TIME FOR AN ARTICLE V CONVENTION?

The founding fathers included in our nation's constitution many safeguards against abuses of power, one of which we may not all be familiar with, perhaps because it has never been invoked. The following article discusses Article V of the U.S. Constitution which provides for the calling of a constitutional convention of delegates from each state that has the function of amending the constitution. It is triggered when the legislatures of two thirds of the states formally request it. The founding fathers saw this as a way for the states to correct imbalances of power in the federal government. In our nation's history the requirement for calling the convention has been met, but the congress has never recognized it by convening the Article V convention. Similar conventions have been held at the state level however, and the historical results have been more direct democracy in many states through the introduction of initiative & referendum. See the following website to learn more about why many are advocating an Article V convention at this time to acheive similar reforms at the federal level: www.foavc.org

When the Federal Government Fails the People

by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Source: http://www.opednews.com/articles/When-the-Federal-Governmen-by-Joel-S-Hirschhorn-081014-415.html

The hardest thing for Americans to do right now in this presidential election season is to fight distraction and, instead, focus on the failure of all three branches of the federal government. And also to resist the propaganda masquerading as patriotic obligation that voting will fundamentally fix the federal government. The real lesson of American history is that things have turned so ugly that electing a new president and many new members of Congress will at best provide band-aids when what is needed is nothing less than what Thomas Jefferson wisely said our nation would need periodically: a political revolution.

The basis for this view is that the institutions of the three branches have been so corrupted and perverted that they no longer meet the hopes and aspirations embedded in our Constitution.

It is easy to condemn George W. Bush as the worst president in history. The larger truth is that the presidency has accumulated far too much power over the past half century. This has resulted from the weakening of the Congress that no longer, in any way, has the power of an equal branch of government, not that any recent Congress has shown any commitment or capability to execute its constitutional authorities. Concurrently, we have become accepting of a politicized Supreme Court that has not shown the courage to stop the unconstitutional grabbing of power by the presidency and in 2000 showed its own root failure in choosing to select the new president.

Worst of all, modern history has vividly shown Americans that the federal government has usurped the sovereignty of the “we the people” and of the states, and has even sold out national sovereignty to a set of international organizations and the greed of corporate-crazed globalization.

The current economic and financial sector meltdown is just another symptom of deep seated, cancerous disease of government that has sold out the public because of the moneyed influence of the corporate and wealthy classes of special interests. The serious disease is a long festering unraveling of the constitutional design of our government. Each of the three branches of the federal government is totally unequal to each other and completely incapable of ensuring the constitutional functioning of each other. Checks and balances have become a fiction.

These sad historic realities have been produced because of an all too powerful and corrupt two-party political machine that has prevented true political competition and real choices for voters. This two-party system has thrived because of corruption from money provided for Democrats and Republicans to maintain the status quo that is the ruination of our constitutional Republic.

Yet the hidden genius of the Founders and Framers was to anticipate how the Republic would most likely unravel under the pressures of money and corruption. Unknown to nearly all Americans is a part of the Constitution that all established political forces have worked hard to denigrate over our entire history. They fear using what is provided as a kind of escape clause in the Constitution, something to use when the three branches of the federal government fail their constitutional responsibilities. What is this ultimate solution that those who love and respect our Constitution should be clamoring for?

It is the provision in Article V to create a temporary fourth branch of the government – in the form of a convention of state delegates – that operates outside the control of Congress, the President and the Supreme Court, and that has only one single function: to consider proposals for constitutional amendments, just like Congress has done over our history, but that must also be ratified by three-quarters of the states. One of the most perplexing questions in American history that has received too little attention is simple: Why have we never had an Article V convention?

One possible answer might be that what the Constitution requires to launch a convention has never been satisfied. But this is not the case. The one and only requirement is that two-thirds of state legislatures apply to Congress for a convention. With over 600 such state applications from all 50 states that single requirement has long been satisfied. So why no convention?

