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Fifty five krc the Talk Station eight oh five, the fifty five KRCD Talk Station. A very happy Friday Eve to you. I heard media aviation expert Jay right left the bottom of the air. I always look forward to talking to Jay, and I've been looking forward to this conversation for a some time. Mark Meckler, he's quite a guy, and you probably are familiar with him if you don't know his name. He is responsible for a bunch of things political pundit. He's an attorney, fellow attorney, business executive
president of Citizens for Self Government Governance. And what we're gonna be talking about a Convention of States actions, an active proponent of a convention to propose amendens the United States Constitution, a movement that's actually growing in size and strength. Welcome to the fifty five KRCEE Morning from Market. It's a real pleasure to have you on today.
Good morning, brand, It's an honor to be with you.
Now, let's just start with the basics. Article five, Convention of States. Explain to my listeners what this proposal will allow us to do what is the goal ideally of this action?
Yep, you know it's funny that we have to explain it, Brian, as a lawyer, I went to law school and realized many years later and have actually read the Constitution in.
Law school, So I know, I have read the Constitution since law school, but you don't really dive into it.
Yeah, so most people don't know about this. Article five in the Constitution contains the ways in which we are able to amend the Constitution.
It has two ways.
One is, when two thirds of Congress wants to propose an amendment, they can do so, and then they send that out to the states for ratification by three quarters of the states or thirty eight states. The second way the Framers gave to us is to call a convention of states, and it takes two thirds of states or
thirty four states to call a convention. And the reason they gave us this method, they said in convention that they knew that the federal government would become a tyranny at some point and that the states would have to
have a way to reign in the federal government. So that's why they gave us this second clause of Article five and basically What it does is allows the states, when two thirds of them want to to gather in convention, they have to state in advance the reasons they want to gather in convention, and the states all have to agree. Thirty four states have to agree on the reason, and they can go to convention propose amendments. And the primary reason is to restrain the federal government.
And so right now we have a movement going on.
Nineteen states have passed a resolution to impose term limits on federal officials. That's the electeds, but also the deep state that we're seeing so exposed right now, staffers and bureaucrats. Number two, to impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, like a balanced budget amendment, spending caps, tax caps, and number three, and I think most importantly personally, is to
restrain the scope and jurisdiction of the federal government. So, for example, when the President is talking about getting rid of the Department of Education, I think that's great, but we need to make that permanent administration. We'll put it back in place, so you can have an amendment, for example, that says there can be no involvement of the federal government in education, and that would do a way with a Department of Education permanently.
Well, it seems to me. One of the easiest mechanisms to achieve the goal of tearing back the excessive reach of government springs from a case I know, you know, which involves the commerce clause Wickered versus Philburn, which allows them to pretty much do anything they damn will please, literally anywhere, simply because anything we do impacts interstate commerce, even on a minuscule level.
Yeah, you know, it's funny you bring up that case. You know, so few people who are not lawyers know about it. We who are lawyers know it's actually insane. That case basically said there was a farmer in Ohio who's growing wheat for the consumption of his own family, and the federal government penalized him for growing too much wheat.
And he said, look, you have.
No authority over me because I didn't do anything other than grow weak from my own family.
I'm not engaged in interstate commerce.
And the federal government said, yeah, exactly, you didn't do anything, and so that's why we can regulate you. You and the court ruled that well, because he didn't sell his wheat in interstate commerce, and he didn't buy weed in interstate commerce.
He affected interstate commerce.
In other words, he did nothing so he could be regulated, and that gave the federal government the power literally to regulate just about anything.
I don't mean to move off topic, because that, to me is such a critical case in expanding the size of the scope of government. I mean, the EPA uses it a teaspoon of water on your land and they can regulate it. It's just it's insanity. Do you think ever in your or my lifetime that a can more conservative Supreme Court which we currently have. It may even be more conservative if Trump has his way and gets more justices appointed. Would ever overturn the lunacy of that case?
You know, we have no indication right now that that would happen. I think they will pair back that case. I want people to understand, because we're lawyers. I want to kind of just bring it to layman's terms, because my mind works more like a layman. What we're talking about is the Supreme Court removing a so al for the federal government to allow these agencies and these regulations. And in other words, because of the Commerce Clause, the federal government is allowed to have an EPA USDA, all
of these agencies, Department of Energy, Department of Education. Each of these agencies requires authority under the Constitution. None of them have it in writing under the Constitution. Right, this is an interpretation by the Supreme Court creating that authority. So the Court would have to say, ah, we were wrong on that commerce cause case, not just that one, but a.
