Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States Action group, hopes to have enough states on board to have a Convention of States — one of the two ways to amend the Constitution — by 2026, he said during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday.
Meckler pointed to Article V of the Constitution, which contains two clauses detailing how the country can amend the United States Constitution.
“The first way is, whenever two-thirds of both Houses of Congress decide an amendment is necessary, they can propose that amendment and put it out to the states for ratification, and it takes three quarters of states to ratify that amendment,” he explained, pointing to the second clause, which says that two-thirds of the states can gather to take action if they cannot get Congress to move.
“The method is, the state legislatures alone — no governor’s signature necessary — when the majority of both houses of the state legislature say they want to call a convention, they pass a resolution calling for that convention. And then they submit that to Congress and when 34 states have done that, then the convention is called,” he said, noting that his organization is involved in this.
The Signing of the Constitution of the United States, with George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson at the Constitutional Convention of 1787; oil painting on canvas by Howard Chandler Christy, 1940. (GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)
“We have a resolution being proposed in all the state legislatures. The resolution basically says it has three subject matters. It says that the convention once called will discuss anything that would impose term limits on federal officials and Congress. So that’s Congress plus bureaucrats and staffers — the deep state. [It] says … you can discuss anything that would impose fiscal restraints on the federal government like a balanced budget amendment, tax caps, spending caps. And it says they can discuss anything that would impose scope and jurisdiction restraints, and that means telling the federal government what it can’t do, things that they never should have done, like being involved in education or energy or healthcare. We could do away with those kinds of agencies. So that’s the basic process and how it works,” he explained, agreeing that is necessary as it will be difficult for members of Congress to vote for term limits on themselves, for example.
“People don’t restrain themselves. That’s just not how human nature works. And what we know from Madison’s notes of convention, is that there wasn’t even any debate. This was not something people thought, ‘Oh, well, that seems like a crazy idea.’ They all kind of slapped their foreheads and said, ‘Well, yeah, of course we’re gonna need to restrain them,'” he said.
So far, 19 states have passed the proposed resolution calling for a convention of states, putting the country past the halfway mark towards the 34 that are needed.
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“So we need another 15 states to go to get it done. We’re just starting legislative sessions this year,” he said, hoping to add several states this year as the organization is active in North Carolina, Montana, Idaho, Iowa, Wyoming, and “all over the country.”
“I expect this year that will pass at a minimum or more — kind of the mantra is 23 in ’23. I expect that we’ll pass number 20 here pretty quickly. I’m going to be in Wyoming in the next few days. That’s looking very good. Montana looks very good,” he said, predicting that between four and seven states will pass the resolution this year.
He noted that they there are no time limits unless a state puts a sunset clause in the resolution.
“I’m always an optimist. I want to say that upfront, you know, doing what I do over the long haul, you’ve got to be an optimist. And so right now I’m shooting for closing this out in 2026,” he added.