Thread: Illegal Immigration Spurs Constitutional Amendment Push

Pat Brunz has it right----there is a built-in safeguard as 3/4 of the state legislatures having to pass any amendment coming out of a Convention.

As for the proposals to rewrite the Constitution as the above posts advocate, clearly reform measures are needed, but a large rewrite will scare many people away, and quite frankly, it would be almost impossible to pull off mainly because with 50 states participating at a Convention there would be endless debate. The Founders had enough problems with just 13 states participating. The recent illegal immigration fiasco in Congress clearly demonstrated this. What was accomplished? Absolutely nothing. The plan I outline below is superior in that an inital Convention will deal EXCLUSIVELY with REGIONALIZING the federal government. Secondary Conventions will then be held at the regional level, where with only 4-7 states participating, there will be a much better chance of implementing reforms.

I am spearheading a VERY SERIOUS effort to convene a National Constitutional Convention whose ultimate aim will be AUTONOMOUS REGIONAL GOVERNMENT. Specifically, amendments would be proposed that dismantle the federal government in its present configuration and then reassemble it at the regional level. In essence, 10(# flexible) independent republics would be created on American soil(state borders intact), each having the Constitution and Bill of Rights as the basis of their new governments. Liken this to the breakup of AT&T into the baby bells some years back. This action has become necessary to diffuse the power of the largely self-serving globalist oligarchy which has hijacked our federal government, bringing this nation to the verge of economic and social ruin, while greatly compromising our national security. See link below for more info:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NationalC ... nvention06

This is probably going to be the only way to take our government back, I had read before that they have tried this over 5oo times. well it is time to in this country to use article 5

I don't believe they would go in and try to rewrite the whole constitution, you can see by the Resolution McConnell wrote they would go in with the intention of fixing the immigration problem.

"States Legislatures for Legal Immigration" already have 33 states as members,we should all e-mail Metcalf and ask him to talk to McConnell.

I am telling all of you we need our state Legislatures in this fight with us. they are here in our state and easier for us to deal with. and it is the time to save our selves and our country.

I will e-mail all of my Representives in the morning...now is the time they are all in session.

Actually the past applications for a Convention were strung out over many years in most cases and often didn't revolve around a single issue.
Convention applications have to come within 1 or 2 state legislative cycles to be effective.

THAT WOULD BE DANGEROUS. I WOULD BE AFRAID THAT THERE WOULD BE A BIG "FREE-FOR-ALL" TO CHANGE ALOT OF OTHER THINGS, AND IT WIPE OUT THE ENTIRE CONSTITUTION

I agree - these are not the people I want writing our new constitution.

Think what they would put in there.

No, no, keep their greedy paws off the constitution - simply govern by the constitution and we won't have to worry about many things.

The anchor baby thing can be added , but I actually think a court could make that ruling.

But if we go back to the constitution, the anchor babies will be a small matter we can handle.

Please, please, let's hope this doesnt' get traction.

It would definitely have to be researched, if they held a convention to only give authority to states concerning illegal immigration that would be ok but we would not want them messing with the overall constitution.

Of course if we don't win this illegal immigration problem and the war globalization is waging against "We the people" nothing is going to be left of the constitution anyway. We are losing more constitutional rights all the time thanks to the Bush administration.


National convention
Main article: Convention to propose amendment to U.S. Constitution
An amendment may also be proposed by a national convention requested (or "applied" for) by legislatures of at least two-thirds of the states (currently 34).

Some constitutional scholars believe the convention-proposing alternative is dangerous; they maintain that it would have no limits on what could be proposed, and could conceivably offer up an entirely new constitution. They note that the convention which produced the present Constitution was assembled only to amend the Articles of Confederation. Others disagree, saying that a convention would be restricted to the subject for which it was assembled, and that even if the convention could propose any amendment that it wanted, such an amendment would still have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states in order to become valid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsuccessf ... nstitution

Proposal
Whenever they "deem it necessary," two-thirds of both houses of Congress may propose an amendment. This means two-thirds of those members present—assuming that a quorum exists at the time that the vote is cast—and not necessarily a two-thirds vote of the entire membership elected and serving in the two houses of Congress. It was suggested that the two houses first adopt a resolution indicating that they deem an amendment necessary, but this procedure has never been used—the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives instead directly proceed to the adoption of a joint resolution, thereby proposing the amendment with the implication that both bodies "deem" the amendment to be "necessary." Up to this time, all amendments have been proposed and implemented codicil to the main body of the Constitution.

