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After Hours: Can a ‘Convention of States’ Dial Back Federal Overreach? (From the Archives)
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- [00:01]
Cheryl Achison
Hi, everybody. Cheryl Achison here. I hope you enjoy this special from the Archives edition of Full Measure After Hours. Hi, everybody. Cheryl Achison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours. Today, the head of Convention of States Action, Mark Meckler, tells why he thinks this constitutional action is can save the country. Today we'll be talking about a fascinating movement that I didn't know much about, but I've been curious about it for a couple of years as I'd heard about it here and there. And it was really interesting to go and dig in and learn more. It's the Convention of States movement. I'm interviewing Mark Meckler, head of Convention of States Action. By the way, he has a really.
- [00:53]
Mark Meckler
Interesting backstory, you'll hear.
- [00:55]
Cheryl Achison
And the Convention of States idea as he described it, sounded really well thought out and really good. But stay tuned until the end because during my research I learned not only is there some bipartisan support for this idea, but there is also some bipartisan support against it. Let's begin with Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action. And I started by asking what he did before the Convention of States effort.
- [01:27]
Mark Meckler
So top line. Before I got involved in the Tea Party, I was an attorney. I was practicing at home. My specialty was Internet advertising law, of all things, raising my kids, teaching them to ride horses, play soccer as a classic work from home dad. It was a perfect life. In a small town in Northern California, I stumbled into the Tea Party. In the Tea Party, I ended up founding Tea Party Patriots, which grew to be the largest Tea Party organization in the country. Had a small Zenith, had 23 million members, roughly 3,200 chapters, largely as an organization and a movement responsible for the big 2010 electoral swing, the largest swing between parties in Congress since 1938. So that was pre what I'm doing right now.
- [02:08]
It's been long enough. Can you explain the basic tenets of what the Tea Party stood for or stands for? Is it still.
- [02:15]
I would say no, not really around as a movement anymore. Some people know the name when I talk to younger people, they've never even heard of it, but it stood for fiscal responsibility, free markets, and fidelity to the Constitution. Those were the three principles.
- [02:28]
And more closely aligned with Republicans was never our intent. I mean, Republicans were more likely to believe in the tenets of the Tea party movement.
- [02:36]
About 20% of the members of that movement were we polled them were either independents or Democrats, but the majority would be Republicans.
- [02:44]
I remember and I could not find this poll when I looked back, but When I was working for CBS News and did a story on something to do with the Tea Party, a poll had come out that said when they asked people to describe or to say if they agreed with certain tenets like the ones you described, but didn't say, this is what the Tea Party thinks, it was something like 90% of Americans are for it.
- [03:04]
Yeah.
- [03:05]
But it was very polarizing, in other words. Well, I think there was an attempt to controversialize the Tea Party because it was a strong movement that fought against a lot of traditional establishment politics. But it became a very controversial movement.
- [03:18]
Yeah. Which was stunning to me. And it came from both sides. And this is what was interesting at that time, the Republican Party had no juice, like nothing was really going on in the party. And so for Republicans, when they saw all that grassroots power, rising grassroots energy, they needed to capture that and co op it. And so you had a lot of people in D.C. who called themselves Tea Party candidates or Tea Party politicians who really weren't, but they needed the Tea Party brand to elevate the Republican brand. And the flip side of that were Democrats saw the rising tide, this sort of conservative wave, traditionalist wave, and they were afraid of it. So they needed to vilify it. And so that's what happened. You had the Democrats turning it into something terrible. The Republicans co opting it. I mean, ultimately that's part of the reason that I walked away from that.
- [04:03]
For a period of time it was considered a powerhouse, quite a movement. Why did it go away?
- [04:08]
Look, I think, and this, this might seem strange to a lot of people. I think political movements that accomplish their purpose go away. And the ones that don't, I think they become a cancer in the system. A good example counterexample is the union movement. In America, the unions have largely accomplished their purpose, created safe working conditions, great pay, great benefits. Now what are they doing? I think they squeeze blood out of the system. It's terrible. It's become a cancer. So what the Tea Party movement accomplished in its time is changing the narrative. At the time of the Tea Party movement, nobody was talking about fiscal responsibility or free markets or frankly, the Constitution hadn't been talked about for a long time. And they reintroduced that narrative in the political process. And I would argue that the long tail of the Tea Party movement was the election of Donald Trump. That was kind of the last gasp in a good way. And not because Trump was a Tea Party guy, but a lot of the other candidates were. Marco Rubio came out of the Tea Party, Ted Cruz came out of The Tea Party movement. So a lot of the people swirling around at that time came up out of the Tea Party movement.