Because Congress has refused to honor the exact constitutional mandate that it “shall” call a convention when that requirement has been met. Simply put, Congress has long broken the supreme law of the land by not calling a convention, and virtually every political force on the left and right likes it that way. Why? Because they have learned to corrupt the government and fear an independent convention of state delegates that could propose serious constitutional amendments that would truly reform our government and political system to remove the power of special interests and compel all three branches to follow the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

With great irony, the public has been brainwashed to fear an Article V convention despite many hundreds of state constitutional conventions that have never wrecked state governments, and that in countless cases have provided much needed forms of direct democracy that have empowered citizens and limited powers of state governments.

There is only one national, nonpartisan organization with the single mission of educating the public about the Article V convention option and building demand for Congress to convene a convention. It is the Friends of the Article V Convention group that has done something that neither the government nor any other group has ever done; it has been collecting all the hundreds of state applications for a convention and making them available to the public at www.foavc.org.

With a new president and many new members of Congress, now is the ideal time for Americans that see the need for obeying the Constitution and seek root reforms to rally behind this mission of obtaining the nation’s first Article V convention. The new Congress in 2009 should give the public what the Constitution says we have a right to have and what Congress has a legal obligation to provide. Always remember that the convention cannot by itself change the Constitution, but operating in the public limelight it could revitalize what has become our delusional and fake democracy. The main thing to fear is not a convention, but continuation of the two-party plutocracy status quo. Sadly, no presidential candidate, not even third-party ones, has spoken out in support of Congress obeying the Constitution and giving us the first Article V convention.

PERPETUAL INCUMBENCY AND THE CORRUPTION OF REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

The solution to an unpopular, corrupted and inefficient congress: MORE DIRECT DEMOCRACY - Editor

Inside Politics: No Surprise, but Congress Not Popular

By Rebecca Boyle
rboyle@fortcollinsnow.com
Source: http://www.fortcollinsnow.com/article/20081008/NEWS/810089991/1062&ParentProfile=1054&title=Inside%20Politics:%20No%20Surprise,%20but%20Congress%20Not%20Popular

After passing a hugely unpopular financial rescue package, Congress is getting very little love from the American people.

So little, in fact, that only half of Americans, 49 percent, think the legislative body would do a better job than people chosen at random from the phone book.

But 33 percent of people think a group of their fellow citizens, chosen completely at random, would do a better job. In fact, more than half of Americans would like to toss the entire Congress and start over.

A new poll released Oct. 5 shows Americans have an abysmal opinion of their elected representatives. Along with the numbers noted above, only 24 percent, according to the poll by Rasmussen Reports, believe members of Congress understand legislation before they vote on it. Just 23 percent of people have even a little confidence in the ability of Congress to deal with the country’s economic woes, Rasmussen said.

Those numbers could be bad news for any incumbents this fall, no matter their party—change is definitely in the air.

But the phone book statistic gave me pause—it sounds funny, but it’s actually more in line with what the Founders intended, and not unique in history.

When the Constitution was adopted, state legislatures experienced vast turnover each election cycle, and the architects of the document likely expected things to be the same way on the federal level. Americans in the 1790s were not exactly fans of perpetual incumbency—our first executive limited himself to just two terms, more than 150 years before those limits were formally imposed.

And, as Rasmussen points out, turnover was the name of the game for more than a century. It all started changing in the 20th century, especially, as Rasmussen pollsters say, after “power and prestige flowed to Washington” during and after the New Deal.

Well before our Constitution was written, history’s first practitioners of democracy already employed their own phone book strategy, of sorts. The Athenians practiced a form of direct democracy, wherein citizens voted directly on legislation.

Given that background, I decided to conduct an experiment: I called random numbers out of the phone book.

The first name my eyes landed upon was that of Frank Bayless, a Fort Collins resident. It was completely random, but I must admit that I guessed someone named Franklin might be older, hence retired, and therefore home at 11:30 on a Monday morning.

I dialed his number and when he answered, I explained my odd request: “I’m calling you randomly out of the phone book because of a poll that said a third of Americans think people randomly chosen from the phone book would do a better job in Congress. So, what do you think of Congress?”

Bayless, as it turns out, might be pretty well qualified to run.

