Originally given seven years for ratification. Congress reported to change the rules. I filed the first lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of that change of process on behalf of Washington State legislatures more than 30 years ago. We won that case. The rule was, you cant change the rules in the middle of the stream. If you have to have an agreement on the subject matter to start with and you cant change the rules in the middle of the stream, this fearmongering going from the extreme left and right is just nonsense. The power of the convention is no different than congress. You can call a convention for a particular purpose. Congress could propose amendments for a particular purpose. Just because Congress Proposes an amendment on minimum wage, doesnt mean the whole constitution suffers. You are a constitutional lawyer. How many times have you argued before the Supreme Court . Just once. I have filed lots of briefs but only argued one time. You ever think about why the founders put article v in there . What was their think sng. It was very important to the adoption of the constitution. It is clear that the Massachusetts Convention would not have ratified the constitution but for article v. They knew the process wasnt perfect. The reason they gave us this form of article v as george mason said at the Constitutional Convention, well never get a proposal that limits the power of the federal government out of congress. You will only get a proposal to limit federal power from the states. They wanted checks and balances, not just vertical but who are z horizontal. The ultimate political power is the ability to lawfully change the constitution. Only the state legislatures can awfully change the constitution by themselves. It takes an overwhelming majority to do that. The state legislatures all by themselves can propose and ratify amendments. Congress only has a ministerial role. You need 34 state toss do that. A couple have to be democratic control of legislatures. Whats your selling point to those legislatures . The decrease of federal power is an increase in the power of the people and the power of the states. This should be a bipartisan issue. When we make presentations like in berkley, california, we asked the people in berkley, who do you want making decisions for berkley . You want berkley making the decisions or sacramento or washington, d. C. . Whether you are in pokatel, idaho or berkley, everybody says, we want to make our decisions locally. This is about letting california be california and idaho idaho and wee olympi and wee opal ming. Chad is next. Caller this guys sounds like abject stupidity, if you have a less of a government, the state would do that. It would all go to hell. Thats what people like this want. They want everything to go to hell. I think this is pure evil. I think we should have more of a socialist federal government. It is just evil to take the States Convention themselves. Well, he wants a socialist government. That reveals his person. A person that wants a socialist government, it probably doesnt make a lot of sense. The epa issue in seattle, fixing real problems and real job lay laughs. The epa has adopting a fish eating standard. Washington state eats more fish. They have higher mercury discharge levels. They are losing jobs in seattle, the jobs are threatened in seattle with boeing Airplane Company because the people there arent able to get equal treatment by the epa. I think Washington State legislature could pass just very appropriate Environmental Protection for the state of washington. We dont need the epa to make edicts for Washington State. Washington state can do it all by itself. Dave in lake zurich, illinois. Independent line. Caller yes, sir. Thanks for taking my call. Are you familiar with article 26 . Article 26 of what . Caller there is no article 26. There are 7 articles of the constitution and 27 amendments. If you mean amendment 26 . Caller yes, amendment 26. Im sorry. Im not a constitutional attorney. Im a citizen here. Go ahead, dave. What about it . Caller are you familiar with it . Yes. Caller unless the public really gets angry, nothing happens. The people in power, specially the attorneys that come out of law school need to feel their power here. This article, sent to the states, march 23rd, 1971, was the fastest ratified amendment. The kids of the day who are not 21 could not vote but still be drafted. My generation, my generation and im im a veteran of the vietnam area, had to riot and start to destroy, destroy schools that were so concerned about control. You cant vote but you can get drafted. I can go die for the great legislators that come up with this stuff but i cant vote. Because of this action is the only way that any legislators any place will move is when the grassroots action becomes so powerful that their own livelihoods are put at steake 12. Do you agree . I absolutely agree with that. The 18yearold vote, Jerry Springer had a lot to do with that. If people think that washington, d. C. Has a grand diesed away too much of its own power and is building its power base to the detriment of the vote of the people and the state, with he need a grassroots activist. Orlando, florida, next. Jean on the republican line . Hello, there. Caller hi. My question is, when this convention is called, how do you envision it would operate . How would you really organize itself and do the things it has to do. The principle rule is this. It is one state, one vote. Thats the nature of a convention of states as opposed to a congress. A congress, it is the individual delegates vote. In the convention of states, states vote, one state, one vote. Thats the central organizing principle. I hope that we will be organized some place in the middle of the country. Any place by washington, d. C. Is okay with me. Anything to keep that convention of the states from veering off the top picks that you are