Nevadans are supportive of constitutional amendment proposals
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress …”
— Article V of the U.S. Constitution
The Constitution has been amended only 27 times in its history, once to repeal a previous amendment, Prohibition.
Some are talking about amendments again. In a poll conducted for the Review-Journal and 8NewsNow, we asked about two ideas floating about and found a plurality of Nevadans support them.
The most popular is to require the federal government to maintain a balanced budget instead of running up trillions in deficit spending — 40 cents of every dollar the federal government is currently spending is borrowed and will have to be repaid someday by someone, unless the government defaults.
The other would empower two-thirds of the state legislatures to repeal a federally enacted law. This one is being fuel by the unpopular health insurance reform act passed six months ago. It might be seen as a variation on various proposals to repeal the 17th Amendment, which in 1913 took the selection of U.S. senators from the state legislatures and gave the choice to the voters of each state. The amendment, it is argued, diminished the power of the states and the federalist system.
Our poll found 57 percent support the balanced budget amendment, something every state except Vermont is required to do, and 49 percent support giving states the power to repeal a federal law. This probably reflects a growing distrust of the power being wielded in Washington.
I first read about the repeal amendment in The Wall Street Journal recently. Randy Barnett, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, and William Howell, speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, advocated it in an op-ed piece.
“The Repeal Amendment would help restore the ability of states to protect the powers ‘reserved to the states’ noted in the 10th Amendment,” they wrote. “And it would provide citizens another political avenue to protect the ‘rights … retained by the people" to which the Ninth Amendment refers. In short, the amendment provides a new political check on the threat to American liberties posed by a runaway federal government. And checking abuses of power is what the written Constitution is all about.”
The balanced budget amendment has been talked about for decades and came within one vote of being passed in 1995. Republicans are pushing it this year, buoyed by the voter angst over deficits with no end in site.
