North Carolina EMERGENCY ACTION ALERTSurprise attack! We need your help!!! | | North Carolina's Article V convention (A5C) applications were nearly dead for 2024, having arrived in a Senate committee after passing the House in March, 2023. But with only one or two legislative days remaining in this lame duck session, convention pushers are now attempting to sneak this dangerous legislation through committee at 10:00 am (EST) Monday morning!morning! And it's up to us to stop it.
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The Term Limits application was suddenly scheduled for a hearing in the Senate committee after no action for 21 months! The meeting was announced during one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, when the public was least likely to notice. And it's the only item on the agenda!
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The full Senate is meeting at Noon on the same day—and this controversial legislation could pass and become law by Monday afternoon! In addition, the Convention of States application and a Delegate bill may not be far behind.
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Let the Senators know that this isn't about term limits. It's about an Article V Convention which cannot be limited in scope. If legislators think a constitutional amendment is necessary, there's a proven way to propose amendments without risking our Constitution—and that is through Congress.
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If the Senators don’t hear from us, they'll believe the opposition's disinformation—that a constitutional convention is safe, and that the People are demanding one. We need to encourage the Senators to Vote NO on all Art. V convention applications.
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Please write a short letter as soon as possible to all North Carolina Senators to let them know we're still watching. Then, please take the time to make as many brief phone calls as you can (see Table below) today, tomorrow, or Monday before the meeting. The phones work 24/7.
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| | | The Legislation
Here are the bills we oppose in the North Carolina Senate:
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| | HJR 151 (Term Limits)—Passed the House. Arrived in the Senate on March 9, 2023, and is pending in the RULES AND OPERATIONS OF THE SENATE Committee. Hearing scheduled Mon. Dec. 2 @ 10:00 am (EST). Can be voted on by the full Senate by Monday afternoon!
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| | | HB 648 (Delegate). Passed the House. Arrived in the Senate on May 1, 2023 and is pending in the RULES AND OPERATIONS OF THE SENATE Committee. The purpose of Delegate bills is to mislead legislators into believing that they can control a convention—so they'll vote for the applications. A hearing can be scheduled at any time. |
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| | | | | Your Letter
Please write a short letter to all 50 North Carolina Senators, and tell them why they should Vote “No” on HJR 151, HJR 235, and HB 648. If you're a Republican or conservative, tell the Republicans so!
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Talking points follow are at the end of the blast.
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| Senate Republicans' Addresses
Copy the addresses below as a block into “BCC,” and copy your own address into the “To” box; and place the bill#s and description, e.g. Art. V convention, and perhaps something catchy on the subject line.
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Senate Republicans (30): Dear Senator: (If you're a Republican or conservative, tell the Republicans so!)
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| | Senate Democrats' Addresses
Senate Democrats (20)—Dear Senator:
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| | | | Short Emergency Calls
Suggestions for phone messages are below the Table.
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Please prioritize REPUBLICANS & leave a short message for as many committee members as you can. Tell them why they should kill HJR 151, HJR 235 and HB 648. Office phones work 24/7.
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| | | | Sen. Phil Berger (Pres. Pro Tem—R) |
| | | Sen. Bill Rabon (Comm. Chair—R) |
| | | Sen. Warren Daniel (Vice Chair—R) |
| | | | | Sen. Danny Earl Britt Jr. (R) |
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Sen. Norman W. Sanderson (R) |
| | | | | | | | | Sen. Paul A. Lowe Jr. (D) |
| | | | | Sen. Mujtaba A. Mohammed (D) |
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| | | Suggestions for Short Phone Messages—Or Use Your Own Words:
Ask the Committee Senators to Vote "No" on HJR 151, HJR 235, and HB 648. If you're a Republican or conservative, tell the Republicans so!
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| | 1. (Republicans) Conventions can't be limited to the subject of the application. We could lose our Second Amendment or the entire Constitution at an Art. V convention.
