Author: Kenn Quinn

Kenn Quinn is an expert on the amending provision of the U.S. Constitution and advocates for the state legislatures to exercise their constitutional authority to propose amendments in an Article V convention. This column is part of a series that will explore the Convention of States. For more information or to volunteer, please visit www.conventionofstates.com.

The issue of the state legislatures holding an Article V convention to propose amendments has divided people that typically agree on many issues into two completely different camps. One totally favors it, and the other is adamantly opposed You may find yourself in one of these camps, or perhaps you are still researching the issue before deciding whether to support an Article V convention. My purpose in writing this series is to do a deep dive into this hotly debated topic and, by doing so, demonstrate that the opponents’ claims against the Article V convention are entirely unfounded and cannot…

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Maine recently joined 35 other states this year in filing the Convention of States (COS) resolution calling for an Article V convention limited to proposing amendments that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit terms of office for its officials and members of Congress. The Convention of States Project now holds the record for filing the most identical Article V resolutions in a single year –and it demonstrates that state legislators are realizing their power to correct our nation’s most pressing problems through this long-neglected constitutional process. As Alexander…

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Now that the elections are over and all the negative TV ads are gone we can all breathe a big sigh of relief.  We have done all we could and now it is up to those that we sent to Washington D.C. to fix all the problems as they promised and if they don’t we will have to start all over again in two years and hopefully get it right the next time, right? Wrong! Until recently that is what most of us believed until the power of a convention for proposing amendments was rediscovered and started inspiring Americans across the nation…

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In my previous article Why Elections Cannot Fix Washington D.C., I demonstrated that amendments are superior to elections in solving our nation’s problems because the incumbency rate of Congress prevents us from electing enough good people in a reasonable amount of time to restore sanity to Congress. In regards to the service tenure of Congress, the Congressional Services Research reports: “During the late 19th and through the 20th century, the average years of service for Senators steadily increased, from an average of just under five years in the early 1880s to an average of just over 13 years in recent…

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As our nation continues to spiral out of control and those we elected to Congress continue to ignore their responsibilities and their constitutional boundaries, what are concerned citizens supposed to do? Until recently all we were ever heard was, “We need to elect ‘good’ people to office that will obey the Constitution.” Now that sounds noble and good and I do agree with electing people to office who promise to adhere to the boundaries of the Constitution, but that is not our only recourse to correct the abuses of the federal government, and if we believe that it is, then…

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By Ken Quinn — On September 17th our nation celebrates Constitution Day which is the date in 1787 that the delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed that governing document. In order to understand the intention of the Framers we must go back in time to read the Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison. This is especially true when it comes to the current debate over an Article Convention for proposing amendments. As you read the discussion on the wording of Article V you can clearly see that the wisdom and foresight of delegate George Mason was…

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The Article V Convention movement has really gained traction since the release of Mark Levin’s book last summer titled The Liberty Amendments. The book stayed at number one on the NY Times bestseller list for three consecutive weeks and in it Levin explores eleven ideas for amendments to the U.S. Constitution to restore our Republic. In future articles I plan to provide an overview of some of his proposed amendments to demonstrate how feasible it is for the states to correct the problems our nation is facing with an Article V convention. However, long before Levin’s book The Liberty Amendments…

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By Ken Quinn — This week I would like to share with you the mission of the Convention of States Project. The following information comes directly from the pages of our publication titled A Handbook for Legislators and Citizens. I highly recommend that you download it to learn more about our plan to call for an Article V convention for proposing amendments. You will also learn why an Article V Convention is safe, how it would operate, action steps for legislators and citizens, how the Constitution was adopted and the history of other founding-era conventions. Washington, D.C., is Out of Control and…

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By Ken Quinn – Since the start of our government under the Constitution on March 9, 1789, Congress has proposed over 11,500 amendments to the Constitution with only thirty-three of those being passed by the necessary two-thirds of both houses in order to be sent to the states for ratification. Only twenty-seven out of those thirty-three proposed amendments have been ratified by the states with the first ten (Bill of Rights) being ratified in 1791. History has demonstrated that the amending process of our Constitution has allowed our nation to make necessary corrections based upon the experience and demands of past generations.…

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By Ken Quinn – America has been blessed to be governed by the oldest written Constitution in the world. The reason that it has survived for over two centuries is because this set of “bylaws” is based upon the principles found within our nation’s “articles of incorporation”, the Declaration of Independence. Those principles being composed of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving…

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By Ken Quinn, Coalitions Director for the Convention of States Project in Maine – We, as citizens of the United States, have become quite ignorant of our own history. This ignorance often prevents us from seeing history being repeated and from making necessary course corrections to prevent calamity from striking. A meeting between states to solve problems is one of those historical practices that we have long forgotten about. Today when we hear the term “convention of states” we immediately think that it is some radical idea that has happened only one time in our history in 1787. Revisiting American history…

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Is an Article V Convention for Proposing Amendments the same as a Constitutional Convention? That seems to be the most misunderstood issue in regards to Article V discussions, as the movement gains national popularity. Many people believe that the two are synonymous, primarily due to simply being ignorant of the convention debates. Unfortunately there are others, that in their zeal to oppose an Article V Convention, intentionally use the term Constitutional Convention or “Con-Con” in order to strike fear in our legislators to paralyze them from submitting Article V applications to Congress for the purpose of proposing amendments to address many serious concerns.…

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One of the greatest protections that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution wove into our nation’s governing document is the power of checks and balances. They divided our government into three branches – Legislative, Executive and Judiciary – and gave each branch the ability to check the other two in order to prevent any branch from becoming too powerful. Another unique tool they provided us was the ability to amend our Constitution as needs arose over time in order to allow it to govern our nation properly and to protect our rights in the future. There have been 27…

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