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Support Rescinding California’s Con-Con Applications — Enact SJR 1

Alert Summary

Members of the California State Legislature are attempting to pass HJR 230, which would 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).

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Members of the California State Legislature are attempting to pass legislation to rescind every live application to Congress calling for a Convention for proposing Amendments, under Article V of the Constitution, otherwise known as a federal constitutional convention (Con-Con).

Senate Joint Resolution 1 (SJR 1) was introduced by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and cosponsored by two other senators. If passed by the State Legislature, it would rescind all of California’s Con-Con applications. It declares:

Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That all applications previously made by the Legislature of the State of California for the United States Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments to the United States Constitution are hereby rescinded, nullified, and superseded.

Any Article V convention, no matter how well intentioned, could lead to a runaway convention that would 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 California 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.

An Article V convention possesses the inherent power to propose any changes to the U.S. Constitution, including drafting and proposing an entirely new “modern” (i.e. socialist) constitution. Instead, the California State Legislature should consider Article VI and nullify unconstitutional laws.

Above all, urge your state representative and senator to support SJR 1, rescind all Article V convention applications, and to consider nullification as a safe and constitutional means to limit government instead.


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Contact your state legislators

Please help pass SJR 1 by contacting your state legislators. Inform them of the dangers of a Con-Con and of the benefits of using nullification instead. Furthermore, urge them to accordingly rescind all Con-Con applications previously passed by the State Legislature.

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