Encouraged by Susan G, I read Mark Levin’s Liberty Amendments book on the flight to Israel where Susan lives.
I occasionally listen to Levin on the radio. He seems angry and confrontational (I am too, often) which does not strike me as an effective tool for a radio host to win political arguments with the general public. Nevertheless he has a large audience and Michael Savage has a larger and growing audience with the same emotional outrage.
Levin’s book does a wonderful job of pointing out that Article 5 of the Constitution provides for a unique route to a new constitutional amendment. States can generate new constitutional amendments if two-thirds propose the amendment and three-quarters approve it. This mechanism completely circumvents the Congress. For that very reason it was proposed in the last few days of the founding Constitutional Convention. The Congress can act in its own self-interest.
I have seen arguments that this alternate amendment process would have to be litigated before the Supreme Court for a new amendment. That is an invalid, nonsensical argument. The current 27th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in precisely this manner. The 27th Amendment was passed to deliberately circumvent the Congress. No one has questioned it in a decade. The Congress has followed the prescription of the 27th amendment from the day it passed the 38 state vote. (The 27th Amendment limits Congress’s self setting of salaries.)
I concur entirely with Levin on the need to circumvent Congress. Congress has been unable to enact spending restraint regardless of the party in charge or the public mood.
The list of Levin's proposed amendments must be proposed by the states. The amendments will have to be generated by 33 states and approved by 38. Only a few of the amendments Levin proposes are really in the interests of the state legislatures.
One, such amendment is the requirement that Congress be subject to its own laws This will be very popular and will be the first to pass under the Article 5 amendment process.
Other legislation to restrain government spending will be more difficult to pass in 33 states. Though I am confident that some such amendment will finally emerge over the next few years.
The current battle over long-term budget imbalance and constant increases in the debt will have the unexpected consequence of increasing the demand for such a budget resticting amendment.
Thank you Mr. Levin for stating the issues so clearly and pointing out to so many millions of people that there is a form of redemption, short of civil war.