The First Amendment of the US Constitution.
North Carolina legislators voted this month to request that Congress summon a convention of states to propose modifications to the United States Constitution. For more than a decade, some Republican politicians have advocated for the formation of a constitutional convention.
North Carolina’s resolution joins the list of convention proposals approved by other states and delivered to Congress. When 34 states request a convention, Congress must call it.
According to North Carolina’s resolution, the convention should only debate a constitutional amendment establishing congressional term limits. According to North Carolina’s resolution, the application for term limits should be tallied alongside other state applications towards the objective of 34, but should not be included in the count of state applications on other issues.
But David A. Super, a constitutional scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, said it doesn’t matter what North Carolina says in its resolution since Congress can count state applications as it wants.
“There is nothing in the Constitution that allows those limitations,” Super stated in an interview. “It’s up to Congress how to count.”
U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee, believes Congress should call a convention and asserts that the 34-state criterion has already been met.
Interest groups are working together to have states adopt resolutions asking for a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution to propose amendments. The convention process of altering the Constitution had never previously been used.
Super describes the campaign for an Article V convention as hazardous because once it convenes, it can propose any constitutional revisions it wants. States would not always be able to select delegates to a constitutional convention, he said in a 2021 American Constitution Society problem brief.
Any suggested amendments from a convention would need to be ratified by three-fourths of state legislatures.
Since the 1700s, states have requested a convention to address issues such as anti-polygamy legislation, repeal of prohibition, and direct election of senators. North Carolina was one of dozens of states that supported a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution 45 years ago.
Today, the Convention of States Action is leading one of the efforts to establish an Article V convention. Convention of State Action, founded by Mark Meckler, a Tea Party Patriots cofounder, and Michael Farris, the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, has launched an aggressive campaign to persuade states to pass a resolution calling for a convention to consider amendments “that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the federal government’s power and jurisdiction, and limit the terms of office for its officials and members of Congress.”
Representatives have just visited the North Carolina state government building with a llama dressed in red, white, and blue. Last year, the group’s senior advisor, former Republican U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, held a press conference with House Speaker Tim Moore and other legislators, urging North Carolina to support their convention application.
Santorum returned to the state this year, speaking at a constitutional convention rally.
Since 2015, North Carolina Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced legislation similar to the proposed resolution by the Convention of State Action. The resolution nearly passed in 2017, but it was removed from the House schedule just before a final vote.
In March 2023, the House passed the favored resolution of the Convention of States Action, as well as a separate resolution limiting term limits.
On December 2, the Senate passed the term limits measure as one of its final votes of the session.
The organization U.S. Term Limits supports a convention to propose an amendment on that one topic. It lists North Carolina as one of nine states that have enacted the term restriction resolution.
When asked if single-issue resolutions can be combined with resolutions referencing additional concerns to meet the 34-state requirement, Stacey Selleck of U.S. Term Limits responded in an email that the question “will likely be answered by the courts.”