He’s writing a book about dueling philosophies through history and how they’ve shaped our culture—mercantilism versus socialism, conservatism versus liberalism, etc.—and he is a retired lawyer.

Bayless said members of Congress have abandoned their constituents in favor of special interests.

“Basically, the will of the people has been ignored,” he said. “It’s because of, primarily, special interest groups, and you’ve got the influence of the political parties and you’ve got of course, the conscience of the representative, whoever he is, if he has one. And all of that impacts these guys to the point that they’ve forgotten what the people want.”
He said spin and propaganda have clouded the truth.

“A Congress, a republic, can’t survive without truth. And so what I think of the Congress? I would have to say, I’m very disappointed, but I’m not disappointed in all of them. I am in some of them who really aren’t willing to cooperate and aren’t willing to reconcile their differences, and who follow the party line to the point that government doesn’t work anymore.”

He said he’s voting this fall for Sen. Barack Obama for president and Rep. Mark Udall for Senate.

After talking with Bayless for a few minutes, I flipped forward in the phone book to the letter J. No one was home under several listings for the name Jamison, so I flipped forward a couple of letters and landed on the Limbecks of Loveland.

Adam Limbeck, 10, who is home-schooled, answered the phone. Citing his youth, he said he wasn’t sure about the people in Congress, and passed the phone to his mom, Janet, who said she has some concerns about the current Congress and its partisanship.

“I definitely feel like with major issues, we don’t always get the whole story,” she said, adding that some issues are more complicated than they seem. “When the president is making his decisions, I feel like there are a lot more people in the trenches who don’t come on the news. I try to have faith that they are doing the right things.”

Limbeck said her family has been hit by the tough economy.

“In the last few years, the belief was that the economy was going to trickle down,” she said. “We owned a restaurant that failed. And it was for a multitude of reasons, but I never felt the trickle-down. I didn’t think any of the things that were in play benefited us.”

She worries about the Iraq War, too, and veterans coming home who will need access to mental-health treatment. She said she doesn’t think Congress has done enough to address any of those issues. She, too, is voting for Obama on Nov. 4.

As of this writing, several people in the S section in Greeley’s phone book were not home, at least not during the day. But I’ll keep trying, especially hoping to find some supporters of Sen. John McCain.

Because you never know—maybe they’ll be qualified to run for Congress. Odds are they might be more popular, at least.

U.S.A.: DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLIC?

Interesting analysis from an Oklahoma newspaper on the history and the current state of democracy in the U.S.A. - Editor

Democracy or Republic?

Think the U.S. is a true democracy? Actually, the founding fathers visualized a republic – and neither form of government has anything to do with party affiliation.


Source: http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/homepage/local_story_086152904.html?keyword=leadpicturestory


By BETTY SMITH Press special writer

The ancient Greeks came up with the idea that the people should run the government. That legacy continues today in the United States and many other countries around the world.

But different countries vary on their interpretations of “democracy,” and wars have been fought over it.

Although most people probably didn’t know about it or think about it, Tuesday was National Celebration of Greek and American Democracy Day. There were no parades, no speeches, no politicians kissing babies. But when asked, some people did reflect on the meaning of democracy and how it functions in the U.S. today.

Democracy had its genesis in the city-state of Athens about 500 B.C. In that society, people – more precisely, men – made decisions together, rather than electing representatives to make those decisions on their behalf.

Obviously, that is not possible today in a country as large, well-populated and diverse as the U.S. The founding fathers created what they considered a “republic,” or federation of states, with the House of Representatives elected by the people and other federal officials appointed.

In case you’re wondering, none of this has anything to do with whether one is a registered “Republican” or “Democrat.”

The U.S. Department of State Web site defines democracy as “a government by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.”

Or, as Abraham Lincoln termed it, a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

“Greece is the home of democracy,” said Dr. Justin Halpern, professor of political science at Northeastern State University. “The founding fathers [of the U.S.] were not especially keen on direct votes of the people. The founding fathers thought they were a republic, and they only provided for direct election of one house.”

The electoral college is a survivor of that philosophy – a survivor many people believe should go the way of the dinosaur, with the president instead being elected by popular vote.

