Be Worried

The Republicans want a Constitutional Convention… be scared, be very scared!

Ruling the US supreme court isn’t enough. The right wants to amend the constitution
A conservative movement to rewrite the US constitution is gaining momentum – potentially plunging the US into a vast legal unknown
The Guardian
By Russ Feingold
September 19, 2022


In a recent primetime address, President Joe Biden spoke about “the soul of the nation” – calling out rightwing forces for their numerous efforts to undermine, if not overthrow, our democracy. Biden’s speech was prescient, in more ways than one. In addition to many Republicans promoting the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen and working to fill elected offices with people ready to subvert the will of the people, there is a conservative movement underway to radically rewrite the US constitution.

The right has already packed the supreme court and is reaping the rewards, with decisions from Dobbs to Bruen that radically reinterpret the constitution in defiance of precedent and sound legal reasoning. But factions of the right are not satisfied to wait for the court to reinterpret the constitution. Instead, they have set their sights on literally rewriting our foundational document.

[…]

As legislatures continue to trend conservative in many states, due in no small part to partisan and racial gerrymandering, factions of the right see an increasingly viable and potentially imminent path to securing the 34 applications necessary to call a convention. In recent months, some congresspeople have even claimed that the constitutional threshold has been satisfied and that Congress must call a convention. While their counting is dubious, the momentum that they could nonetheless achieve is deeply worrying.

So what is on their wish list?

• A ban on all abortions
• Marriage is between a man and a woman.
• Criminalize us and our lesbian, gay, and queer brothers and sisters.

We thought that Roe v. Wade was safe and we had faith in the Supreme Court to do the right thing but the Republicans kept plugging ahead until they packed the courts and they can do the same with a Constitutional Convention.