- [05:10]
We'll dig in in a moment, but if you can tell me what is the impetus and what is the Convention of States movement?
- [05:16]
Well, on a personal level, for me, the impetus was my frustration with not really having accomplished the change that I wanted to see out of the Tea Party movement. All these people got elected, the ideas got discussed, then they went to the D.C. swamp and they were just eaten by the swamp. I was there, close, and I watched five minutes, some five days, five months. The vast majority of them just became part of the machine in the swamp. And so for me, I was getting ready to leave politics. I thought I did the best I could, do way more than I ever expected. Credit, in my opinion, to the grassroots and God, not me.
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Wait, was that as a behind the scenes guy helping get people elected and stuff?
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Yeah, we did tons. Like, we were involved in pretty much all the Tea Party elections. And not so much me personally, I don't want to take credit for that, but helping to motivate and organize grassroots in all 50 states. And so we helped propel that wave into office. And then that wave essentially did nothing. And to me, it was very demoralizing. And so I just thought, I'm gonna go back to being a lawyer and enjoying my kids and my family at home out in the country in Northern California. And then I had somebody who had been a longtime mentor come to me and say, you can't leave politics. And I laughed. I said, yeah, I definitely can. I know how to earn money outside of politics. I don't wanna make money from politics. And what he said to me was something I'd never heard anybody say before. He said, you don't wanna be elected. You don't wanna be a politician.
- [06:37]
Cheryl Achison
You don't.
- [06:38]
Mark Meckler
You're not trying to make money out of politics. You don't want to be famous. We need you in politics. Right? We need a lot of people in politics like that. And he was a donor and a mentor. And he said, I'll pay you to help me try to figure out what we can do to save the country. And I was very blunt. I said, I have no idea what to do. And he said, neither do I, but we'll figure it out together. And that's how I started looking for something else to save the country.
- [06:58]
When was this?
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That was 2012.
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And then what brought you and what time period to this?
- [07:04]
So 2012, we started an organization called Citizens for Self Governance. The first thing I did was raised a million dollars to give away to local grassroots groups. 1500, 2000, 500 at a time. Makes a big difference. And the Tea Party movement never did that, which was a great frustration to me. Second thing we did was we sued the irs. You'll remember at that time, Lois Lerner, that whole controversy targeting organizations who were trying to get their charitable status from the irs. And so we sued them, spent a bunch of money, took about four years. Ultimately, they settled a class action lawsuit for about 3 1/2 million dollars. I'm not aware of the IRS ever settling a class action lawsuit. So that's a minor victory there. And then along the way, I met another guy by the name of Mike Ferris, who's the founder of the homeschool movement in America. And he approached me and asked if I was happy with what I had accomplished in politics. And my answer was no, I don't feel like I've really accomplished anything. And he said, you're approaching the problem incorrectly. You think that we have a personnel problem in Washington, Washington, D.C. when in reality we have a structure problem. We've broken the structure of our system of governance, and if we don't repair that, it doesn't matter how many good people we send to DC. That's when he explained Article 5 of the Constitution, the idea of calling a convention of states to me. And that's what brought me into this project.
- [08:17]
Very simply, what does Article 5 say?
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Article 5 has two ways to amend the Constitution. The first is two thirds of both houses of Congress propose an amendment, goes out to the states for ratification. It takes three quarters of states to ratify anything, and that's how something becomes part of the Constitution. Alternative 27amendments we have have come that many.
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When was the last time we had an amendment passed like that?
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The last was early 90s, and it was actually a finalization of something that was originally in the Bill of Rights. It's little known, prevents Congress from raising their own pay during an existing session. It was actually proposed way back in the 1700s, never got fully ratified. There was a guy out of Texas who's become a friend of ours who got it ratified in the early 90s. So that was the last one. And then there was the ERA amendment they tried to do. Didn't get that done. So the second clause of Article 5 gives states the power to call a convention to propose amendments. Same thing as Congress. When 2/3 of the states want to gather in convention, they do. They propose an amendment or amendments, and those go out to the states for ratification. We've never done that in the entire history of the country.
- [09:28]
So if there was a state's convention, but they all didn't agree upon, let's say two thirds of them agreed to have a convention and then only half of those wanted to send out a potential amendment, would it go out for vote.
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The way it works is it takes 2/3 of the states to agree in advance on the subject matter of the convention. So that's being worked on right now getting 2/3 of the states. We have 19 states have agreed. We can talk about later what they've agreed on in convention. It takes a simple majority to agree to put something out as a proposal to the state. So 26 states have to agree on what goes out for ratification.
