(Trifecta crosstalking) (moves into pensive orchestral music)

– Texas Governor Greg Abbott may be paralyzed from the waist down, but when it comes to fighting Federal overreach, no one stands taller. When he was Texas Attorney General Abbott sued the Obama Administration 31 times, a record. Now, he calls for an Article Five Convention of the States and proposes nine amendments to the US Constitution meant to restrain all three branches of the Federal Government. I'm PJTV's Scott Ott joined now by Bill Whittle and Steven Green, and then back in April 2014 we did a trifecta about the Constitution's Article Five Amendment Provision, a bald-headed stepchild that has never been employed. If 34 States call for it, Congress must authorize a Convention of the States. Any proposed amendments that emerge need ratification by 38 States to become part of the Constitution. We pointed out both the growing support for the notion and the obstacles to its accomplishment, and at the time I had just read Mark Levin's book, The Liberty Amendments. Well, nearly two years later, advocates still haven't booked a hotel for a Convention of the States. But, a heavyweight just stepped into the ring.

(audio recording overture) – The cure to these problems will not come from Washington, DC. They must come from the States. (audience clapping)

To begin that process, I am adding another item to the agenda for the next legislative session. I want legislation authorizing Texas to join other States in calling for a Convention of States to fix the cracks in our broken Constitution. (audience clapping)

(audio recording finale)

– Now Abbott notes that our Constitution is not broken but quote what is broken, is our Nation's willingness to obey the Constitution and to hold our leaders accountable to it, end quote. Now even if Governor Abbot convinces the part-time Texas Legislature to back his plan, many obstacles remain, not the least of which is getting about 30 more states to call for an Article Five Convention. While 27 states already support a convention to consider a Federal balanced budget amendment, only four have backed an open convention to consider any and all possible amendments. Meanwhile, Governor Abbott's proposal includes nine amendments that thinkprogress.org calls quote a plan to repeal the 20th century. But Abbot calls putting teeth into the 10th Amendment. Putting teeth into the 10th Amendment, he says. Among the highlights of Abbott's proposal he would amend the Constitution to forbid the Federal Government from regulating commerce within a single state. He'd prevent federal agencies from creating federal law or preempting state law. He'd let two-thirds of states override bad federal laws, regulations and Supreme Court decisions. He'd require a super-majority on the High Court to overturn a democratically enacted law. He'd give states the power to sue the Federal Government when it assumes unconstitutional authority and he'd require Congress to balance the budget. Finally, Abbot would limit the Federal Government to the powers enumerated in the Constitution. Now of course we already have something like that last one, it's called The Constitution. So Steven Green, does that sound like a good start and is there anything you'd like to add or subtract from Abbott's list of proposed amendments?

– I'm not going to answer your question, instead I'm going to answer the question that I wish you'd asked me. Ah wow, number one I love what Abbott is trying to do here, I don't know if it can be done or not. I do know that this is the time to strike because