And for a long time, people did not vote directly on senators, who were appointed by the states.

One also has to take into consideration that for much of America’s history, various groups were not allowed to vote. Women have been able to vote for less than a century. While blacks – the men, anyway – gained the right to vote after the Civil War, in actual practice, the poll taxes, literacy tests and other measures prevented them from casting ballots, especially in the South. And Native Americans were not granted full citizenship until the 20th century.

Halpern believes direct democracy is becoming more prevalent, especially on votes such as the state questions and local issues like sales taxes. And New England preserves the Greek style of direct democracy in its famous town meetings, he added.

He also has watched the evolution of the presidential election process. Candidates used to be selected in caucuses and in the infamous “smoke-filled rooms” where political bosses ruled.

“Now, more and more, they are selected in primaries,” he said.

Halpern believes continued development of the Internet will result in more direct democracy in the future.

Retired educator Fred Gibson, who has taught history and government and led public and foreign policy issue forums, sometimes fears for democracy.

“I think we have gone to great lengths to change the idea of democracy,” he said. “We have been more or less brainwashed to think of democracy as socialism, and we have a perverted knowledge of what capitalism is. It’s more a matter of license than it is freedom, for persons who have the advantage to succeed.”

Gibson pointed out Jesus Christ was concerned with the poor and with equality of people.

“He didn’t have that much respect for wealth,” Gibson said.

Gibson admires President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s policies to give people a hand up and out of the Depression through meaningful work programs.

He believes today’s society needs more programs to promote equality.

“We are getting away from what democracy means,” he said. “Democracy is where everybody has an equal opportunity for liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Department of State’s publication indicates that “freedom and democracy are often used interchangeably, but the two are not synonymous.”

It calls democracy the institutionalization of freedom. A direct democracy, where all people participate, is only possible where a small number of citizens are involved, such as in the New England town meetings.

In larger groups, people elect their representatives to vote on issues – whether it be a church board, club officers, or something as large as the federal government.

While the general concept of a democracy is that the majority rules, many contemporary societies also consider it important to protect the rights of the minorities.

Locally, people are often presented with the concept of two sovereign nations, such as the Cherokee Nation or the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, dealing with the federal government.

The Department of State lists these principals as the pillars of democracy:

• Sovereignty of the people.
• Government based on consent of the governed.
• Majority rule.
• Minority rights.
• Guarantee of basic human rights.
• Free and fair elections.
• Equality before the law.
• Due process of law.
• Constitutional limits on government.
• Social, economic and political pluralism.
• Values of tolerance, pragmatism, cooperation and compromise

PHOTO JOURNALISTS STUDY DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN NEW ENGLAND

The 10 page photo essay found at the link below provides historical information regarding the development of direct democracy in New England. The longstanding 'town meeting' system of participatory democracy in New England dates back to revolutionary times and was the inspiration for those of the founding fathers who favored a direct system of governance for the new nation they were creating. Unfortunately they did not prevail and a representative system was adopted. Nowadays people in New England get up and voice their opinion on a variety of issues in many towns, in an exercise of participatory democracy that hints at what might have been had the likes of Paine, Jefferson and Henry gotten their way. While the term direct democracy is not one that we often hear in mainstream media or in day-to-day dialogue, the practice is actually quite common in the many towns studied here. - Editor

http://www.photojournalistas.com/Sept_Oct_2003/Town_Meeting/story_pages/townmeeting1.html

WHAT IS 'DIRECT' OR 'PARTICIPATORY' DEMOCRACY, AND DOES IT EXIST IN THE U.S.A.?

WHAT IS DIRECT OR PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY?

Direct or participatory democracy, classically termed pure democracy, comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. Depending on the particular system, this assembly might pass executive motions or decrees, make law, elect and dismiss officials and conduct trials. Where the assembly elected officials, these were executive agents or direct representatives bound to the will of the people.

Direct democracy stands in contrast to representative democracy, where sovereignty is exercised by a subset of the people, elected periodically, but otherwise free to advance their own agendas. These two forms of democracy can be combined into representative direct democracy, where elected representatives vote on the behalf of citizens, but the citizens have the power to override the votes of their representatives.