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And then how many is 2/3 of the states have to ratify?
- [10:04]
It takes 3/4 to ratify and that's 38 states are required for ratification.
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What is the working agreement that the states that have gotten on board so far are working under?
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So each state has to pass a resolution through both houses of their state legislature. No governor's signature is necessary. The three subject matter is being worked right now is term limits. Most Americans love the idea of term limits for Congress, but also term limits for staffers and bureaucrats, any federal officials. I call that one the Fauci amendment. We shouldn't have somebody in federal government position of power for 40 years. That's dangerous for us unelected. Second is anything that would impose fiscal restraints on the federal government. Most people will think of a balanced budget amendment of some sort. About 85% of the American public supports that. But also could be tax caps and spending caps, maybe tied to inflation, GDP plus inflation or population growth. Another one would be forcing the federal government to comply with generally accepted accounting principles. They actually don't have standards that they use for their accounting. So a lot of stuff's off books. We can't really know how much they spend. And then last, and I think most important is anything that would limit the scope, the power or the jurisdiction of the federal amendment. What I mean by that is the original constitution had 17 enumerated powers. The federal government does pretty much everything nowadays way outside that scope. And we need to rein that in and tell the federal government that there are areas they're not allowed to be involved in.
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So this is a state centric movement where the states say we're going to take back control of things that are not getting done in Washington or that are getting done.
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And I would say more on this that are getting done that shouldn't be done in Washington. And I'll give you specific examples. Pretty much every state in the United States of America has their own environmental quality department, their own education department, their own version of Health and Human Services or Housing and Urban Development. They're called different things in each state, but they all have those things. It was never intended for Washington D.C. to do those things. You can't find any explicit reference in the Constitution of those being in the enumerated powers. We should take that power away from Washington D.C. and give it back to the states to handle those things at home.
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If a state agrees both houses to hold a convention of states, how long does that last? Like forever?
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Yeah, that's permanent when they pass that resolution, unless they rescind it. So the legislature always retains the power to rescind. But generally speaking, those just are in perpetuity. There's an exception. A state could pass it with what's called a sunset clause, which means it will expire. Texas had a sunset clause and their provision that they passed that expires in 2025. So our grassroots will be working on that in 2025.
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So can you give us an idea of what the process is today as you try to convince more states to pass this bill? Is it a bill or a resolution?
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It's a resolution. Yeah. So the process really starts in the grassroots, which is what I love about it. I'm a grassroots guy. So first is gen up grassroots support for this. Travel around the country like I do, do interviews like this. I get regular folks all over the country to know this. People don't Even know Article 5 exists. And then to get them to put pressure on their state legislators to support this. Then you get the bill introduced. It ends up running through a traditional legislative process that goes to possibly subcommittee, then committee gets a vote and then out to the floor in both the House and the Senate. And it requires a simple majority in both houses to pass that.
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How short are you right now in numbers?
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We're at 19 states. So past halfway we have 15 states to go.
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And are there any states on the precipice, do you think of passing these resolutions?
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Yeah, I mean at this moment I think the state that's right there is North Carolina. North Carolina has a two year session. A little bit unusual. It passed the House last year, so it's just the Senate this year. I think we're going to get that done. I think that'll be the 20th state.
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In general, aren't about half the states considered Sort of Democrat heavy, and half the states considered more Republican heavy.
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Right now, the numbers, 29 states have both legislatures controlled by Republicans, both houses of the legislature.
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It's a little more than half, A.
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Little more than half are Republican or conservative. But we're finding an interesting trend in the last couple of years, and I would say right now, which we're finding a bunch of Democrats coming on as sponsors. We have. One of our lead sponsors in Pennsylvania is a Democrat. I think we now have six or seven lead sponsors in Illinois are Democrats. And the reason is the things that we're asking for are not partisan.
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And.
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And we're saying, balance your budget. About 85% of Americans think that. We're saying that the federal government does too much. Whatever we think that they do too much of. Almost everybody agrees they do too much. People believe in term limits. Like, everybody's frustrated with Congress. So it's really not a partisan thing. People try to make it a partisan thing. And, you know, I'm a conservative guy, so people will see it that way. And a lot of our supporters are. But it's definitely actually, when you look at the actual process and end result of a convention of states, not partisan at all.
- [14:57]
So someone might say, or looking at this, there's no way you're ever going to get that many states. Do you think there is a realistic chance in your lifetime?
