Guest Post by Antonius Aquinas
In the midst of the seemingly indeterminable presidential electoral campaign, some of the candidates have been asked about the possibility of convening a constitutional convention in the hope of addressing the nation’s most pressing issues, most ominously the gargantuan federal deficit now in excess of $18 trillion.
Governor John Kasich supports such a notion with the explicit purpose of passing a balanced budget amendment.
Mark Meckler, president of Citizens for Self Governance, a leading group pushing the idea, believes that “If it starts to become a serious presidential issue, we could get it done in 2016.”*
Not all presidential contenders are on board with the idea. Senator Marco Rubio has expressed trepidation over the possibility of a convention for amending the current document fearful that it would lead to a total rewrite:
Just make sure that we know how it is going to turn out
because if you open up the Constitution, you are also
opening it up to people that want to re-examine the First
Amendment, people that want to re-examine the Second
Amendment, people that want to re-examine some other
fundamental protect[ions] that are built into the Constitution.”**
Unlike most issues on which he pontificates, Senator Rubio is this time right in his analysis, but most likely for the wrong reasons.
Continue reading “Another Constitutional Convention: An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come”
