From The Left: Why Are ND Republicans Promoting A Constitutional Convention?

Every two years, when the North Dakota Legislature meets, they have the opportunity to promote Constitutional Amendments to the United States Constitution through a process of Concurrent Resolutions. Each year, the North Dakota Legislature, which is very conservative, will send messages to congress saying they need to spend less, tax less, and do other things of the sort.

However, this year, the list of proposed North Dakota Constitutional Amendments has a very different feel. There are multiple Concurrent Resolutions that call for a Constitutional Convention.

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#ffffff”]”The bottom line is that Levin, and several Conservatives are frustrated by the very US Constitution they claim to love. They hold our founding fathers up as saints; however, they feel our current system, still based on many of the founding principles, is incomparable with modern conservative ideology.”[/mks_pullquote]

For those of you who don’t remember this from High School Civics class, a Constitutional Convention is one of two procedures for proposing amendments to the United States Constitution described in Article Five. It has never been used in the history of the United States.

However, in recent years, right wing Republicans talking heads like Mark Levin have promoted using the Constitutional Convention as a tool to change the Constitution. Levin proposes using a Constitutional Convention to promote 11 Constitutional amendments, ranging from a Balanced Budget Amendment to limiting whom people can vote for to represent them in Washington, DC (because voters are not smart enough without Mark Levin eliminating candidates).

The bottom line is that Levin, and several Conservatives are frustrated by the very US Constitution they claim to love. They hold our founding fathers up as saints; however, they feel our current system, still based on many of the founding principles, is incomparable with modern conservative ideology. They hate that fact that the US Constitution allows common people to vote on the Election of US Senators. They hate the fact that laws do not exist to limit reelection of people like Charles Rangel or John Conyers (but surprisingly, have fewer problems with Thad Cochran or Don Young). They hate the overwhelming power of the Federal Government, but feel the States are incapable of deciding who is eligible to vote or when/how they can vote.

My question is, why is the North Dakota Legislature messing with this political garbage that is more about selling books and promoting entertainment based political theater than it is about sound policy? Do the sponsors of these proposed Concurrent Resolutions really feel that North Dakota Citizens are not smart enough to choose their own US Senators? If they are such big fans of term limits, why are they not proposing limiting their own terms?

The bottom line is it is very difficult to change the US Constitution, because it should be. The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and it should be very difficult to change those laws. The Constitutional Convention has never been used because the other way of proposing changes to the Constitution works just fine.

Let’s be clear about this, Levin and his type want to change the way the Constitution is amended because Republicans cannot win enough elections to change it. This should not be acceptable.

North Dakota Lawmakers should stay away from these silly Concurrent Resolution’s and vote all them down.