Virginia’s James M. LeMunyon calls for a Constitutional Convention

by Bernie Quigley

For The Hill on 3/1/10

As Karl Rove, Dick Armey and others try to steal the fire of the Tea Parties, a singularly good idea, and a thoroughly origin one, that might find a place with this theater seeking a theme is suggested today in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal: A Constitutional Convention. Because the 14-state Tenth Amendment challenge to Obama health care is likely to fail and anyway, this is not about health care. It is about who will manage, nurture and determine the fate of that volatile and enlightened collective soul which is Texas, Rick Perry or Barney Frank? And why again is that?

“The U.S. Congress is in a state of serious disrepair and cannot fix itself,” writes Fairfax, VA, House of Delegates representative, James M. LeMunyon. “It has reached this point over the course of many years – in fact over decades. Regardless of the party in power, Congress has demonstrated a growing inability to effectively address the major issues of our time, including soaring federal debt and the extension of federal authority to states and localities.”

Interest in calling a first-ever Article V convention is growing at the state level, writes LeMunyon, who has introduced a resolution (H.J. 183) in Virginia, calling for a Constitutional Convention to restrain the national government. A petition for such a convention passed the Florida Senate last month. If approved by the House, he says, Florida would be the 20th state with an active call to do so.

The call for a Constitutional Convention might have been inevitable after the bewildering recent decisions of that motley sanga of vying ethnics which is the Supreme Court – a few of whom actually appear troubled - on private property and Presidential powers and their casual dismissal of Habeas Corpus, a talisman of the English-speaking people since 1215 when it was incorporated in the Magna Carta.