Rescind Utah’s Article V Con-Con Applications
Legislative Alerts
Contact your state legislators
Please help rescind Utah's applications for a disastrous Article V convention by contacting your state legislators. Inform them of the dangers of a Con-Con and the benefits of using nullification instead. Furthermore, urge them to accordingly rescind all Con-Con applications previously passed by the Legislature.
Why it Matters
Members of the Utah State Legislature must pass a resolution to rescind every live application to Congress calling for a convention to propose amendments, under Article V of the Constitution, otherwise known as a constitutional convention (Con-Con) or a “convention of states.”
Any Article V convention, no matter how well intentioned, could lead to a runaway convention and reverse many of the Constitution’s limitations on government power and interference. In other words, a Con-Con could accomplish the same goals that many of its advocates claim to be fighting against. As evidence, both a 2016 and 2023 simulated “Convention of States” resulted in amendments massively increasing the federal government and expanding its spending powers.
Additionally, in the last years of his life, the late Justice Antonin Scalia stood opposed to an Article V convention. Asked about it in a 2015 interview, he remarked that “This is not a good century to write a constitution.” Furthermore, what kind of delegates would Utah send to such a convention? Constitutionalist conservatives or RINO moderates and liberals?
On December 9, 2021, constitutionalist U.S. Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), warning against a Con-Con, tweeted:
Show me a single state where Constitutionalists comprise a majority of the state legislature.
At this point in history, an Article V Convention of the States would be a disaster.
In 1979, then-U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, correctly warned about an Article V convention:
If we hold a constitutional convention, every group in the country — majority, minority, middle-of-the-road, left, right, up, down — is going to get its two bits in and we are going to wind up with a constitution that will be so far different from the one we have lived under for 200 years that I doubt that the Republic could continue.
Goldwater considered an Article V Convention threatening to the continuity of the United States’ republican form of government. It would be foolhardy and downright reckless to disregard these and other legitimate concerns.
An Article V constitutional convention is unnecessary to protect individual liberty and limit the size and scope of government. If anything, a constitutional convention would more than likely undermine those protections and increase the size and scope of the federal government rather than impose any meaningful limitations on its jurisdiction, as the resolution purportedly seeks to accomplish. The massive expansion of government and growing infringements on our liberties are not because of “problems” or “flaws” with the Constitution, but rather due to misinterpretation, wrongful application, or lack of enforcement altogether. If applied faithfully and accurately, in accordance with its original meaning, at least 80 percent of the federal government’s programs would likely be found unconstitutional. This fact negates any reason for convening an Article V convention today. The correct solution is constitutional enforcement, not a constitutional convention.
Rather than passing Article V convention applications, which risk a runaway convention threatening our God-given rights and individual liberty, the Legislature should consider Article VI and nullify unconstitutional laws. Above all, urge your state representative and senator to support HCR 1002, rescind all Article V convention applications, and to consider nullification as a safe and constitutional means to limit government instead.