DALLAS (Legal Newsline) - Ohio, Pennsylvania, and potentially North Carolina are among states poised to pass a Convention of States (COS) resolution that would return more federal power to the people.
“Those are probably the two targets on our list and on a long shot basis, North Carolina will come back in for what's called a veto session to override gubernatorial vetoes so they could consider it,” said Mark Meckler, president of Convention of States Action. “We've passed it through the House and Senate there previously but never in the same session. They've got to be in the same session.”
Meckler made the remarks at the 2022 CPAC conference in Dallas on Aug. 4 while participating in a panel discussion called The States Fight Back: Progress on the Convention of States.
The COS resolution, if approved by 34 states as outlined in Article V of the U.S. Constitution, would facilitate a meeting where participating states would propose constitutional amendments to address term limits for government officials, fiscal responsibility as well as limiting the scope and power of the federal government.
“The Convention of States movement is about going to Washington D.C. and taking your power back,” Meckler told a cheering audience at the Anatole Hotel. “Do you want to take your power back from DC?”
So far, only 19 states have approved the resolution, according to Meckler.
“We’re continuing to build the grassroots and, in my experience, there's nothing that more grassroots cannot solve,” he said. “I get into a state, we get close, double the grassroots army and we’ll get it done because that's the pressure mechanism in the politics of our country.”
Only 16.6% of voters oppose a Convention of States, including 6.7% of Republicans, according to a July poll conducted by Convention of States Action and The Trafalgar Group.
“That's definitionally fringe,” Meckler said. “Those are the people who make this strident runaway convention argument.”
Some 63.3% of Independent voters, 50.2% of Democrat voters, and 81.3% of Republican voters support a convention of states.
“I don't know any other issue in the body politic where there's this much unity,” Meckler said. “To be fair, most people don't even know what it is so the way we asked the question is, ‘Calling a convention of states for the purpose of these three things,' and that's where you get these incredible unifying numbers across the board.”
The results were compiled from surveys conducted from July 7 through July 10 among more than 1,000 likely 2022 election voters.
"Voters in all parties know that—regardless of who is in power—Washington, D.C. is fundamentally broken and something dramatic has to be done to change the game," Meckler added. "The deck is stacked against the American people, and these numbers show vast majorities agree it’s time to reboot the relationship between the federal government and the states.”