calling for, balanced budget, money out of washington. How do you keep amendments from being proposed by states that werent part of the original plan . The rules will say it would be nonjermaine. Theoretically, people can vote to amend the rules. The 34 sthaates that called the convention will be coming with instructions. You stick to this top pick. Those delicates, which is way more than enough to keep the thing in order, will be under instructions to stay to the subject matter. The other 16, 17, whatever number of states it is that dont have instructions wouldnt be able to carry the day. Ultimately, you can file a lawsuit. I filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality. We could file a lawsuit if delegates try to change the rules. It will be called for a particular purpose. Our guest is Michael Barton is cofounder of the state projects. Calling for a convention of the states to address constitutional issues. We welcome your calls an comments. We go to steve in robertsville, missouri, democrats line. Hi, steve. Caller thank you, sir. I spotted this fraud right off the bad as soon as he come up there and said, this is deregulation on everything. Thats the whole problem. We have regulation on everything. We have an out of control government. It is like donald trump talking about Ronald Reagan and how great he was. Well, Ronald Reagan deregulated everything, lowered the taxes on the rich. He said we are going to close the border in 1986. It never happened, because they got cheap labor. This is all a fraud and thats all i got to say. Thank you very much. The caller is selfconflicted, because he says the government is out of control but we need more regulation. Regulation doesnt regulate government. Regulation regulates private people. Thats the problem that we have in the country. There is too much regulation, too many conflicting regulations. The basic genius of the founders would be that one level and only one level of government should deal with each issue. Sure, we need some regulations and rules. Do we need conflicting rules . Do we need federal law, local law, state law . Or can we get by with one level of government regulating roads, education, wage and price ss. Welcome your comments on twitter. Needed a totally new constitution in line with new realities. If it isnt broken, dont fix it. Im for the convention to rewrite. Rewriting the Second Amendment. The federal government needs to be more powerful. You cannot have 50 different state laws on maernlg, abortion nd amayor w and marijuana. Lets go back to our calls, xenos on our republican line hi. Caller i would just like to clarify a couple of things. First of all, i think it is great what he is doing. Im from new york but i live in texas. Anything that takes more power away from the federal government is good. That being said, i think we need a few basic laws at the federal dev level that regulate all of the states. Ive seen, for example, in arkansas, they have terrible roads but in other states, they have perfectly smooth highways all over the place. I can get there is a certain level of difference between each state and the way it runs things. I think we need more power given to the individual and not corporations, which for some reason are defined as people. The biggest benefit is that it increases the power of the people. The more government power we have, the less freedom we have. Freedom is the ultimate objective to limit government power. The rights of the people. Im a First Amendment and Fourth Amendment lit gator. What i do day in and day out. If we are going to protect the rights of the people. The founders thought we didnt need a bill of rights. They said the federal government is so limited in its power, it cant possibly be for the rights of the people, why we are spying on our own citizens and abusing the rights of the citizens daily, because we have too powerful of a federal government. Does your group see any reason to change any of the amendments in the bill of rights . No, they would not be jermaine. Grand rapids, michigan, michael, good morning. Democrats line . Caller to me, this is just a move to move us back to the issues of the civil war. We all know that during the civil war, war states rights denied minorities any rights at all. I think the federal governments role is to make sure that we are all treated equally. Under this, there is no equality. Each state can do whatever they want to do under the minorities and the poor. That is not true under our application. It is thou our application is there to limit the power of the federal government to spend too much money, to regulate businesses and jobs toond go into so much debt. The Supreme Court has no checks and balances. If somebody wrote an application for a wideopen convention, you could talk about the 13th, 14th, 15th amend. But, the politics of that are such that there are no votes in this country. We have to deal with political reality. It is theoretically possible president obama could nominate me. The political chances of that happening are zero. People dont go around and say, what if mike farris gets nominated . It is not possibly. It is possible to trim the power of the federal government and trim the regulations and have a little check and balances on the Supreme Court. In he dramatic move one direction or another is not possible. I think it is time we go in a very strong direction as far as we possibly can in limiting some of the power in washington, increasing the rights of the people, increasing the responsibility of the states. That previous callers view, state versus federal rights or obligation, grace on twitter agrees. Tweeting that the federal government needs to control civil rights law, not the states, otherwise, we would be back to slavery in some states and the civil war. I want to ask about some of your articles. Some Virginia Republicans want to amend the u. S. Constitution but a party