A must buy and read A must buy Mark Levin’s The Liberty Amendments By Jeffrey Lord on 8.12.13 @ 6:08AM Restoring the American Republic: America’s Third Revolution. Writes Levin: …I propose that we, the people, take a closer look at the Constitution for our preservation. The Constitution itself provides the means for restoring self-government and averting societal catastrophe (or, in the case of societal collapse, resurrecting the civil society) in Article V. And there it is. The Constitutional way-out of the Statist nightmare — or, as Levin calls it the “Achilles’ heel” of Statism. Article V of the United States Constitution. Levin reprints the relevant portion of Article V with his italics for emphasis: 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, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…. Levin notes a very important point. Article V does not provide for a constitutional convention. It provides for a process of proposing amendments. Article V: …provides for two methods of amending the Constitution. The first method, where two-thirds of Congress passes a proposed amendment and then forwards it to the state legislatures for possible ratification by three-fourths of the states, has occurred on twenty-seven occasions. The second method, involving the direct application of two-thirds of the state legislatures for a Convention proposing Amendments, which would thereafter also require a three-fourths ratification vote by the states, has been tried in the past but without success. Today it sits dormant. Which is to say, a new Constitutional Convention and the subsequent ratification process would begin the long overdue process of shifting power out of the hands of the federal Leviathan — balance — and handing it back to the states. The states that created the federal government — a much different federal government — in the first place. Admits the author: I was originally skeptical of amending the Constitution by the state convention process. I fretted it could turn into a runaway caucus. As an ardent defender of the Constitution who reveres the brilliance of the Framers, I assumed this would play disastrously into the hands of the Statists. However, today I am a confident and enthusiastic advocate for the process. The text of Article V makes clear that there is a serious check in place. Whether the product of Congress or a convention, a proposed amendment has no effect at all unless “ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by Conventions in three fourths thereof…” This should extinguish anxiety that the state convention process should hijack the Constitution. Thus Levin in The Liberty Amendments lays out in clear, concise language eleven proposed amendments to the Constitution. They are: 1. An Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Members of Congress 2. An Amendment to Restore the Senate 3. An Amendment to Establish Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices and Super-Majority Legislative Override 4. Two Amendments to Limit Federal Spending and Taxing 5. An Amendment to Limit the Federal Bureaucracy 6. An Amendment to Promote Free Enterprise 7. An Amendment to Protect Private Property 8. An Amendment to Grant the States the Authority to Directly Amend the Constitution 9. An Amendment to Grant the States the Authority to Check Congress 10. An Amendment to Protect the Vote We’ll focus here on our favorites — actually they are all favorites. But some deserve a particular focus. • An Amendment to Restore the Senate SECTION 1: The Seventeenth Amendment is hereby repealed. All Senators shall be chosen by their state legislatures as prescribed by Article 1. spectator.org/archives/2013/08/12/mark-levins-the-liberty-amendm/2
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 02:26:13 +0000
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