An Update On Convention Of States – With Mark Meckler: Should the federal government be micro-managing our lives or be limited to the 17 enumerated powers listed in the Constitution? What is the remedy to save federalism and our Constitutional Republic? Would our Founders support acting on Article V? Have you been swayed by misinformation? Tune in to hear Mark Meckler explain why it is time for a Convention of States and what you can do!

Air Date: 03/09/2022

Guest: Mark Meckler

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. Thanks so much for joining us today. You can learn more at our website wallbuilderslive.com.

Now you might be a first time listener and you might hear WallBuilders and say what in the world are these people all about? What are they building? Which wall or is this southern border wall? No, this is WallBuilders out of the Bible. It’s out of the Scripture in Nehemiah that says arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach.

Folks, when you go back to what Nehemiah was doing, when you look at the ruins of the wall, and you realize the city had been run over and could not be strong and could not be rebuilt without the walls, you realize it’s kind of a similar situation to what we’re facing in America today. Not the walls that have been destroyed, but the foundations have been destroyed. 

You know, that’s another scripture, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Well, folks, we’re looking at foundations in America not being destroyed yet, but there certainly cracks in the foundation. We’ve seen that revealed in the crisis of the last couple of years.

We’ve seen a desire on leaders to basically become tyrants to not be a constitutional republic, but instead individual states being ruled by tyrants, telling you when you could leave your house, when you could go to work, all of those things. And then we’ve also seen the American people ask for that tyranny, give up their liberty so easily, pastors willing to close down their churches for months and months and months. Folks, that is not the America that we were given. That is not a biblical, constitutional republic. That is not a place where freedom thrives.

And so those foundations, we’ve seen the cracks. We’ve kind of peeled back the curtain. We’ve kind of revealed the rot in the culture. And the good news is that despite all that rot, despite those cracks in the foundation, we know how to rebuild. We know exactly what needs to happen in order to restore those foundations in order to rebuild the wall.

Nehemiah

So, WallBuilders comes from that scripture in Nehemiah to remind us that we can in fact do that, that the principles of liberty haven’t changed, that God’s word hasn’t changed. The laws of nature and nature’s God haven’t changed. And so when we put the principles of liberty into a neighborhood, a state or a nation, we also get then the positive results of following God’s word and following those principles of liberty. 

When we ignore the principles of liberty, when we don’t teach civics, when we don’t teach biblical and civic literacy, when we become ignorant about what the Bible says regarding these things, and ignorant about what the principles of liberty are, and the principles of tyranny are and knowing which a politician is referring to when they promise certain programs, but when we don’t know those things, we get the negative result. We end up having to live with the negative consequences of the principles of tyranny.

But the good news is when we actually know truth, and we share that truth, and we teach others that truth, and then we apply those truths and those biblical principles to our culture, the good news is we get the positive results. As our friend Congressman Bob McEwen often says, the problem with the principles of liberty is they only work every time they’re tried. So if we try them, if we work them, if we put them back into the culture, we can get those incredibly good results. And that’s what we’re about here at WallBuilders.

Wow, that was a long intro and a long opening to just describe what the word WallBuilders means. But we get a lot of new listeners that aren’t familiar with WallBuilders, so every once in a while I like to go back to that. My name, by the way, is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach, the founder of Patriot Academy. And I’m just thrilled to be able to be here working with David Barton. He’s America’s premier historian. He’s our founder at WallBuilders, Tim Barton’s, a national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

Invite a Speaker!

If you haven’t had those guys in to speak, you need to invite them. Go to wallbuilders.com, look at our speakers page there and you can have us into your community to teach and train and share on these principles of liberty. You can also join us online we have a weekly biblical citizenship class that we do on Monday nights where we play the videos of the teaching from Kirk Cameron and David Barton and Tim Barton and Mark Meckler and myself and all these others, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Barry Loudermilk, lots of other folks teaching in that course, Pastor Jack Hibbs, Pastor Rob McCoy. 