If at least two-thirds of the legislatures of the states so request, Congress is required to call a convention for the purpose of proposing an amendment. All 50 current states have passed binding acts calling for a constitutional convention; however, on the questionable assumption that only state requests addressing the same possible amendment are to be counted by Congress, which is not stated in Article V as a condition for the applicability of this stipulation, the requisite number of states never made such a request although two proposals have come just two states shy of the required number. However, over 500 state requests for an Article V convention have been made and some believe that Congress should have already called a convention, in accordance with the "shall call" imperative of the article.[citation needed] There is much controversy as to how such a convention would operate, how its delegates would be chosen, the necessary vote required to propose a particular amendment, and many other lingering questions.[citation needed] The state legislatures have, in times past, taken advantage of the fear of the unknown by using their power to apply for a national convention in order to frighten Congress into proposing the desired amendment. For example, the movement to amend the Constitution to provide for the direct election of U.S. Senators began to see such proposals regularly pass the House of Representatives only to die in the Senate from the early 1890s onward. As time went by, more and more state legislatures adopted resolutions demanding that a convention be called, thus pressuring the Senate to finally relent and approve what later became the Seventeenth Amendment for fear that such a convention—if permitted to assemble—might stray to include issues above and beyond just the direct election of U.S. Senators.[citation needed]

Since Article Five does not make clear how the amendment-proposing convention is to be composed and operated, Congress—presumably through enactment of a Federal statute—could determine how the delegates are chosen and to provide for other procedural details.[citation needed]

The President has no formal role in the constitutional amendment process. Article One provides, "every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives." As previously stated, the Constitution requires the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the members present of both the House of Representatives and the Senate to a joint resolution which proposes a constitutional amendment. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (179, the Supreme Court held that it is not necessary to place constitutional amendments before the President for signature and, by the same logic, the President is powerless to veto a proposed constitutional amendment.


Lots more to read in here if you are interested!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Fi ... nstitution

These people have no respect for our consitution. Are we seriously thinking of allowing them to do any more to it?

I don't care how many states are 'supposed' to ratify, vote, or whatever, if we let them start playing with it - we are truly lost.

Remember they will be the ones who interpret how this will be done.

This kind of thing is exactly what they want.

There's nothing wrong with our constitution - that governing by it's mandates won't fix.

There's nothing wrong with our immigration laws - that enforcing them won't fix.

Please, don't play into their hands and even begin to consider letting them rewrite our constitution.

I can't believe anyone is even considering they will do the right thing, oe be bound by any rules.

Please, please, don't even think about it.

I have to say that I agree with you nntrixie.

The last thing on earth we need right now is for anyone to start playing with the Constitution.

I know how it says it's supposed to be done and all that, but we can't trust anyone to play by the rules and I'm afraid we'd end up even more screwed in the end than we are right now.

No, in good conscience this is something I can't even begin to consider supporting. I'm not going to be part of serving up the mice to the cat.

Well my thought was they would call a convention and work only on the immigration problem, that is why I have been doing the above research on article V, and trying to educate myself about it.

Now that I have I am not so sure it is a good Idea either, but states have used the threat of article V on congress before and forced them to move on different issues, If they can use the threat to get our congress to pass a law to allow local law enforcement to help enforce our laws that would be good, they also need to be able to ask if someone is in this country legally with out the threat they are racial profileing.

The Resoultion written by McConnell is a good start, if they can threaten congress into moving on getting our police involved thats good, this problem is so massave ICE can not handle it. Arresting 10 20 people a day is not going to cut it.

We do have laws already on the books but we also need better ones. ICE does not have enough people to enforce those laws, we need local law enforcement involved and at this time the 287g program is costing a fortune and new states signing up can't even get into the program because they are overwhelmed.......alot more needs to be done. We need better laws to stop special interest groups from sueing at every turn.

We need to look at all possiblities, I don't believe all state Legislatures are against us. State Legislatures for Legal Immigration (our state representatves) has 33 states now wanting something done so they can enforce the laws.

These law suits all over the country has to stop, as far as I am concerned if you are in this country illegaly the only right you have is to go home.

We need to keep all options open, Like I said before if we don't get something done soon we are going to lose the constitution anyway.

Did everyone read Aprils post on Murdoch in other topics...if not you should, he owns FOX news and much much more around the world, he is an Australian, see what this powerful man thinks of our constitution.

Ignoring the Constitution is one thing, letting them rewrite it is out of the question! You can not seriously want to let these people at the Constitution! I don't mean to yell , but please, think about who your talking about here. Vote them out and or force them to uphold their oaths but never, ever, let this bunch at the Constitution.