Whole line of cases that follow it. Indeed, so I think they might pair back on it.
But if we want to make dramatic progress on that, we can do that in a Convention of States. We can reinterpret or go back to the original interpretation of the commerce clause, which actually just said that the federal government has the power to regulate, which meant to smooth out Back then, it didn't mean to prepare all these regulations interstate commerce, and commerce meant the shipment.
Of goods across state line.
So all we're trying to do is prevent trade wars between the state exactly.
I mean, it just seems so simple a solution, and I know everybody would face an uphill challenge getting a Supreme Court to overturn that long standing, ridiculous precedent. But I think some of the goals of Convention of the States that you're talking about could be achieved if they.
Would reverse that.
I mean, that's kind of that's kind of why I initially gravitated towards me bring even bringing that case up, Mark, because you know, we need to amend the Constitution if that one case was overturned and they took away the federal government's power to regulate stuff that we are not doing over across state lines.
So and yeah, look, you nailed it, Brian. I think that's really important. It would probably do a way, we don't know the exact number, but probably do away with forty to fifty percent of the federal government because they just wouldn't have the authority to operate anyone Yay.
Now, can we put that on a list of things in the Convention of States to do to redefine the commerce clause to actually mean cross state line commerce and not just any activity that might somehow impact commerce generally.
I can guarantee you that's something that I will be lobbying for if i'm that convention.
I love hearing it all right now people who are against the idea of a Convention of States, and I think you've already explained a way why this is not a major concern because so many states have to approve, like ratifying an amendment to the Constitution that acts as a stop you know, a speed bumper, a stopgut measure
to avoid some terrible consequences. But some people are worried about, you know, the so called runaway convention, and oh my god, if we convene a convention of states, all these left wing liberal nutcases are going to you know, enshrine DEEI as an amendment to the Constitution.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the first thing I've say is we have to know where our arguments come from.
And that argument was.
Created by the radical left in America in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, was led by Chief Justice Berger, who's the guy that gave us Row versus Wade. And he was being asked what he thought of his invention to overturn roversus weight, and so of course he said, oh, well, that's a terrible idea, and he made up this thing, which we'd never talked about before in American history, of the idea of a runaway convention, where a convention could
propose all kinds of horrible things. Important to remember a super majority of states have to agree in advance to what the convention's about.
Takes thirty four states degree.
In advance what the limitations on conventions are, and I talked about what the ones we're proposing are, so nothing bad can happen under that. And then the ultimate stop gap in the end is anything that comes out of convention is just a suggestion. Literally, the convention has no power. All they can do is discuss and suggest, and then it takes thirty eight states to ratify. And Brian, here's a thought experiment for you. I've given this to literally
millions of people. I give out my personal email address, which is Mmeckler at coosaction dot com, and say, if you're worried about this, and you're like me as conservative libertarian, give me the amendment that you're worried about, and then the thirty eight states that we're ratifying. And I can tell you that in doing this for eleven plus years, I've not received an email about.
It that speaks volumes mark. It really does, because you have it at this for a long time, and Convention the States has been discussed for a long time, and for what I understand, the concept is really kind of
it shares bipartisan support. Now, I mean, if you've got a majority of Democrats supporting it, which apparently there are, and sixty two percent of independence supporting it, and or seventy five percent of Republicans supporting it, why haven't more states just approved the concept, Ohio being one of them. They aren't marked in green on your map yet.
Yeah, you know, it's Ohio has been really interesting to me and a little bit frustrating. We have I would say, I'm very comfortable we have majority support in both houses, and it's really been slowed down a little bit on our side by leadership and a guy that I likes a lot, Matt Huffman, who I think has been good for the state, but he is a big advocate of the idea of a Convention of States, but he's just
been slow to allow it through the legislature. And Franklin Ohio, you know, Huffman is the guy who has the power in the legislature.
And so he's just been slow to go.
And I know him well, and I'm hoping this year that we have the support of leadership in both houses. I think we're going to and I think we're going to get it done in Ohio.
This here, well, it seems to be that, you know, in the last several days the Trump administration, I mean they sprinted as soon as he was was done getting sworn in. I mean, I just cannot just comprehend the flory of activity and the amount of effort and work
that Trump has been able to accomplish. But I'm given large credit to Elon Musk for exposing how much waste there is in government held that USA Department and some of the programs and stupid, stupid things we spent forty billion dollars on that has to run contrary to the values of almost every American. You know, the idea of you know, funding gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology alone, they've literally killed millions of people.