You can learn on Monday nights with us live or you can go to biblicalcitizens.com and sign up to be a coach yourself and actually host the class in your living room or at your church. That’s free, by the way, we give the class away and we train our coaches for free. So check that out at biblicalcitizens.com.

So I’m going to give you three websites real quick. Wallbuilderslive.com, that’s our radio site. That’s where you can get a list of the stations that we’re on. You can get archives of previous programs you may have missed. And that’s where you can make your donation. So be sure and consider that today, that’s a lives, fortunes and sacred honor thing. We’ve got to be willing to invest in freedom. You can do that today at Wallbuilderslive.com.

The second website I want to give you is wallbuilders.com. So I’ve been explaining what WallBuilders is. If you go to wallbuilders.com, you can get access to all the different materials and programs. You can book David or Tim to speak. All the things available to you right there at wallbuilders.com.

And then the third website, biblicalcitizens.com, and that’s just the specific site where you can sign up for that Biblical Citizenship in Modern America course and become a coach and host it there in your home or at your church. Okay.

When we come back from the break, we’re going to have Mark Meckler with us. Now mark is the founder of conventionofstates.com. He didn’t invent Convention of States that was invented by our Founding Fathers, which he will talk about today. But he has organized, he’s, I think, the greatest grassroots organizer of our generation. And he did an incredible job with the Tea Party for years. And now he is doing conventionofstates.com, and it is the mechanism, the tool to save our Constitution.

Constitution Classes

I’ve said this for more than a decade in our constitution classes across the country, we must do a Convention of States just as Article V lays out in the Constitution in order to overrule the federal government. Now, if you think the federal government’s not outside its lane, if you think it’s perfectly within its box, and it’s doing only the things that it should do, you’re going to be against a Convention of States. But if you have reasoning skills, and you’re logical at all, then you can see that the federal government has grown way beyond what the Constitution gives it authority to do.

We don’t need the federal government telling us how to run our daily lives. We don’t need the federal government micromanaging everything about our lives and our government and our neighborhoods. We needed to only do what only the federal government can do. And those 17 enumerated powers are listed in the Constitution, that’s all it should do. And now that it’s doing thousands of other things and bankrupting our nation completely, it’s time to have a Convention of States to overrule the federal government and only the states can do that. And it should be the states that do that. And Mark Meckler is going to explain it to us when we come back from the break. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. So, excited to have Mark Meckler with us, I think the most effective grassroots organizer and influencer. My son hates the word influencer because you picture this teeny bopper on Twitter out there somewhere, but influencer of state legislatures around the country. He heads up the Convention of States. And man, I’m just thrilled with the success of Convention of States last few weeks, and we had to get him on for an update. So, Mark Meckler with us today. Mark, thanks for coming on, bro.

Mark:

Hey, great to be with you, Rick.

Nebraska…Never Before

Rick:

Man, you have been crisscrossing the country running like crazy, but it is paying off. What, three states in like three weeks, catch us up on what’s going on with Convention of States?

Mark:

Yeah, it’s been a good year, my friend. So a few weeks ago, we passed in Wisconsin. We had passed the House in Wisconsin previously what they call their assembly, and so now we pass their Senate and so that made it state number 16, which is pretty exciting. 17 is a halfway mark to 34. So that’s the one we’ve really been hustling for.

And then we pulled Nebraska and honestly, Nebraska really came out of the hat. Nebraska, for those of you who aren’t familiar is a unicameral legislature, only one House. They have a Senate there. It’s been really tough sledding for us in Nebraska. They’ve got a bunch of procedural hurdles that make it really difficult and really easy for anybody who wants to stop something to stop it.

But we had a champion there. We had Senator Halloran and he literally put all of his political capital on line, he took some bullets for us and we came out of the Nebraska Senate. It was an incredible victory.

And then this week, something I’ve never seen before, absolutely incredible, the West Virginia House we I had been there last week, I had testified in front of the House committee, had a great, great hearing, came out of the committee. And Tuesday, it goes to the House floor. And I’ve never seen anything like this absolutely incredible comes off House floor huge vote 77-19, 4 abstentions, so 77 votes, it was bipartisan.

