Convention of States Action (COS) kicked off its first “Leadership Summit” in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia today. COS, a project of Mark Meckler and Eric O’Keefe’s Citizens for Self-Governance, claims that “hundreds” of activists, state directors, and coordinators from all 50 states will attend to get inspired and learn strategies for passing COS resolutions in the states calling for a constitutional convention to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.
Fifteen states have passed the group’s applications so far, with 17 more states considering the resolution this year, according to COS. Wisconsin recently introduced a COS resolution, which would bump the number up to 18.
A constitutional convention has never been held since the Constitution was adopted, and COS will need 34 states to file applications in order for it to occur. If that happens, COS plans to move an array of sweeping amendments to redefine key parts of the Constitution and radically weaken the federal government.
COS has ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the National Rifle Association, the right-wing militia group Three Percenters, and the Christian nationalist group WallBuilders.
More than 200 civil rights and public interest groups, including the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), signed a letter last year denouncing such constitutional convention calls as “a threat to every American’s constitutional rights and civil liberties.”
Right-Wing Extremists to Speak
Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, from Trump’s beloved Fox & Friends, addressed the crowd this morning, telling them that the Left hates the Constitution, the founding fathers understood that the word of “Jesus Christ our savior” is the guiding force for our country, and that there “is no other freedom-loving bastion in the world that values the individual with God-endowed rights.”
And, referencing the Three Percenters likely in attendance, Hegseth said, “it has always been the one percent or two percent or three percent of people that get it, that are willing to buck the comfiness of their moment and the established norms that everyone is comfortable with, willing to be defiant, willing to stand — be accused of being radical about things that are not radical at all.”
Recently, Hegseth has made some radical comments himself, saying that Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-D) has a “Hamas agenda,” implying that she works with a U.S. designated terrorist organization.
Hegseth has also publicly defended Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s brother Erik Prince’s Blackwater contractors, who were convicted of murdering Iraqi citizens, and has called climate change a “religion” that Democrats use to “control” people.
David Barton warmed up the crowd with a history lecture on the Constitution’s basis in fixed moral standards based on natural law and scripture, and drew applause with his claim that the federal government has “emasculated the states.”
A Christian nationalist with strong anti-LGBT views. Barton once said,
“There’s a passage that I love in Romans 1. … [I]t talks about homosexuality and it says that they will receive in their bodies the penalties of their behavior. … The Bible [is] right every time … and that’s why AIDS has been something they haven’t discovered a cure for or a vaccine for. … And that goes to what God says, ‘Hey you’re going to bear in your body the consequences of this homosexual behavior.'”
Barton founded the group WallBuilders, which has worked with Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance to influence judicial elections and selection rules in states across the country, the Center for Media and Democracy detailed.
WallBuilders also works with the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation to push out Christian-Right model legislation in the mold of ALEC to state lawmakers under the name Project Blitz.
Also in line to speak at the Summit is one of the NRA’s top attorneys, Charles Cooper. Cooper will speak on, “The Real Threat to Gun Rights.” In an email to COS activists, Cooper is quoted as saying:
“The real threat to our constitutional rights today is posed not by an Article V Convention of States, but by an out-of-control federal government, exercising powers that it does not have and abusing powers that it does.”
COS materials in recent years have argued that a constitutional convention could be used to rewrite the Second Amendment in order to make it Supreme-Court-proof.
Others on the agenda to speak include founding board member Eric O’Keefe, former professor Rob Natelson, former U.S. Senator and COS Senior Advisor Tom Coburn, and the right-wing author of Liberty Amendments Mark Levin.
But the stars of the summit are likely to be the actors COS will have play the founding fathers Patrick Henry, James Madison, and George Washington.
Stay tuned to ExposedbyCMD.org for more on the right-wing’s effort to rewrite the Constitution.
High on the list of those who seek to rewrite the constitution is undoing the 17th Amendment and returning to the practice of state legislatures appointing U.S. Senators.
The purpose of this is to strip cities (read black and brown people) of political power. This would shift more power to white, rural areas.
The tide is shifting, Koch-backed Right-wingers. Peeps are realizing the connection between climate denial and the increase of Cat-5 hurricanes causing loss of homes, displacement and general misery. Your pathological campaign of hate is gaining notoriety and you are being exposed.
I thought Wisconsin was the 28th state to call for this terrible idea back in 2017?
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/wisconsin/articles/2017-11-07/wisconsin-senate-set-to-call-for-constitutional-convention
WI passed an article V application for a balance budget amendment through the group called the BBA Task Force.
Hey you people that call yourself Christians that claim that AIDS hasn’t been cured and that’s because God hates homosexuals, although he made them. Have you noticed there’s no cure for cancer and a million other diseases? In fact, Cancer is a far worse death sentence than AIDS which is not a livable, treatable disease much like Diabetes. Have a nice day and don’t forget to treat others as you would like to be treated and you shall reap what you sow.
This is an attack on the United States of America! They are traitors to attack the United States of America.
They are actually Constitutionalists who believe in the Constitution as written. Those who want the government to continue to tell you what you can and cannot do from the federal level are the traitors. The founders intended all of the every day decisions to be made locally by the people and in the states so that you decide not Congress. They intended for each state to be self governing at the consent of its citizens. Know your history.
This will not fly in my Country! We are a Country of Immigrants ! Last I read was we all are from a different country . We were British before Americans! Start reading how this Country was founded!! And God is a loving God! Not hateful as the Right Ring Extremist.
God have mercy on your soul for saying that the left don’t care for our Constitution!! That’s a lie!
I don’t care how many degrees you have sir!
I heard it said that power is useless unless it is abused, seems like this is the mandate felt by conservative politicians. always there is tragedy just around the corner. all we really need is afree press to show the world we are the vast majority, and the neo cons are running scared
This is a smear on the Article V Convention. The Constitution will never be re-written because 75%+ of the states would never agree to it. What does that say about Armiak’s reporting? Get the facts at Friends of the Article V Convention foavc.org