems.  Consequently, COS deliberately does not advocate for a particular amendment(s).  The state legislatures/convention delegates need to be free to work that out.

There was a COS application convention simulation conducted several years ago in Williamsburg, VA.  You can see the "amendments" that were "adopted" by the delegates present at the simulation at https://conventionofstates.com/cos-simulation.  Obviously the "amendments" do not reflect the diversity of opinion that would be reflected at an actual convention, but the simulation was helpful in understanding what the convention might look like from a structure/process perspective, and in seeing what sorts of amendments would be proposed from constitutional conservatives/originalists.  Most of the delegates at the simulation were state legislators.  i expect that most delegates to an actual convention would be state legislators/former state legislators.

The Constitution has been transformed into an economic suicide pact and worse.  We can either figure out a fix or have it forced on us.  Ironically, there was an attempt at a state convention (not Article V) in early 1861 to try to avoid the Civil War.  It was too little, too late.  I don't see how we just stand-by and not at least try to head off severe economic and social "disruption" via an Article V convention, for ANY topic, COS or not.

https://jbs.org/concon/

I deeply appreciate the time and effort you put in to developing these comments.  I'm working on a response.  We agree on some things.