Article V and the “Runaway Convention”
Article V requires Congress, “on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States,” to “call a Convention for proposing Amendments.” This process for proposing constitutional...
View ArticleHow to Count to 34: Paulsen on the Article V Convention
In the debate over the “runaway convention,” Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen occupies an unusual, and perhaps unique, position. In a seminal 1993 article, Paulsen argued that an Article V convention...
View ArticleLegislative Instructions and the Article V Convention
In thinking about the question of whether an Article V convention may be limited, it is helpful to distinguish between two types of limitations. The first goes to a limitation on the authority of the...
View ArticleAnd Now For Something Completely Different
This is not a post about Monty Python (sorry), but a couple of thoughts on the word “amendment.” Over at The Originalism Blog, Professor Michael Ramsey discusses a debate regarding the meaning of the...
View ArticleRob Natelson on the Article V Convention
In an article recently published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Professor Rob Natelson provides a brief but illuminating summary of how the Article V convention fits within the...
View ArticleArticle V and the Single Amendment Convention
Can an Article V convention for proposing amendments be limited to considering a single amendment specified by the state legislatures in their applications? Even within the relatively sparse literature...
View ArticleAddition and Subtraction in Article V Counting
Yesterday Representative Duncan Hunter (R-Ca.) sent a letter to the Speaker asking for the House to determine how many states have applied for an Article V convention to propose a balanced budget...
View ArticleAntonin Scalia on the “Minimal Risk” of an Article V Convention
When state legislatures consider whether to apply for an Article V convention for proposing amendments, the primary argument in opposition is invariably that such an application poses an intolerable...
View ArticleThe Justiciability of Controversies Related to the Article V Convention
As you may know, there is increasing chatter about the possibility of Congress calling an Article V “convention for proposing amendments” (sometimes referred to, inaccurately, as a “constitutional...
View ArticleColeman v. Miller and the Political Question Doctrine
Following on my last post, our analysis of the justiciability of claims related to the Article V convention will begin with Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939) and the political question doctrine....
View ArticleMore on Article V Justiciability: Dyer v. Blair
In my last post on the justiciability of Article V cases, we discussed the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in Coleman v. Miller and whether that decision would be applied broadly to block most or all...
View ArticleStill More on Article V Justiciability: Idaho v. Freeman
The second important district court opinion on the justiciability of Article V claims is Idaho v. Freeman, 529 F.Supp. 1107 (D. Idaho 1981), judgment stayed sub nom. Natl Org. of Women v. Freeman, 455...
View ArticleWould a Court Hear a Challenge to Congress’s Article V Convention Call?
Having reviewed the most prominent cases regarding the justiciability of Article V claims, today I will analyze how a court would approach the hypothetical lawsuit discussed in an earlier post. In that...
View ArticleHow the Hamilton Electors Show that an Article V Convention Cannot Run Away
Back in 2011, I wrote a law review article discussing concerns that a limited convention for proposing amendments called under Article V could propose one or more amendments outside the scope of the...
View ArticlePresidential Electors and the Article V Convention: An Update
A few years ago I wrote a post explaining why the failure of the “Hamilton electors” in the 2016 presidential election demonstrated that it would be equally impossible for an Article V convention to...
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