small government candidates have been bubbling up from the state level since, state and local level since 2009. And we have real small government conservatives in power in so many states right now that if this is going to happen in our lifetimes, now is the time to do this. But what I want everybody to do right now, we can debate the merits of this amendment or that amendment and hopefully this will go far along enough in the process that we can do that. But what I'd like to do today is think back to 1787 when the framers were framing our Constitution as it existed then. What an exciting time, what an exciting debate. You had serious men, serious thinkers debating serious issues. The nature of democracy, how to take republican government which before was thought could only work in a homogeneous city-state, and how to make that work for three or four million people across the Atlantic seaboard. And now we have a chance, now we have a chance to further enrich and have this debate again. How do you make republican government work? How do you make representative democracy work for a nation of 320 million people, not just hugging the Atlantic seaboard but filling up most of a continent from coast to coast? What is the nature of government in the 21st century? All of these things, we haven't had a chance to debate these issues in a serious way. And this thing, this debate, this excitement, this challenge, this intellectual bigness, it could happen in my adult lifetime. And I gotta tell ya Scott, I don't think I've been excited about anything like this in politics ever. This has a chance to be real magic. – I'd be watchin' that on Pay-per-view, my brother! Bill Whittle, are guys like Governor Greg Abbott wasting their time and ours? Because the Article Five provision has never been used and it never will be. Shouldn't he focus his energy on sending more conservatives to Washington to obey the Constitution we already have? And to appoint strict constructionist judges rather than floating pie-in-the-sky amendment ideas? – May be a great idea for a president in the swamp of DC for those kind of actions to take place, but he's absolutely right, the reason everything's broken is cuz of the destruction of the power of the states. So, I don't think we need nine amendments, or seven amendments, I think we need three amendments. We're up to 27, right Scotty? We have 27 now? – 26 or 27. – 27 yeah I thought so. So here's all you need, really pretty simple. The 28th Amendment shall read that the 16th Amendment is hereby repealed. The 29th Amendment shall read the 17th Amendment is hereby repealed. The 30th Amendment would read we're not kidding, period! And it would say basically, the 30th Amendment would say that in order to, in order to hold elective office in the United States you must pass a comprehensive test saying you understand how the Constitution works. Because frankly, this idea of the progressivists saying well, they're just trying to bypass the 20 century, just cut it out. It's like yeah, that's exactly what we're tryin' to do. It's a catastrophe. It was a catastrophe, the progressive amendments destroyed this country. It took a century for it to happen. The 16th Amendment gave us the federal income tax, which allowed the state now to grow to the size where it spends about 4,000 billion dollars a year on stuff that it's not authorized to spend. And the 17th Amendment of course destroyed the Federal Government, I'm sorry, destroyed the balance of the Constitution by eliminating the direct election, eliminating the state election of Senators and replacing it with election of Senators by the people. So, there is no State's House anymore, there's just two houses pf people, there's the House of Lords and the House of Commons. So really, just two amendments plus the third one which means we're not jokin'. Because there's nothin' wrong with the Constitution, Scott. The Commerce Clause doesn't need to be re-phrased, it just needs to be read and understood. And really, if I had a 30th amendment I think it would deal with limiting the power of the Supreme Court, back to what it was originally supposed to be. The Supreme Court was never supposed to be a co-equal branch of the government that ruled on things like this, it was simply the top court in the land. The idea that the Supreme Court would be able to make a decision contrary to a law that Congress had passed through the will of the people, would have caused the founders to run out into the streets with their hair on fire. It's the Supreme Court that gave us this Commerce Clause that means Congress can do anything. So, if Commerce Clause says well we can build this bridge, or we can pay all this money because of the Commerce Clause, then what's the rest of the Constitution for? You're absolutely right, this business about going back and re-enumerating the powers, is ridiculous. No, the 30th Amendment should say hey, this is the law, we're not kiddin'. Violators go to jail. Those three'll do it.

– Well, I spoke with Sam Taylor, the Governor's Deputy Press Secretary, who said that a similar bill passed the Texas House in 2015, but died in the Texas Senate. The next session of the Texas legislature starts in, believe it or not, January 2017. You see in Texas they meet only once every two years. Taylor doesn't know yet whether the Governor will have the votes to pass it next year. You know, when I created PJTV series, Freedom's Charter, I read the Federalist Papers and the anti-Federalist Papers, and a couple a dozen fat books about the ratification of the Constitution. And my conclusions was that the anti-federalists lost the ratification battle because they allowed the so-called federalists to define the issue as ratification or death. And they failed to come together around an alternative plan of their own. They all had complaints and a basket full of ideas, but no coherent game plan. Governor Abbott is wise to start the conversation with a reasonable plan designed not to change, but to restore the Constitution. His next objective should be to use his influence to rally other governors to the cause. A groundswell of public support would help that effort. And you know, even if it all comes to nothing, a substantial Convention of the States movement would serve as a brushback pitch to our federal overlords who keep hogging the plate. The upshot, as Governor Abbott says, is this and I quote Congress is unable to control itself, so the people must impose control. For Bill Whittle, Steven Green and the entire Trifecta crew at PJTV, I'm Scott Ott. (upbeat orchestral music finale)