Let's Convene

          Congress’s popularity ratings are down in the dumpster, yet we don’t seem to be able to throw the bums out.  Taxes and spending are out of control, but no one is capable or willing to rein them in.  National debt is unsustainable and threatens to bankrupt this country, yet it keeps growing.  The economy is stifled by thousands of pages of regulations written every year, but no controls are placed on regulators.  The president should be impeached for making his own laws and ignoring the ones he doesn’t like, but politics makes impeachment unrealistic.  So the people are powerless to stop the insanity.  But are they?

          What if we could impose term limits on Congress?  What if we could require a balanced federal budget?  What if we could prevent regulators from governing every aspect of our lives?  What if we could make the president accountable for his unconstitutional actions?
          These measures would require constitutional amendments, but that route is blocked by Congress, because we could never get three-quarters of self-interested legislators to commit political suicide.  But there is another way that puts the power in the hands of the people.  And that way is spelled out in the Constitution.
          Article V of the Constitution gives the states the power to call a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments.  Two-thirds of the state legislatures are required to call the Convention and three-fourths are needed to ratify proposed amendments.  This would take the power out of the hands of Congress and place it squarely in the hands of the people through their elected state legislatures.
          Conservatives like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin have been talking about this for years, but what we need is someone to take charge and rally the troops.  And now I think we have just the man in Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.  Senator Coburn, who is suffering from cancer, has decided not to run for re-election.  Instead, he is going to devote his remaining energies to persuading states to approve a Constitutional Convention.  Florida, Georgia and Alaska have already done so.  Only 20 more states are needed.
          It’s never been done before.  But, as the saying goes, there’s a first time for everything.  Just imagine a giant earthquake shaking Washington to its very foundations: term limits, a balanced budget, control of regulators, executive accountability…Just Imagine.