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I absolutely do. I wouldn't be dedicating my life to it. I mean, literally, this is what I've been doing for the last 10 years. This is what I'm going to do as long as it takes. And I think not only is it realistic, we have to remember we're a country that has always done the impossible. We actually thrive on doing the impossible. When we fought the Revolutionary War, lots of people looked at that, said, england, no way. That's an empire. You can't beat them. You're not going to survive as a country after the revolution. So I think we've overcome the odds a lot of times, and I think that we're at a really serious inflection point in American history. We're at a point no republic's ever survived this long. And the question is, are we going to survive? Are we going to beat the odds? Are we going to go the course of all other republics? And I really don't see another way for us to survive. The country's coming apart. We all acknowledge that. We all feel it. You and I have talked about that. It's a personal thing with me and people who I would Say, maybe used to be, my friends, we're seeing it in politics. So the question is, how do we fix that? This is the only way I know to fix that. This country is founded on the basis of federalism, and federalism is a government designed for people who don't really like each other. The colonies didn't really like each other. The original states didn't like each other. So limited amount of things that we do together, most of the things we go out into our own states and do on our own, and that reduces the conflict.
- [16:23]
Okay. Looking way into the future, this may be sort of an odd question, but I've seen the federal government arguably violate constitutional tenets and things that they're not supposed to do. And yet the federal government is also in charge of enforcement, and so there is none. Let's talk about, for example, the censorship that the government has allegedly been involved in. And nobody's really doing anything about that. It seems to me if the enforcers are the offenders, they're free to do as they wish. Let's say there is a constitutional amendment that requires some kind of balanced budget or a big change in how business is done in Washington and they just don't do it. What happens?
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Yeah, I think that's probably the best question there is. It was the question that I had when I first looked at this. I don't have a lot of faith in Washington, D.C. so it makes me think they're going to do something just because we get an amendment. And yet if you go back and study the history of constitutional amendments and we've had 27 of them, they're virtually all followed, not perfectly and not for all time, but for at least 100 years. And I tried to figure out why that is. Is there some magic pixie dust for amendments? The reality is the single most politically muscular act in our entire system of governance is the passing and ratifying of an amendment. Because it takes 38 states to ratify, it means the. The vast majority of the country are on board with it. I spent a lot of time in D.C. you have too. They don't have the stiffest spines in Washington, D.C. when you have three quarters of the American public in favor of something, they tend to do that thing. Also, politicians do what they're incentivized to do. One of the reasons they don't make tough decisions like cutting spending right now is because the incentives are broken. They won't get reelected if they do that. If they have a constitution forcing them to do that. It's a different incentive system do you.
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Foresee if something like this were to actually happen that there would be a different way of governing in this country? It wouldn't just be a one time convention with a very limited agenda. There might be more?
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I do, and that's my hope. That's something the framers expected. They expected that we would regularly come together and do this in an organized way. One of the things I love about the process that the framers set up is it's not easy. People say it's taking so long. It's supposed to take a long time. You want to have consensus. What we don't want, what the framers didn't want, is for us to just have societal whims and fads and trends that happen. They wanted us to do this consistently but thoughtfully over time. So, yeah, I think once we prove that it can be done and can be done safely, that there will be more in the future.
- [18:53]
And lastly, do you think as of today, this is a long shot?
- [18:57]
I don't think it's a long shot. I really don't. I think the question is, is the country going to survive? The question is, do we get it done soon enough? That's really my big question. Not whether it happens. Do we get it done before the country comes apart?
- [19:13]
Cheryl Achison
So as I mentioned, I think all of this sounds pretty good to a lot of people who are disillusioned by federal government, people who are independent minded, including those on the left and the right. But many on the left and in the left media are calling this idea dangerous and fringe and radical, and they're flinging about racist allegations when it comes to motivations. But there is also opposition to convention of states coming from other quarters, including the John Birch Society, which you might think would be for a convention of states because they generally favor limited government. Well, Sunday, May 12th on my TV show Full Measure, you can find out more about those positions and learn about all of this. I think it'll really give you some food for thought and you should really be thinking about it because both supporters and opponents are saying that this idea is not too far from becoming a reality. I hope you enjoyed today's podcast and that if you did, you will leave a terrific review and share it with your friends. Check out my other podcast, the Cheryl Atkison Podcast, and I hope you'll consider pre ordering my new book out September 3rd. Follow the how Big Pharma Misleads, Obscures and Prevails. You can also support independent journalism by going to cherylakkisson.com and clicking the store tab for some exclusive products designed for independent thinkers like you, with sayings like do your own research, make up your own mind, think for yourself.