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Guest post by David G. Leeper, PhD

What can We the People do, as individuals, to rein in our runaway federal government?

One strategic option is to call in the reserves — namely, our 50 state legislatures!

Consider making the following direct personal appeal from you to your own state legislatures.

Dear [State Legislator] –

We the People need you.

We’re desperate, and we implore you to speak up for us. Frankly, you’re our last best hope!

Our Declaration of Independence explicitly proclaims that to secure our inalienable rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Today, to cite just three examples, the federal government most assuredly does not have our consent to:

pass multi-thousand-page, multi-trillion-dollar spending bills at the 11^th hour with neither review nor debate,

admit millions of unvetted immigrants into our country, contrary to established laws and procedures,

delegate massive legislative and regulatory powers to over 600 unelected, duplicative, and virtually unaccountable federal agencies and departments

Legislator, you can be our voice with explicit Declarations of Dissent. These formal state resolutions would be directed toward individual federal laws, spending, regulations, actions, or lack of actions. You may choose to invite constituents to guide you and help you write them. But whatever source you use, it is your voice that we so badly need to hear.

Your declarations will be newsworthy, explicit pushback against an overreaching federal government, just as our colonial leaders in the 18^th century first issued appeals to King George over what the Declaration of Independence later called “abuses and usurpations.”

Your collective voices are the most legitimate yet most underused voice that we have. You and your colleagues have the genuine “bully pulpit” of a directly elected state legislature, and we ask that you begin using it forcefully.

This is not a Democrat, Republican, or Independent initiative. It is a We the People initiative, wholly consistent with the Constitution’s First Amendment right to petition for redress.

It is not only within your power to speak for us – it is also an implicit obligation. And besides being the right thing to do, please consider the likely 70% constituent approval you could win across party lines.

Please do not deflect, dissemble, or remain silent. We the People need you now.

[Citizen signature]

Formal and forceful state Declarations of Dissent will be a highly visible way for our state legislators to represent our interests in DC. We pay our state legislators’ salaries, they do have the ‘bully pulpit’ of elected office, and we do have every right to expect them to use it to represent us in Washington.

If you agree, please copy, paste, and edit the letter above and send it to your own state legislators. This link will provide you with their names & addresses.

In addition —

Our state legislators can add “teeth” to their Declarations of Dissent by forcefully reminding the Feds that Article V of the Constitution is still there, just begging to be exercised.

Even today, most Americans are surprised to learn that Article V empowers our state legislatures to amend the US Constitution without the permission or approval of Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court. With the kinds of abuses listed in the sample letter above, surely Article V is needed now more than ever.

Term limits, balanced budgets, and regulatory reform are among amendments already being designed and proposed. One, a States Override amendment like the one below, is less than 140 words in length — but it would empower the states to reverse virtually any abuse or usurpation by our runaway Big Government in Washington.

States Override Amendment (Draft)

Section 1. 
The several state legislatures, by a three-fifths majority vote, shall have the power to:
(1) reduce any line item in any appropriations or other spending legislation,
(2) repeal, in whole or in part, any law passed by Congress0,
(3) vacate, in whole or in part, any ruling of the Supreme Court or any inferior federal court,
(4) cancel, in whole or in part, any Presidential executive order or guideline,
(5) withdraw, in whole or in part, any regulation issued by any Federal agency or department.

Section 2. 
(1) In any action under this amendment, each state legislature shall have exactly one vote, and none of the actions shall be subject to federal judicial review.
(2) Each action shall become effective on the day that the three-fifths-majority requirement is met.

Just imagine how Washington would have to restrain its abuses and usurpations if this override power were in the hands of We the People, through our elected state legislatures.

Ironically, the idea of any Article V convention terrifies many on both the hard-Right and hard-Left in America. The hard-Right fears amendments might grow the power of Big Government, and the hard-Left fears amendments might restrict that growth.

Both the hard-Right and hard-Left invoke ghostly fears of a runaway convention, while an all-too-real runaway Congress is driving us to the edge of a fiscal cliff with $35 Trillion in operating debt (now increasing by another $1 Trillion every 100 days), and over $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities.

If we drive off that fiscal cliff with those on the Right tapping the brakes or those on the Left pressing the accelerator, the results will be about the same — a disaster for all of us either way.

In the 2-minute video below, current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, while a Louisiana state legislator in 2016, advocates for an Article V Convention and rightly dispels the fears of a “runaway” convention.

[Video] https://studio.youtube.com/video/BoS0fhR_x7A/edit?o=U

In summary —

Our 50 state legislatures can rein in our runaway Federal government by pursuing two bold, simultaneous paths:

First, speak up through formal Declarations of Dissent.  Second, support a states-driven Article V amendments proposal convention with powerful amendments to restrain runaway Big Government in Washington — before it’s too late!

More information about Article V and state initiatives:
The Liberty Amendments (Levin),
Three Article V Convention Efforts (Walker/Cuccinelli),
How the U.S. can avoid falling off a fiscal cliff (Poulson),
Convention of States (COS),
Article V Taskforce,
Hunt for Liberty.

More information about America’s rich history of successful state conventions can be found at these sources:
Far from Unworkable (Dake),
Conventions that Made America (Kapic).

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