The Case Against An Article V Constitutional Convention

Virginia Delegate James LeMunyon has an article in today’s Wall Street Journal where he makes an argument that I’ve been hearing with disturbing frequency lately:

The remedy is in Article V of the Constitution, which permits a convention to be called for the purpose of proposing constitutional amendments. Any proposed amendment then would have to be ratified by both houses of 38 state legislatures (three-fourths of the states). This entails 76 separate votes in the affirmative by two houses of the 38 state legislatures. (Nebraska, with its unicameral legislature, would be an exception.)

Interest in calling a first-ever Article V convention is growing at the state level. A petition for such a convention passed the Florida Senate last month, to propose amendments requiring a balanced budget and to restrain the growth of the national government. If approved by the House, Florida would be the 20th state with an active call to do so. In the Virginia House of Delegates, I introduced a resolution (H.J. 183) calling for a constitutional convention to restrain the national government as well. Requests by two-thirds or 34 states are required for a convention to be called.

Here’s what Article V says about a Convention:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States

It sounds like a pretty straightforward idea. If Congress is being stubborn about passing Amendments that the people deem necessary, why not call a Convention to go over their heads ?

Well, there’s a very good reason, and former Chief Justice Warren Burger put it bluntly in 1983:

I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the convention would obey. After a convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the convention if we don’t like its agenda. The meeting in 1787 ignored the limit placed by the confederation Congress “for the sole and express purpose.”

With George Washington as chairman, they were able to deliberate in total secrecy, with no press coverage and no leaks. A constitutional Convention today would be a free-for-all for special interest groups, television coverage, and press speculation.

Our 1787 Constitution was referred to by several of its authors as a “miracle.” Whatever gain might be hoped for from a new Constitutional Convention could not be worth the risks involved. A new convention could plunge our Nation into constitutional confusion and confrontation at every turn, with no assurance that focus would be on the subjects needing attention.

Burger, of course, was exactly right then and he’s exactly right now.

It’s worth noting, as Burger does, the historical context in which the 1787 Convention came to be:

On January 21, 1786, the Virginia Legislature, following James Madison‘s recommendation, invited all the states to send delegates to Annapolis, Maryland to discuss ways to reduce these interstate conflicts.[1] At what came to be known as the Annapolis Convention, the few state delegates in attendance endorsed a motion that called for all states to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to discuss ways to improve the Articles of Confederation in a “Grand Convention.”[1]

Instead of discussing improvement to the Articles of Confederation, though, the delegates quickly moved to the creation of an entirely new system of government that had no resemblance to the then-current national government and, when they were done, instead of complying with the amendment procedure provided for in the Articles, which would have required approval by Congress and unanimous consent of all thirteen state legislatures, they provided for a ratification process that completely bypassed Congress and the states. And they did that because they knew there was no way the new Constitution would have been approved by all thirteen states.

The Articles of Confederation, of course, were a flawed document and it’s unlikely that the United States would have survived as a unified nation for very much longer had they remained in place. So, in some sense, Madison and the others at Philadelphia did the right thing.

But, as Burger says, we were lucky and there’s no reason to believe we’d be similarly lucky as second time.

Regardless of any of the arguments that LeMunyon and the others make about ways to limit the scope of the convention, the experience of 1787 makes it plain that, once called, there is no way to limit the scope of a Constitutional Convention, and no reason to think they we’d end up with an entirely different Constitution when it was over.

We were also lucky in 1787 because of the men who gathered to write the Constitution. The values they shared were values of individual liberty and small government. Does anyone truly believe that we’d be lucky enough to have delegates to a 2013 Convention, say, that were anywhere near the intellectual and moral calibre of Madison, or Mason, or Franklin ? Yea, I didn’t think so.

Finally, Burger’s point about the importance of secrecy in the 1787 proceedings is even more poignant today. In the era of the 365/24/7 news cycle, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, there wouldn’t be any way to keep these deliberations secret and making them public would just increase the likelihood that the end product would be one big mess.

The Constitution isn’t perfect and there are many things I would change about it, but I am not willing to take the risk of sacrificing the entire structure we’ve built over the past two centuries just for a chance to do it.