split in the way. A big sign says, no article v convention. Conservative legislatures are pushing a measure meant to reign in federal power. Whats the status of your effort in virginia . In virginia, we had the votes to pass it in the Virginia House of delicates. We were one vote short in the senate. In the senate, there is a one vote margin between the republicans and the democrats. There were two republicans on the wrong side haveon the othere of the issue. They were listening to the john birch society. They preach this wrongway convention and that the constitutional was illegally adopted in the first place, which is historically inaccurate. Non nonetheless, the fearmongering that goes on is an obstacle. We need to switch two votes in the Virginia Senate and be able to pass it. Here is bob in philadelphia. I have a comment and a question. The comment is, this is a great idea. If you hold it, you should hold it in philadelphia at the constitution center, which is the birth place of this country. Thats my comment. My question is, you said it is one state, one vote. That being said, if you have a state thats 90 liberal, does that mean conservatives do not have a voice. If it was two votes, a democrat and republican, everybody has a voice. I thisnk that might be a better way to go. A fair way. Even though it is one state, one vote, every state will have multiple delegates. The state Legislature Gets to decide the methodology and the aportionment of the delegates. Some sort of representation is likely in many of the states. Lets say pennsylvania has nine delegates. Lets say it is six republicans and three democrats, just to make up numbers. That would be some sort of representation but then the pennsylvania would caucus on each of the issues and i dont think every issue would be a straight partisan issue. I think there would be some bipartisan matters that would be discussed. That would be the way the system works. It reflects more bipartisanship and more diverse forms of power than you might think right at first. Virginia is next. Lets here from eugene on the democrats line. Caller good morning. Good morning. Caller something you said earlier about striking at the foundation of Citizens United, it seems to me that through years now, big money has been electing their representatives in each state. It has such a skewed voting. It is very unbalanced in many of the states. My concern is that what we would be doing is weakening the government, not benefiting it. The states would be more easier affected by big money than the current government actually is. The best way to clean up the federal government would be to hire and get somebody in place that has been honest and got no ties to big money. Somebody like Bernie Sanders. There is a solution. Well, the reality is the cost of a u. S. Senate race and the cost of a Virginia State senate race are worlds apart. The vast majority of money to be made is in washington, d. C. If we take away the financial incentive, most domestic spending is shifted away from washington, d. C. Into the states, then there will be a reallocation of power. It will be diffuse in nature. The ability of the people to control the electives. Try to make an appointment to visit your u. S. Senator or make an appointment to visit your state senator. It is so much easier to visit your state and local representatives. The money is not there. I dont know what experience the caller has. I have been around state and federal government for a long, long time. Big money plays a huge role in washington, d. C. It is much more muted at the state level. I want to ask about the opinion piece you wrote in the daily caller entitled, the Supreme Court redefining marriage is proof we need an article v convention. Explain that to us. Selfgovernment says the elected officials make a law. We should make the constitutional law, we should make the statutory law. That is, we dont like the law that gets made, we can vote the rascals out. You cant vote the Supreme Court out. People will say and have said hundreds of thousands of times, the Supreme Court legalized samesex marriage. Thats exactly what happened. They are not supposed to legalize anything. People who wrote the 14th amendment legalized samesex marriage. If you put those words out on a table, there are no way in the world the people that wrote the 14th amendment wrote the words that ended up meaning we should have samesex marriage. We can do it state by state if the people want to vote it in. Fine. If the legislatures want to vote it in, fine. The question is, who decides . Most of these issues boil down to who should make these decisions . We dont believe that unelected officials should be able to make such nationchanging decisions as the Supreme Court made in that case. Whichever side of the case it came down, the Supreme Court shouldnt make that decision, the elected people should make that. How do they currently define the role of the Supreme Court . The Supreme Court defines the role as being the only twhaun can interpret the constitution of the United States. I was involved in writing the federal religious freedom restoration act. In bernie versus florez, which is the followup case, they ruled rifra to be United States constitutional on the state level, because only the Supreme Court can interpret the constitution. It is different to say they are the only interpreter versus one of the interpreters. More calls for michael farris. Caller good morning. I too am a veteran that was drafted and served before we had the opportunity to vote. I also take exception to the gentleman saking they are luna ticks and i take exception to him and his organization that are doing nothing but trying to circumvent the constitution that we veterans swore to uphold and defend. Thank you. Well, first of all, i didnt say anyone that opposes me is lunatic fringe. I say the people that make the argument that the constitutional p