Janine Hansen, Eagle Forum National Constitutional Issues Chairman
775-397-6859, [email protected]
Emergency Alert New Hampshire Rescission Hearing Jan. 29th
Please contact the members of the New Hampshire House Committee
Please share with like minded friends and family
HCR9: The New Hampshire House is trying to Rescind an Article V Constitutional Convention for a Balanced Budget Amendment passed by them in 2012.
Scott Walker, former Wisconsin Republican Governor and National Honorary Chairman of the Balanced Budget Amendment Campaign, will be in New Hampshire Tuesday, Jan 28th meeting with House and Senate members asking them not to rescind.
HEARING: Wednesday, January 29, 1:45 pm, Room 206 Legislative Office Building
State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee. We assume the vote will take place two weeks after the hearing.
MESSAGE: Please vote yes on HCR9 which rescinds the New Hampshire application for an Article V Constitutional Convention on a balanced budget. An Article V Convention cannot be limited to one subject, opening the Constitution to unlimited changes. The budget can be balanced right now if Congress would follow the Constitution. The only way to balance a budget is to raise taxes or cut spending. The proposed balanced budget amendment does not limit tax increases. (or write your own message) More information below.
CONTACT: Phone and Emails
State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs Committee Republican Representatives:
Joel Desilets: 603-660-6809
Phyllis Katsakiores: 603-434-9587
Richard Lascelles: 603-325-5523
Gates Lucas: no number
David Lundgren: 603-432-3499
JP Marzullo: no number
Skip Rollins: 603-863-6340
Al Baldasaro: 603-858-3535
Reed Panasiti: 603-672-4471
Emails:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected].
Statement by: Janine Hansen
Eagle Forum National Constitutional Issues Chairman
Statement in support of HCR9: the Rescission of all requests by the New Hampshire legislature for a federal constitutional convention.
In 2017 in SJR10, the Nevada Legislature, both the State Senate and Assembly, unanimously rescinded all previous Article V Constitutional Convention applications including the Balanced Budget Amendment. Even the Republican Senator, who was the Chairman of ALEC for Nevada, voted for SJR10. At that time the Nevada Senate had 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans.
It was a miracle to me. I had worked for years as a citizen advocate in Nevada to rescind our 1979 passage of the BBA in order to protect our Constitution from the many risks associated with an Article V Constitutional Convention.
Nevada was the fourth state in 2016-2017 to vote to rescind an Article V BBA. Other states included Delaware, Maryland, and New Mexico. This was important because the BBA was counting 32 states which had passed an Article V BBA, many as long ago as the 1970s. According to Article V, 34 states are required to make application which is the trigger for Congress to Call the Convention.
In 2012 the National Republican Committee adopted a Resolution opposing an Article V Constitutional Convention. Then in my state, in 2015, the Nevada Republican State Central Committee passed a resolution opposing an Article V Convention.
The Balanced Budget sounds very good to conservatives. We wish there was some way to reign in the out of control spending of the Federal Government. However, the Constitution is not the problem. The Federal Government has ignored the Enumerated Powers listed in the Constitution and spends money on countless things that are not authorized by the Constitution, like education. If a Balanced Budget Amendment was in the Constitution it would make matters worse by actually constitutionally authorizing Federal Spending outside of the Enumerated Powers.
The only way to balance a budget is to raise taxes or cut spending. There is no requirement in HCR40 from 2012 passed by New Hampshire that requires a Balanced Budget Amendment to limit tax increases.
Right now every state receives between 19% and 45% of its state budget from the Federal Government. According to ballotpedia.org, in 2014 New Hampshire, received about 28% of its general revenue from the Federal Government. That is listed as $1,658,713,000. Would any New Hampshire State Representative or Senator vote at a Convention for a Balanced Budget Amendment which would result in the loss of $1,658,713,000 from the New Hampshire state budget? Think of the crisis that would result in New Hampshire from such a huge loss of general revenue.
State Legislators, both Republicans, and Democrats, continue to vote for Federal Mandates and money. How can they honestly say they support limiting spending by the Federal Government when they continue to vote to take more money from the Feds?
With all of these concerns about a BBA, the greatest concern is that an Article V Constitutional Convention cannot be limited. Phyllis Schlafly, the President of Eagle Forum until her passing in 2016, was an ardent opponent of an Article V Constitutional Convention. When she served on the Bi-Centennial Commission, she requested an opinion from then Chief Justice Warren Burger on the risks of an Article V Convention. He is the highest authority in the United States to ever speak out on a Constitutional Convention. He stated: “I have also repeatedly given my opinion that there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey. After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the convention if we don’t like its agenda…” http://www.eagleforum.org/topics/concon/pdf/WarrenBurger-letter.pdf
In addition, in 2015 the New Jersey Law Journal cited Supreme Court Justice “Scalia called it ‘a horrible idea’ to hold a constitutional convention in this age of special interests.”
New Hampshire, like my home state of Nevada, is a small population state. An Article V Convention should be of great concern especially to a small population state because all previously proposed rules for an Article V Convention by the U.S. Congress include representation based on the formula of the Electoral College, which is 1 delegate for each Congressional District and 2 delegates at large. Unlike the original Constitutional Convention in which each state had one vote, a new Constitutional Convention will mean that New Hampshire will have 4 delegates and California will have 55 delegates. To me as a conservative from a small state that is very scary!
Article V limits what can be amended to only one item, “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.” In other words, no State can be deprived of its two U.S. Senators without its consent. That is significant because it means that EVERYTHING else in the Constitution can be amended, including the amending process itself in Article V. In the original Constitutional Convention the amending process of the Articles of Confederation, which required a unanimous vote of the states, was thrown out. The New Constitution only required nine of the thirteen States to ratify the Constitution for it to take effect.
When proponents of an Article V Constitutional Convention say that we don’t have to worry about what comes out of a Convention because any Amendments proposed by the Convention will have to be approved by the States, I have three responses. 1) Didn’t the States approve the 16th Amendment which gave us the Income Tax? 2) Didn’t the States pass the 17th Amendment which changed forever the balance of power between the States and the Federal Government to the detriment of the States? And 3) The Convention, just like the original Constitutional Convention did, can change the ratification process. Could that happen at a new Constitutional Convention? Instead of requiring 38 States to ratify any Amendments, they might change it to two-thirds or one more than 50 percent…just 26 States. If the politicians controlling an Article V Constitutional Convention thought that enough states would not approve the new amendments or the New Constitution, they could as our Founders did, throw out the current Constitutional requirements for amending the Constitution.
What else do we RISK? I always say the first thing that will go in an Article V Constitutional Convention will be the Second Amendment, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens stated in 2018, that, “…Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.”
In this world of the “Politically Correct” we also risk losing our Freedom of Speech and the Free Exercise of Religion. Free Speech and Religion are obstacles to the imposition of the Radical Left’s view of their Socialist Society. Of course, we know the Electoral College would be in jeopardy.
The proponents of the Balanced Budget Amendment are now promoting the idea that Congress can AGGREGATE Article V applications covering different issues in order to achieve the required 34 states. Rob Natelson’s new Study claims that we are “only one state away from a Convention to propose a Balanced Budget Amendment.” Actually, we are at least 6 states away. https://i2i.org/wp-content/uploads/Aggreg-FedSocR.pdf
This aggregation of Article V applications further alarms those of us opposing a Constitutional Convention because we see the deliberate manipulation of the Constitutional process in order to achieve the aims of Convention proponents, that of an unlimited Constitutional Convention.
Further Reading: Article V
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