One of the Liberty Amendments \u201csunsets\u201d all federal departments and agencies, unless Congress reauthorizes them every three years by majority vote. Every big-ticket Executive Branch regulation would be subjected to review by a joint congressional committee. This amendment would pull the plug on the unstoppable federal bureaucracy, forcing every department to perpetually justify its existence, and terminating President Obama\u2019s beloved practice of circumventing Congress to legislate by decree.<\/p>\n
Another Liberty Amendment likewise reins in the judicial branch, setting term limits for Supreme Court justices, and giving Congress the power to override Supreme Court opinions with a three-fifths vote, without risk of presidential veto. Three-fifths of the state legislatures can also join forces to knock down a Court decision. That\u2019s a recurring theme of the Liberty Amendments: the restoration of both congressional and state power. As Levin repeatedly reminds us, nothing worried the Founders more than the rise of a despotic national executive, such as the one we have now. The original states never would have signed on to a federal government that turned them into puppets. There were strong logical arguments against these outcomes, which power-hungry progressives understood quite well, back when they first set about overturning the Constitutional order. Modern progressives don\u2019t think they need to understand those arguments any more, because the foundation of the total State has been laid, and the clock can never be \u201cturned back,\u201d as one of their favorite slogans has it. This should leave them at a severe intellectual disadvantage, if the Liberty Amendments become a topic of national debate.<\/p>\n
Some of Levin\u2019s proposed amendments are intended to clarify language that already exists in the Constitution, such as the much-abused Commerce Clause \u2013 lately interpreted as a warrant for unlimited federal control of all human activity, although the Founders most certainly did not intend it to be taken that way. Our language has changed over the centuries, always in a way that expands the Left\u2019s desire for centralized control. The authors of the Constitution would find our current understanding of the word \u201ccommerce\u201d to be utterly deranged \u2013 indeed, they might even ask what the point of their Revolution was, if \u201cinterstate commerce\u201d was to become a writ for powers beyond the wildest dreams of daft old King George.<\/p>\n
Two of the proposed Liberty Amendments are devastating blows against imperial federal power, making it easier for states to amend the Constitution, and giving them a brief window of opportunity to strike down both congressional legislation and Executive Branch legislation. Levin also makes a compelling argument against the Seventeenth Amendment, which provided for the direct election of United States senators. Senators were supposed to be instruments of the state legislatures, while the House of Representatives would be filled by popular vote. I have never read a better explanation for why this was important, and how it gave state governments a vitally needed hand in the crafting of federal legislation.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve also seen no better case made for term limits on Congress, as Levin astutely points out that not only do Jurassic representatives-for-life distort the distribution of power in Congress, but they invest a great deal of our national energy (and funding!) in maintaining their 85-percent-plus re-election rate. Surely some of those \u201csafe\u201d districts would merely replace Retiring Party Drone A with New Party Drone B, but as it stands, far too many representatives discover they can most easily secure lifetime tenure by representing the Leviathan State instead of their constituents, tapping the federal treasury to purchase reliable voters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But might such a convention unravel the Constitution?\u00a0 And the left has some tinkering with the Constitution that it wants to do.\u00a0 Many would love to do away with the Second Amendment.\u00a0 The feminists want to bring back the Equal Rights Amendment.\u00a0 And some would love to enshrine abortion and sexual orientation into the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n
Levin says that the enabling legislation he is proposing from the states would limit the convention\u2019s purpose to just considering amendments that would limit the powers of the federal government and increase those of the states.\u00a0 But liberals could frame their at least some of their amendments to fit that constriction:\u00a0 \u201cThe Federal government shall make no law restricting a woman\u2019s right to an abortion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The movement also seems to be working with the assumption that conservatives and conservative states are the majority.\u00a0 In the last presidential election, there were 26 blue states (that voted Democratic)\u00a0 to 24 red states (that voted Republican).\u00a0 While it is true that blue states too might want more power and so theoretically might agree to a convention, who knows what might come of it?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n