Imagine my surprise then when, almost half a year later, and people are still writing and talking about it.
Article V Convention is the Wrong Way to Address our Constitutional Crisis. Tom Pauken, TexasGOPVotes.com
The latest politician to jump on the bandwagon and call for an Article V Constitutional Convention is the Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. He proposes to invoke a never previously used provision of the U.S. Constitution, Article V, in order to call a convention of the states and pass a series of constitutional amendments to restore states’ rights.This would require 34 states to agree to such a convention; and (even more difficult to imagine) convince those states to endorse the 9 specific amendments to the Constitution proposed by Abbott. Then three-fourths of the states would have to ratify those amendments.As a friend of mine has observed: You have a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing all that happen in our lifetime.
True. But, to go one step further, I'm certain that the root-cause of our current problems is not the Constitution itself. That old document seems to have held up fairly well over time.
Our problem is that we haven't listened to it.
The solution to this problem is not to amend the damn thing, or just scream loudly (as Pauken does here) that Congress has the so-called 'power of the purse' (they really don't if you understand vetoes and how they are overridden). The solution lied in the GOP offering up strong, constitutional candidates for voter consideration and not jumping into the hog trough that is the government patronage system whenever the voters decided it was their time to be in charge. The Republicans failed at that badly. In fact, they made more sophisticated the blunt instrument that was Democratic Machine Politics. That's saying something.
The question, in Texas, is this: How in the world did this collection of low-functioning idiots ever get into power? Because if you can't beat the following, what does that say about your party Democrats?
Greg Abbott: He was the Attorney General of Texas, demanded to be called, and signed his communications with, 'General'. During his time in office he filed a bunch of lawsuits against the Obama administration and issued press releases about them.
Dan Patrick: Oddly enough, he is possibly the most professional of the current group in charge in Austin. But he's no conservative in the classical sense and he has a worrying tendency to demagogue the hell out of an issue.
Glenn Hegar: A politician's politician. Largely irrelevant in State politics until he won the Republican Primary with Tea Party backing. Qualifications to be the highest financial officer in Texas? *crickets* Learned all he knows about the office from Susan Combs, who continually exhibited both a proclivity for misstating revenue projections, creating new taxes and spilling data everywhere.
Ken Paxton: The new attorney general who is probably guilty of securities fraud.
George P. Bush: The latest in a long-line of carpetbagging members of the Bush family (Based in Maine) who have decided to use Texas to burnish their conservative credentials in an attempt to rise up the political ladder. He's the epitome of a 'kissing hands and shaking babies' politician.
Sid Miller: He of the 'Jesus Shot', cupcake amnesty and huge bonuses to staffers. Either an idiot savant or the most calculating political operative in Texas. (Honestly, it's hard to tell which)
Of course, it's well known that the Democrats have given us Chris Bell (perennial candidate), Bill White (perennial bore) and Wendy(?!?) Davis (perennial laughingstock) as fodder in the governor's race, but they haven't offered up much in the other races either. Leticia Van de Putte? Meh. Sam Houston (gimmick), Barbara Ann Radnofsky? Pffft.
In fact, it's gotten so bad that the most high-profile elected official in Texas is currently Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, he of the Sheila Jackson Lee Regional Political Machine and professional tosser of word salad. Turner isn't so much about implementing policy as he is making fuzzy calls for "Something! to be done (although he never says specifically what) and appointing commissions (blue ribbon we are sure) to study the issue.
It's gotten so bad for Democrats that some of the dimmer members of the TLSPM have resorted to running around with their hair on fire and begging forgiveness from the same idiots that elected Bill de Blasio. The next thing you know they'll be crying to the folks who thought putting Rahm Emmanuel and Jerry Brown in office was a good thing. When y'all are done on the fainting couch, would you mind blow-drying away the tears?
There are a lot of reasons why Democrats are so bad in Texas. Most of it has to do with the fact that they've been in the political wilderness for so long they've forgotten what it means to actually run things. They have a bench that's thinner than the Steinbrenner-era Yankees farm system and currently have a platform that's out of sync with the needs of Texas voters. It's hard to win an election in a State where your policies would damage most of the voters financially. It's even harder when you double up on that by continually insulting them.
But the biggest problem right now in Texas is the Republicans. Facing a fairly serious funding threat in Texas Education, a deteriorating infrastructure and little money to pay for it, and an economy that's sputtering but not regressing the biggest items on our leader's agenda is going to be who takes a shit in which public restroom and sanctuary cities. And a Texas Plan in search of a problem that doesn't exist. The Constitution is not broken, amending it in a way that provides the State with more power is not the solution. The State's already have plenty of powers, the issue is getting Congress to understand that and act accordingly.
It also would have helped to nominate a strong Presidential contender to run against one of the worst nominees in recent history but that ship has sailed.
What's needed now is something resembling real leadership, a plan to simplify and broaden the Texas tax code while making it shallower would be nice (i.e. eliminating so-called 'exemptions' and lowering the overall rate) as would taking a wrench to education funding, road construction and even ERCOT, which is a rickety old thing in need of some work and attention.
Sadly, none of those issues are anywhere on the radar. Nor will it be in the near future.
It takes true leadership to do these things, and Texas currently has none.