The Senate president was standing on the House floor literally waiting for that to finish. He took the physical resolution once it had been marked passed, he walked over to the Senate, he interrupted the proceedings, he immediately waved committee, put it on the floor, and they passed it out of the Senate on a Senate vote on a voice vote, like so overwhelming they didn’t even have to count votes within an hour of passing it out of the House. So absolute, I’ve never seen it come from a House to a Senate boom, we’re done, and that makes it state number 18.

An Emergency Situation

Rick:

Wow! Wow! Mark, that whole process, I think that’s symbolic of where we are. I think people realize this is an emergency situation for the country; we have to do this to save the Constitution and save federalism, to save the system itself. And it sounds to me like the senate president from West Virginia understood that. He’s like, no time to waste, we’re getting this done.

Mark:

It really is like that. And I actually am seeing that kind of attitude across the country out of legislators, even legislators in the past that haven’t been so sure about Convention of States, they’re now calling me up and saying, alright, I’m in what do we got to do because I don’t know what else to do. You look at what’s going on in Washington, DC, and if you don’t think now is the time for Convention of States, and I’ve no idea when you will think it is time for a Convention of States.

I mean, Article V is in the Constitution, it was put in there by the Founders, because they knew the time would come when the federal government would ignore the people, we’d have to do something about it. This is the remedy and I am seeing a lot of momentum around this remedy.

Rick:

Our audience is pretty familiar with this because the Bartons and I talk about it all the time. We have you on once in a while to talk about it. But we also pick up a lot of new listeners. So just to clarify what you just said, this isn’t some idea that you cooked up or Mark Levin cooked up, or David Barton cooked up. This was the Founding Fathers themselves. They put this in the Constitution.

And if you would tell the story real quick of the unanimous vote, so this wasn’t like a hotly debated I don’t know if we ought to let the states do amendments or not. I mean, this was unanimous, they knew they would have to have a mechanism outside of Washington to correct Washington overplaying its hand.

Tyranny

Mark:

Yeah. You and I, we love these constitutional stories, and we spent time in Madison’s notes. So we kind of have a feel for the convention. And this is such an incredible moment in convention. This takes place two days before the end of convention, September 15th, 1787. So you think about it, the Constitution is done, it’s literally done. They’ve debated everything, they’ve got to complete, and Colonel George Mason stands up. He’s from Virginia. He was one of the most talkative guys there convention, one of the most influential guys.

He stands up and he says, we’ve got a real problem. Looking at this draft, I realized that we have given the power to Congress to propose amendments if they deem it necessary, but we haven’t given the same power to the people acting through the states. And then he ask the question, are we so naive that we believe that a federal government that becomes a tyranny will ever pass the proper kinds of amendments to restrain their own tyranny?

Now, I wish we had video because I’m sure they laugh because that’s ridiculous. No tyrant in human history is ever restrained himself or herself. That’s not what tyrants do. That’s not what tyrannical governments do.

Now, we don’t have the video, but we kind of know they did laugh. Because what happens is Madison’s notes, they’re very simple here, a Latin abbreviation, they say [Latin 13:28], which is short for no comment or no debate. In other words, literally, nobody objected. This is just a convention where they argued about everything. They argued about the process for arguing. And here they don’t even argue about this. There’s no discussion.

And you have Eldridge Jerry says, hey, here’s what I propose. Here’s the language I propose for the second Clause of Article 5, believe Gouverneur Morris has something to do with that as well. And they vote on it. And it’s unanimous. So no debate.

No Debate

It’s unanimously inserted. It’s actually the only thing I’m aware of in the Constitution where there was no debate. It was unanimously inserted. They said to us, hey, you all in the future, federal government gets out of hand, you hold a convention, and you hold them accountable and you restructure them in a way that works for the people.

