Dear John, I strongly encourage you to read the latest article from Duke University historian and CMD board member Nancy MacLean in The New Republic, “Warn Voters About the Radicalism Beyond Trump.” MacLean sounds the alarm about the unacceptable risk of calling for a constitutional convention, particularly in the current polarized political climate. | |
"Lurking behind the full-frontal assault by Donald Trump and his enablers lies a more far-reaching threat. If the Republicans gain control of both Houses of Congress, expect a state-authorized Constitutional Convention to eviscerate core rights and protections most Americans hold dear. Imagine living in a country without Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, the right to organize a union, civil rights enforcement, and clean air and water protections, let alone action to stop climate collapse. The Constitutional Convention, in the plain language of the leading organizer for it, aims “to reverse 115 years of progressivism." | |
This is not an idle threat. Research cited by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) shows that constitutional convention advocates have spent more than $70 million over the past decade to achieve their goal – and that doesn’t include spending by powerful groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which coordinates and promotes their efforts. “The instigators have already adopted a representation scheme for the convention based on one-vote-per-state, chosen by legislatures,” MacLean writes, citing CMD’s research report, Convention of State Politicians. And CMD revealed that ALEC is actively promoting a strategy to use the courts to force Congress to call a convention using a “crooked counting” strategy that aggregates disparate (and some very old) state convention resolutions. Please consider making a tax-deductible contribution today to support CMD’s efforts to expose the dark money forces driving the far-right’s campaign to rewrite the Constitution and their radical vision for a New Confederacy. | |
Thanks for your concern for America’s democracy and all that you do to protect it, | |
Executive Director_____________________________________________________ Center for Media and Democracy | |
“We have the opportunity [in a constitutional convention] to have a supermajority, even though…we may not even be in an absolute majority when it comes to the people who agree with us.” — Former Sen. Rick Santorum, speaking at an ALEC event | |
