Constitutional convention could wrest power from political class and return it to states and people.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants to amend the Constitution.
His proposed changes:
- Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state.
- Require Congress to balance its budget.
- Prohibit administrative agencies — and the un-elected bureaucrats that staff them — from creating federal law.
- Prohibit administrative agencies — and the un-elected bureaucrats that staff them — from preempting state law.
- Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
- Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.
- Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.
- Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.
- Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a federal law or regulation.
This proposal has shocked some people.
Writing in The Washington Post, Catherine Rampell — apparently unaware that the Constitution itself provides for amendments — is appalled, saying that Abbot wants to ”blow ... up” the Constitution.
This would come as a surprise to the framers, who actually ratified the Constitution and then, immediately, passed 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights.
They then followed up in short order with the 11th Amendment — protecting state sovereignty from federal courts — and the 12th Amendment, which corrected serious problems in the way presidential elections were conducted.
...I'm not yet ready to say that a convention to discuss constitutional amendments is a good idea.
But to the extent it panics our current political class, which I believe to be probably the worst political class in our nation's history, it's looking like a better one."
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