Rick:

These are the founders. These are the people that fought a war to get independence. These are the people that worked through this for years realized the Articles of Confederation weren’t working, figured out they were students of history, students of the Bible, they figured out what would work, created that in our Constitution did not object to this later on. I mean, this was the system they put into the Constitution, unanimous vote. Why are we divided on this in so many states today?

Mark:

Look, I think, a bunch of it is misinformation and this is important. So first of all, you’ve got virtually every single leftist group in the United States of America poses as they signed a press release, but by common cause and center on budget and policy priorities, signatories include Planned Parenthood in LaRosa and every public employee union in America. Hillary Clinton has spoken out against this personally.

So what happened was way back in the 70s, after Roe vs. Wade, state started passing Article V applications, and their goal was to overturn Roe vs. Wade. It’s the proper process if we don’t like what the Supreme Court does. And unfortunately, we had a woman who was a brilliant woman, in my opinion, a really great fighter for life, Phyllis Schlafly, she’s the founder of Eagle Forum. And she asked her friend, Chief Justice Warren Burger, what he thought of this.

Now, if that name is familiar to you, it should be Warren Burger, he was retired at the time, she asked him, he’s the Chief Justice who signed Roe vs. Wade. In other words, this is the most important career decision that he was ever involved in. And she asked him, is it a good idea to have a convention?

Judge Burger’s Comment

Well, what do you think he’s going to say? He says, of course not. We might lose our beloved Constitution in a runaway convention.

And unfortunately, some people on the right along with Phyllis took this as the gospel truth, they didn’t see it for what it was. It was an opportunity for Burger to try to prevent a movement to overturn Roe versus Wade. And so that gets sort of ensconced in a small fraction of those on the right. And that’s where this comes from.

Today, there are still people on the right, the John Birch Society who in my opinion, frankly, at this point, they have no credibility, mostly a bunch of lunatics. I see him in state legislatures all over the country. This is their war, their jihad. Their holy war is to stop us from calling it Convention of States. They don’t seem to care for the country going to hell in a handbasket. They don’t seem to care about the fact that you have Marxist running Washington, DC. But you can’t use the remedy the Founders gave you. So that’s kind of the fight that’s going on out there, Rick.

And then there’s one more piece I want to mention because you’ll hear this, and it sounds really smart. And you’ll have these folks from John Birch cider legal form, and they’ll get a quote Madison, and they’re going to quote him from the Federalist Papers. And they’re going to quote Madison saying at some point that he was uncomfortable with the idea of holding another convention.

 And historically, it’s important to put things in context. He’s talking a couple years after the Constitutional Convention, things are very unstable. And he says, I fear that the whole thing basically could come apart at the seams if we were to try to do this again right now. We barely made it through as it was. And so they try to throw that forward here to 2022. And oh, Madison was against conventions. Not true. He wrote a lot. He was in favor of holding Article V conventions if we needed to.

Article V

Rick:

And that would have been to get the Bill of Rights in at the time was kind of the debate. And he’s basically saying now let’s do it through the Congress as the first step instead of having another convention or was that a different debate?

Mark:

No, that was that debate. And what he did not want to do was reopen the entire document. He said, look, you know, we barely made it, and to reopen everything, I’m not sure we could do that all over again. And so that was his argument. And they use that to say that Madison didn’t like Article V. Well, if Madison didn’t like Article V, seems like maybe at convention he might have argued against the use of Article V.

Rick:

That’s right. That’s right. Oh, man. Okay. So And fortunately, though, even with these hotly contested debates, state by state with some of these groups that are, I think, completely illogical because like you’re saying they’re ignoring the fact that there’s an ongoing constitutional convention in Washington DC called the Supreme Court and Congress, and they’re just making it up as they go and modifying the Constitution without our permission and creating a federal government Leviathan that’s way outside its constitutional boundaries, they ignore that all of that is happening, or they think that that can be solved just by electing a new president or electing a new Congress, which you and I have even made videos on this. People can go watch it, conventionofstates.com or at patriotacademy.com.

