Resolution Wiping Out Calls For Convention Dies

After constitutional experts presented conflicting views, the House State Affairs Committee decided Friday it wants no part of a Senate-passed resolution repealing more than 90 calls for constitutional conventions.

Rep. Jeff Alltus, R-Hayden, won approval for his motion to table the resolution, usually a killing motion.

The Senate voted 30-4 for the resolution last month. Had it passed, the eight resolutions approved by the Legislature since 1901 calling for a state constitutional convention would have been repealed.

The American Legislative Exchange Council sent two witnesses from Washington, D.C., to argue against the resolution. They spent most of their time disputing that any constitutional convention would turn into a “runaway convention” that might pass things that are bad for small states like Idaho.

“There is no doubt that a convention can be limited,” said David Holbrook. “The only people who are going to change the Constitution are seated right here in this room.”

Don Fotheringham of the John Birch Society said a constitutional convention today “would be manipulated by the mass media. Now is not the time.”

Most of the committee’s discussion centered on whether the resolution would undercut U.S. Sen. Larry Craig’s efforts to get the Balanced Budget Amendment through Congress.

The Legislature sent a message to Congress in 1979 urging a balanced budget and has sent the same message every year since.

, DataTimes