With the adjournment of the Iowa Legislature earlier this week, the failure of the Iowa Senate to vote on the Convention of the States (COS) proposal (HJR 12) made it the 15th state this year to kill the effort to call for a national convention to consider changes to the U.S. Constitution.

No states have passed the proposal so far this year.

Those Americans who believe that the document produced by men such as George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton in 1787, and ratified by the states over the next few years, is far superior to anything that our present generation of politicians such as Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell could produce, now should heave a sigh of relief. After all, as the late Justice Antonin Scalia once opined, “This century is a bad century in which to write a Constitution.”

Advocates of a national convention argue that there is a need to rein in an out-of-control federal government. Article V of the Constitution provides that amendments can be proposed either by two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, or by a Convention called by Congress upon the application of two-thirds of the states, with delegates representing the states. But can anyone seriously believe that an electorate that has sent our present bunch of politicians to Congress would suddenly wise up and send a better bunch to a Constitutional Convention? The powerful special interests that have so much influence over Congress would not sit idly by and let any such convention be dominated by patriots who favor limited government, liberty, and free enterprise.

Some well-meaning proponents of the Convention of States idea have actually proposed that we need to “clarify” the Second Amendment to make sure our modern judges and lawmakers really understand that it was intended to protect our right to keep and bear arms. These supporters of a Constitutional Convention, or Con-Con, believe that the Supreme Court could misinterpret the Constitution and rule that the Second Amendment really doesn’t do that. So they propose that we need to write a new amendment, telling them again what is already plainly stated in the Second Amendment right now.

Con-Con advocates should understand that opponents of the Second Amendment, as it now stands, would be in attendance at any such Con-Con. Does any supporter of the Second Amendment really want a Con-Con to convene now, in this toxic anti-gun rights atmosphere?

This is why patriotic members of The John Birch Society (parent organization of The New American magazine) were successful, along with their like-thinking allies, in keeping the COS from even coming to a vote in the Iowa Senate. As part of the effort to kill the Con-Con proposal, The John Birch Society (JBS) sent Robert Brown into the state in January to speak, as part of the JBS’s “The Constitution Is the Solution” series. In Urbandale, Iowa, a Des Moines suburb, Brown explained why the solution to our present problem is not in invoking an Article V Convention, but rather by implementing an “Article VI solution.”

Article VI stipulates that the Constitution itself is the supreme law of the land, and all other laws and court decisions must follow it. In other words, it is not the Constitution that is the problem, but rather the failure to follow it. Brown carried his message to two radio stations, then spoke at the Capitol to 8-10 key legislators.

Brown also engaged in a public debate with the Iowa chairman of the Convention of States effort.

More here: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/29025-iowa-latest-state-to-reject-convention-of-the-states