But even with their opposition, 18 states maybe, I mean, this is huge. And this is, I guess we can’t under estimate or I guess underplay how big this moment is. I mean, we’re past 50% of the States needed to call for the convention. You’ve got states right now that are passing it out of committee going to the floor, I mean, just kind of rattle off some of those.

States In Process

Even Massachusetts pass it out of committee, which Democrats and Republicans both figured out we’ve got to do this in order for states to have their own personality and not have the federal government controlling everything. You’ve got victory is happening at the committee level as well and one chamber or the other passing in other states besides these 18, right?

Mark:

Yeah, it’s happening all over the country right now. So while we didn’t pass South Dakota completely, we did pass the South Dakota House this year. They pulled some shenanigans on us in the Senate. We’ll get that done next year. Iowa has passed out of committee. We look really good. I just had a vote count. I think we have the votes in the Senate.

We’re working on the House. Pennsylvania looks really good this year, so you know, sort of a swing state. Ohio looks really good this year; another swing state. Michigan, we’re on the move in Michigan. I’ve just been talking to some people there. So there’s a lot of stuff going on right now there.

My goal right now we’re at 18, I think will pass the 20 mark. People are going to start freaking out. People on the left are going to freak out because they know where going to take the Constitution back for the American people.

Rick:

I love it a technical question for you Mark, because some of our listeners may be wondering timeline and requirement for those 18 that have already passed? Is there a limit on how long we have to get to 34?

Sunset Clauses

Mark:

There isn’t. So the Constitution doesn’t specify a timeline. Once in a while, a state will put in what they call a Sunset Clause. So for example, we had a Sunset Clause in Missouri, the Missouri legislature last year removed the Sunset Clause. We had a Sunset Clause in Oklahoma. And in the last session, they passed, I think, they called it the Tom Coburn Memorial Resolution.

Tom Coburn, my great friend and mentor, Senior Advisor to Convention of States for the last five years of his life, passed away last year. And so in memoriam of him, they passed something removing the Sunset Clause. Texas has a Sunset Clause and I expect that we’ll get removed during our next legislative session. So there’s a few states who can do that. But most of the states, it’s just they stay there until we get to 34 states.

Rick:

Okay. Last thing, and perhaps most important, folks at home that are listening to this and saying I want to be a part of that, I want to participate in what’s going on, how do they join Convention of States, how do they become a part of the movement in their particular state? What can they do to help?

Mark:

Yeah. So they go to conventionofstates.com, sign the petition that lets your legislator know that you’re in favor of this. And by the way, even if you’re in a state that’s already passed, it’s important for the legislators to hear from you. Legislator, sure, continue to turn over, you’ll get new people in the legislature, they need to hear about it.

And also, we need to make sure that nobody tries to rescind these things. So even if you’re in a state that’s already passed, that’s important. Then click on the ‘Take Action’ tab. And that’s the tab where you can volunteer. Because it’s not enough to just sign a petition, you’ve got to be in the fight.

Get Involved

And this is one of the things, Rick, I know you and I talk about all the time. I like to say activists are active. It’s not enough just to sign petitions, yell at your TV, agree with conservatives. You have to be in the fight. That’s why Patriot Academy and Rick train you up.

That’s why we do so much training. And that’s why we expect to be engaged. So click on that ‘Take Action’ tab and get involved.

And again, for the past states, and there are a lot of them, they’re still involved in their legislatures. They’re wearing their Convention of States buttons, the buttons actually say it’s more than a convention because they’re in the fight for life, they’re in the fight for Second Amendment rights, they’re in the fight for election reform and ballot integrity and property tax reform. Convention of States actors, once they get organized and work on passing a resolution, there’s so much more they can do. And I’m so proud of them for all the different things they’re engaged in.

