The third meeting of the Assembly of State Legislatures (ASL), the constitutional convention advocacy group executed articles of incorporation, debated by-laws, and elected two co-presidents. Missouri State Senator Jason Holsman, a Democrat from Kansas City, and Wisconsin Republican State Representative Chris Kapenga will both share the gavel for the new group. The Assembly of State Legislatures was formerly known as the Mt. Vernon Assembly but officially changed their name last June at the groups second meeting in Indiana. 75 legislators from around the country gathered at the Naval Heritage Center in Washington D.C. to discuss the need for an Article V Convention to address challenges facing our nation that Congress has shown an inability or unwillingness to correct. In particular, the stated goal of ASL is determine the form and function of the Article V Convention, a process that has inspired numerous competing legal interpretations. The Article V Convention movement has been steadily growing over the last ten years. [...] Rep. Kapenga, the groups Republican co-president, commented, “History shows there is this centralization of power [in Washington D.C.] which always ends up leading to abuse, and [our Founders have] put this mechanism in place for us... to deal with the root causes of the problem.” Kapenga described historically how most states have tried to pull together an Article V Convention but all have failed. These attempts, explained Kapenga, never got to the question of what because theyve always stumbled on the question of “how.” In other words, because the constitution offers no structural framework or process for the convention, every prior attempt to convene has suffered a confusing, technocratic death of red tape. It is for this reason that Kapenga was inspired to get ahead of issue and help start ASL, which held its inaugural meeting a year ago at George Washingtons famed Mt. Vernon estate.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 21:31:21 +0000
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