Those of us who still believe in the founders’ vision of a Constitutional Republic have been advocating for a much smaller, less intrusive, decentralized federal government for the last several years. It’s painfully obvious that Washington D.C. has forgotten who’s supposed to be in charge. Hint: it ain’t them. (It’s NOT their money!)
 
No matter their size and frequency, Tea Party rallies and protests seemed to be falling on deaf ears. (In fact they angered the tyrants in the Obama administration so much that the IRS went after non-profit conservative organizations advocating for smaller government.) New strategies were needed. Which is where a “Convention of States” comes in ~

The Convention of States (COS) Project was founded by Citizens for Self-Governance for the purpose of stopping the runaway power of the federal government. We believe Washington, D.C., is broken and will not fix itself. The federal government is spending this country into the ground, seizing power from the states and taking liberty from the people.

To give credit where it’s due, I’m pretty sure it was Mark Levin who originally proposed this approach with his “Liberty Amendments.” Barely two years later, his book has produced a growing movement.
 
Levin’s approach was to take advantage of a mechanism that the founders had the foresight to build into the Constitution itself; a means for the states to rein in out-of-control executive and legislative branches. Under Article V, if 2/3 of the states can agree on proposed changes they may convene, debate and vote upon them. (The specific issues must be established in advance.) The finalized amendments are then sent to the 50 states for ratification which requires 3/4 of the states.

 
In his book Levin proposes 11 amendments; all aimed at limiting the power of the federal government as originally intended. Perhaps to simplify the process, the Convention of States project has consolidated these into 3 principles ~
 
1. Restraining the federal government on a fiscal basis;
2. Restraining the scope and jurisdiction of the federal gov; and
3. Term limits – including on the judiciary
 

I’ve had fellow conservatives object to this concept, but primarily because they don’t understand the difference between a “Constitutional Convention,” and a “Convention of States.” Here’s a short video that compares the two methods ~

 
So a convention of states is clearly not a free-for-all let’s rewrite the Constitution approach (- the original version is excellent, if we’d actually get back to using it!). Instead it’s a sound, practicable way to wrest back our sovereign rights from the Washington oligarchy ~

We can allow Washington, D.C., to continue abusing the Constitution and the rights of the people with the vague hope that someday Washington will see the light and relinquish power. Or we call a convention of the states, trusting it will behave properly and one of the many lines of defense will stop any misuse of power.