The basis for this view is that the institutions of the three branches
have been so corrupted and perverted that they no longer meet the hopes and
aspirations embedded in our Constitution.
It is easy to condemn George W. Bush as the worst president in
history. The larger truth is that
the presidency has accumulated far too much power over the past half
century. This has resulted from the
weakening of the Congress that no longer, in any way, has the power of an equal
branch of government, not that any recent Congress has shown any commitment or
capability to execute its constitutional authorities. Concurrently, we have become accepting
of a politicized Supreme Court that has not shown the courage to stop the
unconstitutional grabbing of power by the presidency and in 2000 showed its own
root failure in choosing to select the new president.
Worst of all, modern history has vividly shown Americans that the federal
government has usurped the sovereignty of the “we the people” and of the states,
and has even sold out national sovereignty to a set of international
organizations and the greed of corporate-crazed globalization.
The current economic and financial sector meltdown is just another
symptom of deep seated, cancerous disease of government that has sold out the
public because of the moneyed influence of the corporate and wealthy classes of
special interests. The serious
disease is a long festering unraveling of the constitutional design of our
government. Each of the three
branches of the federal government is totally unequal to each other and
completely incapable of ensuring the constitutional functioning of each
other. Checks and balances have
become a fiction.
These sad historic realities have been produced because of an all too
powerful and corrupt two-party political machine that has prevented true
political competition and real choices for voters. This two-party system has thrived
because of corruption from money provided for Democrats and Republicans to
maintain the status quo that is the ruination of our constitutional
Republic.
Yet the hidden genius of the Founders and Framers was to anticipate how
the Republic would most likely unravel under the pressures of money and
corruption. Unknown to nearly all
Americans is a part of the Constitution that all established political forces
have worked hard to denigrate over our entire history. They fear using what is provided as a
kind of escape clause in the Constitution, something to use when the three
branches of the federal government fail their constitutional
responsibilities. What is this
ultimate solution that those who love and respect our Constitution should be
clamoring for?
It is the provision in Article V to create a temporary fourth branch of
the government -- in the form of a convention of state delegates -- that operates
outside the control of Congress, the President and the Supreme Court, and that
has only one single function: to consider proposals for constitutional
amendments, just like Congress has done over our history, but that must also be
ratified by three-quarters of the states.
One of the most perplexing questions in American history that has
received too little attention is simple: Why have we never had an Article V
convention?
One possible answer might be that what the Constitution requires to
launch a convention has never been satisfied. But this is not the case. The one and
only requirement is that two-thirds of state legislatures apply to Congress for
a convention. With over 600 such
state applications from all 50 states that single requirement has long been
satisfied. So why no
convention?
Because Congress has refused to honor the exact constitutional mandate
that it “shall” call a convention when that requirement has been met. Simply put, Congress has long broken the
supreme law of the land by not calling a convention, and virtually every
political force on the left and right likes it that way. Why? Because they have learned to corrupt the
government and fear an independent convention of state delegates that could
propose serious constitutional amendments that would truly reform our government
and political system to remove the power of special interests and compel all
three branches to follow the letter and spirit of the Constitution.
With great irony, the public has been brainwashed to fear an Article V
convention despite many hundreds of state constitutional conventions that have
never wrecked state governments, and that in countless cases have provided much
needed forms of direct democracy that have empowered citizens and limited powers
of state governments.
There is only one national, nonpartisan organization with the single
mission of educating the public about the Article V convention option and
building demand for Congress to convene a convention. It is the Friends of the Article V
Convention group that has done something that neither the government nor any
other group has ever done; it has been collecting all the hundreds of state
applications for a convention and making them available to the public at
www.foavc.org.
With a new president and many new members of Congress, now is the ideal
time for Americans that see the need for obeying the Constitution and seek root
reforms to rally behind this mission of obtaining the nation’s first Article V
convention. The new Congress in
2009 should give the public what the Constitution says we have a right to have
and what Congress has a legal obligation to provide. Always remember that the convention
cannot by itself change the Constitution, but operating in the public limelight
it could revitalize what has become our delusional and fake democracy. The main thing to fear is not a
convention, but continuation of the two-party plutocracy status quo. Sadly, no presidential candidate, not
even third-party ones, has spoken out in support of Congress obeying the
Constitution and giving us the first Article V convention.
***
[Joel S. Hirschhorn is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V
Convention and can be reached through www.foavc.org.]