Meeting at Wort concerns 17th amendment, limited federal powers
Posted: Thursday, January 9, 2014 12:15 am
If a group of activists meeting in Jackson have their way, you won’t have to worry about who to elect to the U.S. Senate.Bondurant lawyer Steve Duerr hopes to draw interested people to a meeting Friday at the Wort to discuss what his promotional material calls “Liberty Amendments.” The constitutional changes include repeal of the 17th Amendment, term limits for Supreme Court justices, diminishment of the federal government power and greater power for the states.
Repeal of the 17th Amendment would return Congress to the way the framers of the Constitution intended it, Duerr said.
“Until 1913, the U.S.
Senate was comprised of two senators from each state chosen by the state
legislatures — they were not popularly elected,” he said. “This would
return to that original structure.”
Though of a conservative bent, the meeting will deal with nonpartisan ideas, Duerr said.
“At the time the federal
constitution was ratified there were no Republicans or Democrats — there
were federalists and antifederalists,” he said. “The concept of a
limited federal government is 220 years old.”
Duerr blamed both parties for letting the size and cost of the federal government grow out of control.
“I think [the meeting]
has nonpartisan appeal, because the problem of federal deficits and
growth of the federal government ... has happened under both Republican
and Democratic administrations,” Duerr said. “No one in the federal
government seems capable of stopping the deficits, and it’s just not
sustainable.”
Costs associated with the federal government, regardless of which party controls it, could burden future generations, he said.
“I’m not affiliated with any group — I’m doing this because I’m a grandpa,” he said.
“We are stealing the
futures of our children and grandchildren” with an out-of-control
federal budget, he said. “Under the last two presidents the deficits
have skyrocketed.”
Duerr suggested a book by
conservative author Mark Levin called “The Liberty Amendments” as a
good resource for understanding the reasoning behind the movement.
Its proponents hope to
circumvent Congress by convening representatives of two-thirds of
America’s state legislatures to propose amendments, Duerr said. Article V
of the Constitution provides that if three-quarters of state
legislatures ratify amendments they can directly change the Constitution
without congressional approval.
Such a move “is where the
states have the role in limiting the federal government that was
intended by the founders when the Constitution was ratified,” he said.
Wyoming House Speaker Tom
Lubnau introduced a bill last week that would define the limits of
responsibility for the state’s delegate to such a state convention.
“What it does is
anticipates there will be Wyoming state delegates to a state convention,
and it limits the delegates’ powers,” Duerr said.
Such a convention and the
resulting amendments are appropriate remedies for federal leaders who
behave in ways the founders didn’t intend, Duerr said.
“The Founding Fathers
anticipated an imperial presidency, and a Congress which, because it has
no term limits, it [caters] to lobbyists more than to the people of the
states,” he said.
The meeting will be held Friday at 9 a.m. in the Clymer Room of the Wort Hotel, Duerr said.
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