Response to Jim Talent

Jim Talent's name has been used, without his actual signature, as a last-minute gimmick by "Convention of States Action" to push its Con Con bill, HCR 5 (SCR 4), in Missouri.

Less than a year before his untimely passing, Justice Antonin Scalia called it a "horrible idea" to hold a constitutional convention. Phyllis Schlafly was always strongly against allowing a constitutional convention to rewrite our Constitution. There is no way to limit a constitutional convention, as nearly all legal scholars recognize. Article V of the Constitution expressly states that "amendments", plural, may be proposed at a constitutional convention once one is convened. The Second Amendment would surely be repealed as one of the amendments. Then the amendments, once adopted by a Con Con, would become a runaway freight train that state legislatures would rush to pass. It could not be stopped at that point.

Last July, the Republican National Platform Committee nearly unanimously rejected an attempt to add an Article V Convention to the platform.

Talent's surprise letter fails to disclose for whom Jim Talent now works. In fact, in late March he became a "Senior Fellow" at the "Bipartisan Policy Center," a group of liberal Establishment types who promote globalist goals. The Bipartisan Policy Center is an advocate of more immigration, which Talent supported in the form of expanding work-related visas while he was briefly in the U.S. Senate. These work-related immigration visas have taken away good jobs from Americans, and most voters oppose them today. In addition, Talent repeatedly voted for the phony "free trade" agreements with China and other foreign countries, which are supported by the globalists behind the Con Con but opposed by most Americans.

The secret billionaires who are funding the push to rewrite the Constitution have their own agenda. They are pro-immigration, for example, and even fund groups that demand drivers' licenses for illegal aliens. As reported by TIME magazine, in an article entitled "The Koch Brothers Are Helping More Immigrants Get Help," billionaires are pouring millions into benefits for illegal aliens:

"Through the Koch network’s LIBRE Initiative, volunteers and advisers are helping immigrants study for drivers’ license exams so they have some form of government ID, others prepare for citizenship tests and still others earn a G.E.D. And it doesn’t matter if they are here legally or not."

These are the same mega-donors who are secretly pushing for a constitutional convention to rewrite our Constitution.

Jim Talent's letter is flat-out wrong about the Article V process, as he erroneously declares that the convention would "be called by the States." Article V of the Constitution expressly states, as anyone can easily confirm, that "Congress ... shall call a convention for proposing amendments." The States have no control over the process other than applying to Congress for it to act.

Article V of the Constitution authorizes only Congress to make the "call" for a constitutional convention, contrary to the misleading impression created by the Convention of States advocates. States may only apply for a Con Con, while Congress will call and control it. Big states would dominate any constitutional convention, and Missouri would not be entitled to "one state, one vote" because the U.S. Supreme Court has required proportional representation by population since 1964 everywhere except in the U.S. Senate. California and New York would run a Con Con, along with the media.

Although the letter attributed to Talent on HCR 5 (SCR 4) contains little actual substance, it does conclude with a demand for "a more limited federal government." Part of the secret agenda behind the push for a new Article V convention is a desire to reduce federal security along our border, in order to allow more illegal immigration. That would be less federal government as demanded by HCR 5 (SCR 4), but it would be very harmful to our Nation.

Congressmen take an oath of office that requires them to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." The hidden agenda behind trying the rewrite the Constitution, as funded by secret donors, should be defended against by rejecting HCR 5 (SCR 4).

Andrew Schlafly, J.D.
Phyllis Schlafly Eagles