Is an Article V Constitutional Convention Dangerous?

Should New Hampshire join other states around the country in support a call for an Article V Constitutional Convention to address term limits, campaign finance reform, or any other issue?

Some in the Legislature say “No,” and have sponsored HCR1, a resolution requesting that the House and Senate rescind all calls for a convention approved by Legislatures of the past.

The sponsors of the bill, including state Rep. Al Baldasaro, R-Londonderry, and state Rep. Jeanine Notter, R-Merrimack, held a press conference with Hal Shurtleff, the Northeast Regional Field Director of the John Birch Society, condemning the call for a convention saying that the Congress wasn’t enforcing current laws, couldn’t be trusted to appoint delegates who would focus on only amending specific laws, and might lead to a complete re-write of the current document.

Shurtleff stated that all of the issues raised requiring changes to the Constitution already exist in other forms. An amendment to balance the budget wasn’t needed, he stated, since there was already a law on the books. Congress should just balance the budget instead of balancing the budget with debt, he added.

“I’m in favor of term limits,” he said, “at the ballot box, every two years. You can term limit somebody out but if you don’t change the perspective of the voter, you’re going to get a person just like the person you just replaced.”

Shurtleff said there were about 25 active convention calls currently in states around the country but Congress may not recognize any that are more than seven years old. Currently, he said, New Hampshire has one on the books for a balanced budget amendment, approved a few years ago.

Baldasaro, who sits on the State-Federal Relations Committee, said that it was important to look at what groups and activists were funding the calls for a convention. Any time “a progressive group” or “George Soros” funds anything, he noted, “something’s wrong.”

He added, “It can go off in different directions. It’s a losing battle.”

Instead, Baldasaro called on activists to use the judicial process to tackle laws that they didn’t like.

Notter said she was worried about a runaway convention and that delegates couldn’t be trusted to focus on a specific issue. There was precedence, she said, since in 1787, the convention stepped beyond its bounds.

“If I believed that there would be a guarantee, I wouldn’t have sponsored this legislation,” she stated.

The press conference, co-sponsored by the NH Tea Party Coalition, was better attended than a previous one held last year addressing the same issue, and also included proponents of the call, including former U.S. Senate candidate Jim Rubens, R-Hanover, who offered counter comments.

Rubens noted that there were only four issues that were being promoted by activists calling for the convention – term limits, a balanced budget amendment, federalism, and campaign finance reform. He countered that 38 states would need to approve whatever recommendations the delegates made before the Constitution would be amended, not unlike the amendment process.

“Look back in history at the 27 amendments so far … all of them have required massive support among the public,” he said. “That won’t change.”

Others supporting a convention include Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard professor who has been speaking about and organizing campaign finance reform events around the country. NH Rebellion, one of the groups calling for reform that has been marching around the state, is holding a rally at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 21, at the Statehouse.

Caption: Hal Shurtleff, the Northeast Regional Field Director of the John Birch Society, speaks at a press conference on Jan. 20, 2015, along with state representatives.