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Jim Lane

(11,175 posts)
9. They are dangerously close to being able to have a real convention.
Fri Sep 15, 2017, 08:11 AM
Sep 2017

Some right-wing goals, like an amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade, are unlikely to be achieved, because the 13 most progressive states could exercise an effective veto. (Ratification of any amendment requires 38 states.)

In other instances, though, the danger is that the whole process would be under the control of state legislators. They can call a convention, select the delegates, and act on any proposed amendments, with no substantive involvement by Congress. I could see even some blue-state legislators being attracted to:
* a federal balanced-budget amendment. The state legislator gets to posture as a proponent of sound budgeting. Then it's the members of Congress who have to make the unpopular decisions to raise taxes or cut spending. That will make them vulnerable to primary or general-election challenge -- quite possibly by the state legislator who made their unpopular action necessary in the first place.
* Congressional term limits. In case the incumbent Senator or Representative survives the effects of the balanced-budget amendment, he or she could be forced out anyway. It's usually hard to beat an incumbent at the polls. How nice to oust them without a vote of the people -- opening up their seats for, you guessed it, ambitious state legislators.

I'll bet a lot of them would like to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment and take back the power to elect Senators. The blowback on that one would probably be too fierce, though. The danger of balanced budget and term limits is that they can be made to appear as nonideological good-government reforms.

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