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The U.S. Constitution has 27 amendments; each was proposed by Congress and ratified by the states.
However, the Constitution sets forth another procedure, never before used, for amending the Constitution. At the request of two thirds of the states, a constitutional convention would be held, at which amendments could be proposed. Any proposals would become part of the Constitution if three fourths of the states ratified them, either at state conventions or in the state legislatures.
Currently, 27 of the needed 34 states have petitioned Congress for a constitutional convention, for the ostensible purpose of writing a balanced-budget amendment (BBA). However, the convention might propose other changes in addition or instead of a BBA—even a total rewrite of the Constitution—if 38 states agreed, the changes would become law.
In November, legislators from 30 states met in Salt Lake City to discuss the matter.
- Forbes article from 2014 (mirror)
- John Birch Society (has a map)
- utahpolicy.com
- Deseret News
- Yellowhammer News
- The Universe—Brigham Young University
- San Francisco Chronicle
- KSTU-TV
- The Columbian
- Washington Post blog about historical attempts at constitutional conventions
- The Spokesman-Review
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @08:31AM
By two thirds vote of both chambers of Congress any decision of the Supreme Court can be declared an abuse of the Court's authority and rendered null and void. A ruling so declared shall have no impact on case law, no binding precedent and in fact shall be considered as an improper overreach for the purpose of future precedent.
So if the Supreme Court said that the government can't censor speech, for instance, you would want to possibly allow this decision to be overridden by a simple vote by Congress? That sounds like a terrible idea. Sometimes the only thing protecting our rights is the Judicial branch. I can imagine all sorts of situations where the Supreme Court would be overridden in the name of national security so that the government could violate our rights.
Instead of this nonsense, I'd rather see politicians, judges, and those who do the government's bidding punished for attempting to overthrow our constitutional form of government. Everyone working for the TSA, NSA, etc. should be imprisoned, as well as the politicians who allowed them to engage in their unconstitutional activities. Also, politicians who voted for the Unpatriotic Act should be imprisoned.
I'd also like to see recognition of the fact that, if the government tasks a private company with doing something that it itself could not normally do under the constitution, that company becomes a de facto part of the government in that instance. Just so they can't mandate that companies hold data for them for X amount of time; that's hardly different than the government collecting it, since they are holding it for the government because the government demanded it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @10:53PM
The Constitution describes the Supreme court as an appellate court (the last in a line of such courts).
It definitely is NOT a legislature and NOT empowered to -create- laws.
WRT to SCOTUS' rejection of the dastardly Trail of Tears program, Andrew Jackson famously said "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."
In addition, an appellate court rules on **the case at hand**.
While SCOTUS often joins together similar cases, those who are not party to the lawsuit are not bound by the decision.
(The power that the courts have is "precedent": the realization that if someone else does the -same- type of thing and are sued, it's likely that that decision will -also- go the same way--and will waste a bunch of cash on lawyers.)
-- gewg_