Republicans in at least five states are super excited about Convention…. But not the one in Tampa this August. 

GOP state legislators in Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Ohio, and Virginia have all introduced legislation calling for an “amendments convention” at which amendments to the U.S. Constitution concerning the federal debt limit, balanced budgets, and other fiscal measures will be proposed. 

Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, and Virginia all want “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that an increase in the federal debt requires approval from a majority of the legislatures of the separate states.” 

Virginia and Ohio go so far as to call for a balanced budget amendment. Virginia’s House Joint Resolution No. 100 is the most extensive proposal of all of these: 

RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the Commonwealth of Virginia hereby applies to the Congress of the United States to call an amendment convention pursuant to Article V of the United States Constitution for the purpose of amending the constitution to require a balanced federal budget and prohibit unfunded mandates by Congress to the states. The Virginia Delegation to such convention, when called, shall propose the following amendment:

“Section 1. The public debt of the United States shall not be increased, unless agreed by two-thirds of the whole number of each House, and for periods not to exceed one year, with the names of the persons voting for and against recorded.

"Section 2. Congress shall make no law compelling the appropriation of money by any state, unless such state is compensated by Congress by at least an equal appropriation of money and not less than annually. Any conditions applied by Congress related to the expenditure of such money by any state shall be specific to its use.

"Section 3. The provisions of Section 2 shall become effective five years after ratification, and shall apply to laws made prior to and after ratification.” 

Meanwhile, GOP legislators in other states are attempting to make a different sort of, but no less dramatic, change to the way government operates. 

Some Republican lawmakers in Tennessee , New Hampshire, and Oklahoma are sick and tired of their state Supreme Courts overturning their unconstitutional laws. So they’re proposing bills that would strip the judicial branch of its authority to rule on the constitutionality of legislation. 

“The executive, legislative and judicial branches were created separate but equal, but the judiciary has overstepped their bounds,” says Republican state Senator Mae Beavers, the lead sponsor of the Tennessee bill. Beavers wants to amend the state code to take away the state Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to rule on the question of whether a law is or is not constitutional. “They’re not just interpreting the law, but making policy.” 

New Hampshire’s battle over the authority of the state Supreme Court has its roots in President Obama’s health care law. Last fall, the Court issued an advisory opinion denying the state legislature the authority to force the Attorney General to join a multi-state lawsuit against the new law. Some outraged Republicans are taking steps this year to prevent the judicial branch from issuing unfavorable rulings in the future. 

[This bill] attempts to amend the state Constitution so that “the supreme court shall determine the constitutionality of judicial acts and the legislature shall determine the constitutionality of legislative acts.”

The amendment’s lead sponsor, Republican state Representative Gregory Sorg, says he’s introduced this amendment for the last four legislative sessions, and each time the interest has grown. “(Judicial review) makes judges more powerful and helps legislators avoid making tough calls,” Sorg says. 

In Oklahoma, freshman Republican Sen. Ralph “Fetus Food” Shortey wants to not only remove the state Supreme Court’s ability to determine the constitutionality of legislation, but also seeks to abolish the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. 

Shortey proposes to put two state questions before voters. One would ask them to abolish the state Court of Criminal Appeals and the second, to eliminate the Oklahoma Supreme Court's power to review the constitutionality of laws.

It's unclear what replaces the Court of Criminal Appeals that handles hundreds of criminal appeals and writs affecting life and liberty. Shortey does, however, specify what gets subbed in for the Supreme Court on judicial review - a snarky-sounding body called the "Ad Hoc Court of Constitutional Review" - players TBA later. My guess is the Legislature gets to pack that "court." 

So Republicans disappointed in their inability to use their state Supreme Courts as their very own partisan Star Chambers are trying to vitiate those Courts’ authority. Maybe these same folks spent their childhoods changing the rules of games they couldn’t win. 

Judicial review was actually practiced in the states before it became established on the federal level by Marbury v. Madison. From 1776 until the Constitutional Convention in 1787, courts in at least seven of the thirteen states had engaged in judicial review and had used it to invalidate state statutes. 

Now Republican state legislators who swore to uphold their state and federal constitutions are trying to manipulate these documents to meddle in federal fiscal affairs and to produce state policy outcomes more to their liking. 

Meanwhile, their constituents back home are waiting on these GOP lawmakers to take action to create jobs, improve schools, fix roads, and otherwise tend to their states’ actual needs. 

Republicans need to stop wasting legislative time and resources on partisan overreach and doing real work for real people. 

But will they? The jury’s still out.