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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: 1) by khallow on Friday December 11 2015, @06:56PM
Do you contend that unlimited campaign finance doesn't have a deleterious affect by shifting the metric for quality of ideas much more to being about which idea benefits an oligarchic minority in the short term?
Sure, but the effect is less significant than advertised. First, it's quite easy legally to create such things in the complete absence of money via passing laws/regulations for votes. For example, labor unions, large groups of people with common interests (farmers, gun owners), and high employment businesses with political interests. Then there are the illegal means of bribing politicians which would work moderately better (since limited or no cash means politicians have a lower price tag as a whole by this means).
Second, even in the presence of the First Amendment and corporate personhood, there are a number of constitutional ways to limit the otherwise unlimited such as making all such donations public knowledge, capping the donation size, restricting movement of government employees from decision making positions in government to parties affected by those decisions, and imposing and enforcing harsher criminal and civil punishments for corruption and election/voting misconduct/gross incompetence.