We paid for that.
What elected officials said that was a good idea? Oh, that's right, not one. So the revelation of the waste, the revelation of all of this just absolute waste of taxpayer dollars and the fact that we spend trillions of dollars more than they take in every year. I mean that crosses political lines. It's indefensible.
So it is and like you said, I mean across party lines, people are in support this because it's just common sense.
I mean, first of all, most.
People don't know about it, like being started with when they do and when you say, hey, what we would like to do is keep these people from being in DC for forty years.
What we'd like to do.
Is make them balance their budgets, balance their checkbooks like every human has to do and frankly, almost every state has to do.
And we want to take some power away from DC and give.
It back to the states. You can see why that's nonpartisan. For example, how California would get more power, New York would get more power, Illinois would get more power, states that are not conservatives, not just a conservative thing. It just takes power away from the centralizers in DC and frankly the tyrants in DC and gives it back to the people.
Well, it also seems with the Trump administration that your idea of a Convention of States is probably going to get even more widespread support because apparently Donald Trump's has warmed up to the idea.
Yeah, you know, it's been really interesting. I couldn't have predicted this, No way I could have known. But we put out a fourth quarter newsletter and there's a picture on the cover which kind of blew me away. If you look at the Trump administration right now, and you look at who is in the Trump administration that has expressed public support for Convention of States, you could start with jd. Vance supported us when he was running for senator.
You got Mike Huckabe, who's going to be our ambassador at Israel as one.
Of our early supporters.
Pete Hegseth is a very close friend and big supporter now a new sect Death. The incoming Secretary of Agriculture, Broock Rowlins, is a big supporter of ours. Caroline Levitt, who's the star of the hour, I would say as the new Press Secretary, was the support of ours when she was running for the House of Representatives from New Hampshire. So we've just got a whole bunch of people in the admin around Trump. And we know Trump is looking
at long term legacy play and that's important. I love that he doesn't have another term, So what's he going to do to make things permanent? And a lot of stuff that he's doing right now can be reversed by a subsequent administration unless we.
Ensconce him in constitutional amendments.
So we do know there have been discussions inside the inner circle in the White House about a Convention of States, and I'm looking forward to Trump's support.
Well, and apparently you have some measure because he actually reposted on his truth social media post Mark Levin's conversation about the Convention of States and Mark Levin is a huge fan of the concept.
Yeah, you know, I was pretty excited to see that. That's kind of out of the blue.
We had no idea that's coming, and so Trump posted this, and right in there Mark's talking about his support for Convention of States. So that's why we know what's going
on in the inner circles of the White House. We also if you look at my ex account right now just at Mark mecro, you'll see we've actually got billboards up in the Austin, Texas area near the gigafactory with Elon Musk on them with a chainsaw saying want to cut government permanently, Elon, And so we're hoping to get Elon on board as well.
The Vekram Miswami was already on board.
So I think we're getting very close to the point where we'll see the administration and support openly.
So how many more states we need? I see that on your map that you have highlighted in blue that they have active legislation on this issue, you know, Nevada and Montana and elsewhere. Of course Ohio isn't marked on that, but maybe that that'll change. But how many more states total do we need to sign on to the concept.
It's just fifteen to go.
We're well past the halfway mark, and I expect we're going to see a bunch more come on this year. We've got a bunch of states pending Iowa, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Ohio. While it's not on the map yet, it will get filed this year and we expect to be moving forward in Ohio. So we've got fifteen to go and we are making a big push right now.
Okay, what can my listeners do to learn more about the specifics of this and perhaps help push it through? For example, here in Ohio.
Go to Convention of States dot com, get signed up there, click on sign the petition that will allow them to send a notice to your legislators that you're in support, and then call your legislators. This is the most important thing. Get involved and let them know to support this. So you do that, call your senator, call your representatives, and then click on the take action tab on the website and get signed up as a volunteer and getting gates all.
Right, just add commerce clause to the list.
Mark okay, it's at the top of my list, and I'm.
Promise Mark Meckler convention the state's president. Check them out online, get signed up and send him an email if you have an issue about it. Mmeckler at coosaction dot com. Keep up the great work, Mark. It's been a pleasure having on the program to learn the specifics on this. I look forward hopefully to talk with you again as we get closer and closer to the concept.
Absolutely, thanks Frank, God bless.
My pleasure and God bless you. Eight twenty one right now, stick around Jay Ratliff's coming up. I always love talking to Jay, exhaling and relaxing for the balance of the hour. Stick around you right back fifty five KRC dot com.