Title: The “Other” Article V Resolution in Massachusetts
Original CoS Document (slug): the-other-article-v-resolution-in-massachusetts
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Created: 2022-06-06 17:02:27
Updated: 2022-06-14 03:00:01
Published: 2022-06-07 02:00:00
Converted: 2025-04-14T21:17:33.008910990
As COS supporters have learned to our frustration, a common misconception about an Article V Convention of States is that such a gathering would become a “runaway” convention; that it would alter the Constitution such that it would become unrecognizable.
It should go without saying that this is not the case, simply because a Convention of States is not a constitutional convention.
Yet concerns about a “runaway” convention have been cited by many members of the Massachusetts General Court and legislative staff, as we at Mass. COS have called and emailed to urge legislative support in favor of the COS resolution, H-3660.
However, eagle-eyed Mass. COS State Director Michael Arnold noticed that there is another resolution in the current session of the General Court – H-3658 – that supports an Article V convention.
At its most simplistic form, this resolution requests that Congress propose a constitutional amendment that would limit independent spending in U.S. political campaigns and basically undo the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
Absent congressional action, the resolution calls for a convention of the states to address the matter.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the resolution for those of COS supporters who hear the phrase “runaway convention” in our sleep is the significant number of co-sponsors who have attached their names to H-3658.
Fifty-one Massachusetts representatives or senators have co-sponsored H-3658, including some who have expressed opposition now or in the past to our resolution, H-3660.
This raises an interesting question:
How can one Article V resolution be promoted but another be deemed “dangerous” for fear of a runaway convention? An Article V convention either puts the whole of the Constitution in jeopardy or it does not.
As stated above and in more detail during our January 7 testimony before the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs, an Article V convention of states – regardless of what potential amendments are being proposed and discussed – does not place the fundamental liberties and rights of the sovereign people at risk:
A convention of states is not a constitutional convention such as that of 1787. Thirty-eight states must ratify a proposed amendment. It is difficult to imagine a dozen state legislatures – let alone 38 of them – that would ratify an amendment or series of amendments that would so alter the Constitution as to destroy its basic protections and freedoms.
Furthermore, if an Article V convention of states could so easily upset or erase the Constitution, why would the mechanism have been included in the original document? As Madison argued in Federalist 43:
“It was requisite, therefore, that a mode for introducing [amendments] should be provided. The mode preferred by the convention seems to be stamped with every mark of propriety. It guards against that extreme facility, which would render the Constitution too mutable…It, moreover, equally enables the general and the State governments to originate the amendment of errors, as they may be pointed out by experience on one side, or the other…”
Any legislator who supports the “other” Article V resolution must by definition support H-3660.
Article V is for all the people. It is the mechanism for the non-partisan, rational, deliberate discussion, debate, and proposal of constitutional amendments.
Failure to support one but not the other is inconsistent at best, and disingenuous at worst.
Let's remember that when talking with members of the General Court, particularly those who have attached their names to the “other” Article V resolution.