HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 81

(By Delegates Pushkin, Rowe and Fleischauer)

[Introduced February 20, 2018; Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary then Rules]

Proposing to rescind HCR 36 passed by the Regular Session of the Legislature 2016, applying for an Article V Amendments Convention to Propose a Constitutional Amendment.

Whereas, The 2016 Regular Session of the Legislature on February 6, 2016, passed HCR 36 making formal application to Congress to call an Article V constitutional convention, or convention of the states, for the sole purpose of altering the Constitution of the United States of America; and

Whereas, Article V of the Constitution of the United States reserves exclusively to Congress the federal authority to call a constitutional convention, or convention of the states; and

Whereas, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Congress alone reserves the power to “deal with subsidiary matters of detail and Article V is no exception to the rule,” including matters regarding convention delegates and constitutional conventions called by Congress under Article V; and

Whereas, Article V of the Constitution of the United States declares the “Mode of Ratification” of amendments arising from a constitutional convention, or convention of the states, shall be determined not by the states or by the delegates, but by Congress; and

Whereas, The States have no authority to impose any penalty, sanction, or limitation on convention delegates, for such delegates represent the “People”, and the sovereign “Right of the People to alter or to abolish [their Government], and to institute new Government”; and

Whereas, The States have no constitutional authority to establish, or to predetermine, the rules of order or operational aspects of a constitutional convention, or convention of the states, called by Congress under Article V of the Constitution of the United States; and

Whereas, James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 43 that Article V of the Constitution of the United States should be utilized only for repairing “discovered [constitutional] faults” or for “amendment of [constitutional] errors”; and

Whereas, Nothing in Article V of the Constitution of the United States provides for, nor can any state application guarantee, equal suffrage or equal franchise, to each state at the constitutional convention, or convention of the states; and

Whereas, Nothing in Article V of the Constitution of the United States limits the constitutional convention, or convention of the states, to any specific topic or to any specific list of topics; and

Whereas, Nothing in Article V of the Constitution of the United States guarantees, nor can any state application guarantee, state legislatures the right to a ratification vote on amendments arising from a constitutional convention, or convention of the states; and

Whereas, The West Virginia Legislature joins the legislatures of the states of Delaware, Idaho, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Virginia, who, having recently rescinded their Article V balanced budget applications, no longer support a Congressional call for a constitutional convention, or convention of the states; therefore, be it

Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:

That HCR 36 passed by the 2016 Regular Session of the Legislature, be rescinded; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates forward copies of this resolution to the President and Secretary of the United States Senate, to the Speaker and Secretary of the United States House of Representatives, the members of the West Virginia Congressional Delegation, and to the presiding officers of each house of the several State Legislatures, attesting the adoption of this resolution by the West Virginia Legislature.