It was a super-annoying read. The info was all over the place. And the fucking New York Times made the lede the final paragraphs. Basically - if the republicans want to have one - I'm sure they'll be able to. The constitution is a vague mess on this. The article doesn't mention the supreme court. But I'm certain nearly everything the republicans want to do will be declared constitutional by the wackadoodle GOP SCOTUS justices.
- 34 states to have a convention
- 38 states to approve any constitutional amendment.
A Constitutional Convention? Some Democrats Fear It’s Coming.
The 1787 gathering in Philadelphia to write the Constitution was the one and only time state representatives have convened to work on the document. [...] A simple line in the Constitution allows Congress to convene a rewrite session if two-thirds of state legislatures [34 out of 50] have called for one. The option has never been used, but most states have long-forgotten requests on the books that could be enough to trigger a new constitutional convention, some scholars and politicians believe.
[...]
More than 34 states appear to have standing requests to change the Constitution, some dating back more than 150 years. [...] 38 states would have to approve any constitutional amendment.
[...]
By the count of David Super, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and an expert on constitutional conventions, the highest number of active requests for a convention on one specific topic is 28, for a balanced budget. But, he said, if Article V is interpreted as allowing any request to count toward convening a constitutional convention, the 34-state threshold has already been reached.
“If Congress declares under whatever crazy counting theory the convention advocates support that we’ve met the threshold, then we’ll have a convention,” Mr. Super said.
Yet somehow the ERA hasn't been declared as passed? Of course if they did this I guess they could just scrap the ERA and everything else right after if they have enough votes. Certainly they'd have to votes to carve some much bigger holes in the first amendment, outlaw encryption and privacy, outlaw disloyalty, and outlaw communists.
You see, bureaucracy can only stop good things from happening, not bad things.
And kill birthright citizenship, etc. The dems whining of "We can't do anything!..." will ring even more hollow if the GOP takes an axe to the constitution. I think the only practical limits are what they want to do and what the GOP justices will allow them to do. And I think the justices will allow them to go big.