State legislatures, including in Nebraska, have called hundreds of times to convene a constitutional convention to address topics ranging from reining in federal spending to banning polygamy.
If 34 states joined onto one – a balanced-budget amendment has 28 states signed on, including Nebraska – state lawmakers’ hands would be tied by their predecessors. They’d be forced to go along with their predecessors’ decisions that were made decades ago.
With that in mind, it’s time to clear the slate. Let present legislators rather than past ones decide if they want to pursue a convention of states under Article V of the Constitution.
Bellevue Sen. Carol Blood has proposed rescinding all existing resolutions calling for constitutional conventions. Cleaning the slate to ensure the 106th Legislature – and those that follow it – will have the liberty to determine only if they choose to pursue this avenue for change.
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As Blood notes in her resolution, nearly every senator who voted on Article V conventions is dead, given that 10 of the 11 Nebraska approved came between 1893 and 1979. Only two of today’s 49 senators – Omaha Sens. Ernie Chambers and Steve Lathrop – were in office in 2010, the last time the Legislature supported a convention to address a balanced-budget amendment.
To that end, the Journal Star editorial board would support limiting the lifespan of such resolutions to the two-year Legislature in which they were approved. Again, binding lawmakers to the whims of people no longer in office is nonsensical.
Our opposition to a convention of states has been well detailed in editorials over the years. The Constitution has been amended only 27 times in our nation’s entire history, with only 17 amendments ratified since 1791.
Proponents of the conventions say there’s no precedent that proves delegates will stray from the intended goals. Yes, no such proof exists because no Article V convention has ever been convened.
In that regard, we’re also right when we say nothing prevents the needless risk of a runaway convention. The Constitution provides no guardrails to prevent the delegates from rewriting our nation’s seminal document, one that guarantees vital rights and freedoms, to serve whatever end they desire.
The Constitution is not broken. There’s no need to fix it.
Nor is there sufficient reason to tie future senators to past lawmakers’ resolutions.
Other states, red and blue alike, have realized the folly of this idea. Several have passed rescissions in recent years, while Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming are among those contemplating similar legislation this year.
Constitutional conventions are nothing with which to trifle. Pressing reset in Nebraska will guarantee future resolutions pledging the state’s inclusion in these uncharted waters are indeed the will of senators in office.