Rick:

It’s exciting. It’s a great way to get involved. And it’s like a family. I mean, you get to know people from across your state and across the nation that love liberty and want to be a part of it. So, sign up today, conventionofstates.com. And then you can also join Mark and me on Monday nights, we do a national biblical citizenship class. And even if you haven’t been in any of the first seven weeks, if you want to join us for the last week, this coming Monday, we’re going to have week eight, it’s going to be incredible. You’ll get to ask Mark questions through the chat the part of the evening. And then we’ll be starting another class right after that on the 14th. I think it is.

And Mark, we got Kirk Cameron’s going to join us for that one since he does the teaching on the monument that first week. And then we’ll be with actually with Kirk in person May 5th out in Massachusetts, actually the evening of the 4th and the morning of the 5th. If folks want to visit the monument to the forefathers, which Mark’s been to, I’m jealous, I have not been yet but you’ll get to show me around this May 5th.

An Exciting Event

Mark:

Man I’m so excited. And I got to tell folks, one of the things that hopefully you hear is how much Rick and I enjoy working with each other. And there’s a synergy taking place between these two organizations, between Patriot Academy and Convention of States. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. We feel like brothers. Our organizations are familial, they’re engaged with each other.

This is what it’s going to take to take back the nation. I’m not holding us up above anybody else. I’m just saying people should cooperate. And Rick and I and our organizations and our families are sort of coming together and really working as one on so many different projects. And I can’t believe you just put that out there about May 5th, nobody really even knows, it’s like, you must really like these people.

Rick:

Yeah, this kind of a secret announcement right now…

Mark:

Dude, Mark kind of caught me off guard.

Rick:

Hey, Mark, can we announce the May 5th?

Mark:

No.

Rick:

Alright, folks, you get the announcement before you’re supposed to get the announcement, May 5th, but now you got to hold out and watch for the email. So if you’re not on the email list, go to conventionofstates.com today, and get signed up so that you’ll get official notice. Yeah. So we’re kind of teasing May 4th and fifth. It’s going to be great, folks, believe me, we’re actually…

May 4 & 5

Mark:

Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just saying there’s a rule in our family…

Rick:

Once again…

Mark:

And once again, you just violated that rule, which is Patty and Kara say Rick and Mark are not allowed to get together and plan anything without the wives around because the wives are smart enough to know when to say no. And Rick, we seem to have lost that capability somewhere along the way. Maybe because we’re typical guys, I don’t know, but we’re out of control. Anyway, so this is out of control. May 4th and 5th at the monument to the forefathers, which is in Plymouth, Massachusetts; if you haven’t seen it, it’s amazing.

Kirk Cameron’s going to be joining us there, really excited. He knows so much about that monument, of course, made the movie Monumental, really an inspiration to me. There’s going to be others joining us there. This is going to be an extraordinary event.

We’re going to do Kirk’s campfire revival the night before on the 4th, campfires all around the monument. We’re going to tour the graveyard of the pilgrims going to go to William Bradford’s grave. Man, I’m so excited. I wish it were tomorrow.

Rick:

Man, me too. It’s going to be great. There is something happening in the country. And if you want to be a part of it, go to conventionofstates.com and get signed up. It’s so much more than just the convention. Now granted, I think that’s the biggest thing, the most important thing we can do to save the Constitution, but it’s much, much, much more than that. Check it out today at conventionofstates.com.

An Update On Convention Of States – With Mark Meckler

Mark:

And by the way, well, hold on. If you all are listening, please don’t tell Patty and Kara that we made this announcement.

Rick:

Yeah. Are we pretty sure they’re not listening? Is that what you’re saying they don’t listen to our show?

Mark:

No. They have to hear enough of us at home. They’re not listening to this man.

Rick:

That’s right. That’s right.

Mark:

We appreciate everybody listening today protecting Mark and me by not letting Kara and Patty know we announced the event before we were supposed to. Thanks for being with us, Mark. Appreciate you, man.

Mark:

And God bless you, brother.

Rick:

That’s Mark Meckler, conventionofstates.com is the place to go and sign up and also just to keep up with what’s happening in the other states as we move forward to this very, very important part of our Constitution and saving our constitutional republic. Sure appreciate you listening today, folks, you’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.