2. The only control State Legislatures have over the Article V Convention process is to ask Congress to call a convention. After that, it's out of your hands.
3. No one can control the Delegates to an Article V convention. Delegates would have more power than State Legislatures & aren't subject to unfaithful delegate laws or the limited wording of the application.
4 The Convention lobby is bankrolled by dark money from those who can't wait to get their hands on our Constitution.
5. Ratification by 3/4 of the States is not a safeguard. Delegates to the Convention can change the ratification process and make it easier, like they did in 1787.
6. Congress has never called a convention under Article V. No one knows what will happen!
7. (Democrats) Conventions can't be limited to the subject of the application. We could lose our civil liberties or the entire Constitution at an Art. V convention. |
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| | | Thank you for defending our Constitution! |
| | | Talking Points—for Either Party
| | | "State Legislatures cannot dictate Amendments to be considered at an Art. V Convention" (flyer) shows that Lobbyists' assurances that a convention would be limited to considering only amendments requested by 34 State Legislatures, are false. A proposed congressional "call," H.CON.RES. 24 (2023-2024), proves that Congress may pool all state applications together—regardless of subject—to reach the 34-State threshold and trigger an unlimited convention. This contradicts what State Legislators are being told to secure their votes on the applications. |
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| | | "State Legislatures have no power to select & control Delegates" (flyer) shows that those who promise that State Legislators will select and control the Delegates are making stuff up! Delegates have the "self-evident" Right "to alter or to abolish” our existing "Form of Government," as expressed by the Declaration of Independence, 2nd para. So, no one has power over Delegates! |
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| | | The “Brilliant Men” flyer shows that James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, four US Supreme Court Justices, and other jurists and scholars warned that Delegates to an Article V convention can't be controlled. |
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| | | The "Declaration of Independence” flyer shows why Delegates to an Article V convention (A5C) have the power to throw off the Constitution we have and set up a new one, with a new and easier mode of ratification. James Madison, who was a Delegate to the Federal "Amendments" Convention of 1787, invoked this Principle as justification for the Delegates' ignoring their instructions and writing a new Constitution with its own mode of ratification. |
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| | | The "Myths v. Facts" flyer explains WHO has the power to do WHAT under Article V of the US Constitution. By passing HJR 151 & HJR 235, North Carolina would be assuming powers not granted them by the US Constitution, in order to make Art. V convention applications palatable to legislators! |
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| | | The "Phony Petitions & Polls" flyer shows how the convention lobby uses polls to sway legislators, rather than measure true voter opinion. A poll which focuses on the subject of a proposed amendment (i.e. term limits), while ignoring the risks of an Art. V convention, is not a true measure of public opinion on this complex issue. US Term Limits continually tells legislators that 75 or 80% of voters support term limits, according to polls that don't mention an Article V convention. |
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| | | For Republicans Only:
| | | "COS Board Member shows that an Art. V Convention (A5C) can result in a new Constitution" (flyer) highlights the fact that Convention of States (COS) board member Robert P. George has already co-drafted a new constitution which grants massive powers to a new federal government & imposes gun control with red flag confiscations! It shows why an A5C provides the opportunity, under the pretext of seeking amendments, to replace our Constitution and its ratification process. |
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| | | For Democrats Only:
| | | "...the greatest danger is that there’s nothing in Article V that prevents an amendatory convention from following the example of the 1787 convention in Philadelphia, which became a runaway convention by simply assuming its freedom to propose a substitute for the very frame of government, the Articles of Confederation, under which it convened...[If] the proponents of an Article V convention succeed in setting one in motion,…“the extraordinary American experiment in the self-government of an open society that has endured for over 230 years will be in never-before-experienced peril." |
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Or you might quote from Chief Justice Warren Burger's LETTER to Phyllis Schlafly dated June 22, 1988:
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| | | “...[T]here is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda...After a Convention is convened, it will be too late to stop the Convention if we don’t like its agenda…” |
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