Texas Senate approves call for a Convention of States

[Amaryllis]

2. On its face this appears to be a good thing; in reality, very dangerous:

From Common Cause:"
Constitutional Convention

Big money's plan to shred the Constitution

This report sounds the alarm about a dangerous proposal bubbling up in state legislatures throughout the country. Sidebar

The threat is a constitutional convention, convened on the petitions of at least 34 state legislatures as specified under an Article V of the Constitution and empowered to rewrite or propose new amendments to that document. Its advocates span the ideological spectrum, including right-of-center supporters of new limits on federal power, from a constitutional requirement that the federal budget be balanced, to backers on the left of a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, a ruling that reversed decades of well-settled law limiting corporate political spending.

Common Cause strongly opposes an Article V convention, even as we strongly support a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United. We oppose a constitutional convention because we believe there is too much legal ambiguity that leads to too great a risk that it could be hijacked by wealthy special interests pushing a radical agenda that poses a very real threat to American democracy.

A convention of states drafted our Constitution in 1787, including Article V as one of several mechanisms for future amendments. Article V itself has never been used but would be triggered once 34 state legislatures submit applications for a new constitutional convention; it then requires Congress to convene a new convention to draft and submit new constitutional amendments to the states for ratification.

There are no settled rules or procedures to govern an Article V convention and it cannot be limited in scope. Though some constitutional convention proponents say they intend to pass a single amendment – to balance the federal budget or reverse Citizens United — there is nothing to prevent the convention, once convened, from proposing additional changes that could limit or eliminate fundamental rights or upend our entire system of government.

http://www.commoncause.org/issues/more-democracy-reforms/constitutional-convention/executive-summary.html