The Right Wing Holy Grail, Constitutional Conventions!

MGB:_The other Holy Grail of the GOP Evangelical-Catholic Alliance is outrage over gay marriage. Currently attention is focused on allowing merchants to ignore the Civil Rights Act for religious reasons and there is already a case on the docket. Of course, if the part of the Act which prohibits discrimination in customers is overturned than the Pro-Life movement will have to quit talking about Plessy v. Ferguson on abortion, since Plessy would be restored if cake bakers got a break.

Protection of Marriage can now only be achieved by Constitutional Amendment (unless federal law removes due process and equal protection in the states from the Federal Docket or if Roe is overturned for the same reason). There is no chance that the GOP and get the votes in either house to overturn Marriage Equality, so their only hope is a constitutional convention. Not likely. A populist convention would more likely overturn Citizens United as Roe, Perry, Lawrence or Griswold, although term limits might have a shot, balanced budget, not so much.

The reason amendment efforts have not succeeded, or maybe they have, is because there are no congressional rules to say when they have been met. Must a call be all on the same issue? Must all petitions be submitted within the same Congress? How you answer these determines whether there may already be a valid call. As long as it is up in the air, Congress can dodge it. The GOP, if it wanted to, could pass a concurrent resolution answering all relevant questions as part of the rules of each house. Whether there will ever be 34 states in a call is another matter, since ALEC only has 30 members, but you have the votes to find out if you want to. Again, I double dare you.