DO WE HAVE DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN THE U.S.A?

A Town Meeting in New England

The founding fathers debated over what form of government to adopt in our nation's constitution, with those such as James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, And Alexander Hamilton opposing direct democracy and avocating a representative system. Others like Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry favored a direct democracy. In the end the idea of pure democracy was rejected and they instituted a republic in the form of a representative democracy. However, despite the framers' intentions in the beginning of the republic, ballot measures and their corresponding referendums have been widely used at the state and sub-state level. These do in fact represent a form of direct democracy.

IN VARIOUS STATES THE WAYS IN WHICH THE PEOPLE MAY THEMSELVES RULE INCLUDE:

Referrals by the legislature to the people of "proposed constitutional amendments" which are constitutionally used in 49 states, excepting only Delaware.

Referrals by the legislature to the people of "proposed statute laws" which are constitutionally used in all 50 states.

Constitutional amendment initiative is the most powerful citizen-initiated, direct democracy governance component. It is a constitutionally-defined petition process of "proposed constitutional law," which, if successful, results in its provisions being written directly into the state's constitution. Since constitutional law cannot be altered by state legislatures, this direct democracy component gives the people an automatic superiority and sovereignty, over representative government. It is utilized at the state level in eighteen states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and South Dakota. Among the eighteen states, there are three main types of the constitutional amendment initiative, with different degrees of involvement of the state legislature distinguishing between the types:

1. Statute law initiative is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated, petition process of "proposed statute law," which, if successful, results in law being written directly into the state's statutes. The statute initiative is used at the state level in twenty-one states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. Note that in Utah there is no constitutional provision for citizen lawmaking. All of Utah's I&R law is in the state statutes. In most states, there is no special protection for citizen-made statutes; the legislature can begin to amend them immediately.
   
2. Statute law referendum is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated, petition process of the "proposed veto of all or part of a legislature-made law," which, if successful, repeals the standing law. It is used at the state level in twenty-four states: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
   
3. The recall is a constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated, petition process, which, if successful, removes an elected official from office by "recalling" the official's election. In most state and sub-state jurisdictions having this governance component, voting for the ballot that determines the recall includes voting for one of a slate of candidates to be the next office holder, if the recall is successful. It is utilized at the state level in eighteen states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
   

There are now a total of 34 U.S. states with constitutionally-defined, citizen-initiated, direct democracy governance components. In the United States, for the most part only one-time majorities are required (simple majority of those voting) to approve any of these components.

In addition, many localities around the U.S. also provide for some or all of these direct democracy governance components, and in specific classes of initiatives (like those for raising taxes), there is a supermajority voting threshold requirement. Even in states where direct democracy components are scant or nonexistent at the state level, there often exists local options for deciding specific issues, such as whether a county should be "wet" or "dry" in terms of whether alcohol sales are allowed.

In the U.S. region of New England, nearly all towns practice a very limited form of home rule, and decide local affairs through the direct democratic process of the town meeting.

Obviously the idea of direct democracy is not entirely alien to the U.S.A., and it would not require a stretch of the imagination to expand it's application at the state and local level, and apply these methods to improve governance at the federal level as well.

Madison in Federalist No.10 Denounces Direct Democracy but Warns of Corruption by Representation...

James Madison, known as the "Father of the Constitution" wrote in the Federalist Papers No. 10 of how he feared that true and direct democracy would endanger the personal liberties of the minority in such a system. This was his prime motivation for advocating a representative form of governance. But in this astonishing passage, he also warns of the dangers of a representative system being corrupted by 'sinister' individuals who "may by intrigue, corruption or by other means first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests of the people." Did he fail to distinguish which would become the greater threat to liberty? - Editors

Madison, from Federalist No. 10:

"From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking. Let us examine the points in which it varies from pure democracy, and we shall comprehend both the nature of the cure and the efficacy which it must derive from the Union.

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

The effect of the first difference is, on the one hand, to refine and enlarge the public views, by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country, and whose patriotism and love of justice will be least likely to sacrifice it to temporary or partial considerations. Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose. On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people."