Term limits, a balanced budget: Ohio Republicans want to amend the U.S. Constitution
A pair of Republicans want Ohio to join a national effort to amend the U.S. Constitution with term limits for members of Congress and a balanced federal budget.
"It’s time for the states to step up," Rep. Riordan McClain, R-Upper Sandusky, said.
His proposal, House Joint Resolution 1, would submit Ohio's official application for a Convention of States to create new amendments in three specific areas: A balanced budget, term limits and reducing the jurisdiction of the federal government.
"Congress has had plenty of time to act on the subject items that we’ve laid out," McClain said. "But they've shown an unwillingness to pursue these important measures. I see no other path."
How a constitutional convention works
Article V of the U.S. Constitution created a process for states to gather and propose amendments, but a convention has never been called.
Thirty-four states have to submit an application to Congress on the same subject in order to convene.
"There's really no timeline," McClain said. But that doesn't mean it's easy.
Fifteen state legislatures have passed the required language over the last nine years, according to the national group behind the idea, Convention of States Action. Nine additional states have passed resolutions in one of their chambers, and 16 states (including Ohio) have introduced the concept.
If enacted, each state would send one voting delegate to the convention. And any amendments approved by a majority of those delegates would need ratification by three-fourths (38) states in order to become part of the Constitution.
Questions, concerns and what happens next
COS Action calls the idea "a safe route to stop federal overreach," but some Ohio Republicans sounded unsure when the resolution got its first hearing.
Rep. Scott Wiggam, R-Wooster, asked about the potential for a "runaway convention" and whether the Bill of Rights might be harmed in the process.
And Rep. Brian Stewart, R-Ashville, said the idea "scares the hell out of me" even though he agreed with many of McClain's concerns about federal overreach.
Democratic Rep. Michael Skindell, D-Lakewood, wasn't sure about the process. Giving one vote to each state – regardless of its population – struck him as unfair.
"You're giving more votes to Republican states and then you have more Republican legislatures out there that will control the ratification of this," Skindell said. "You are tilting this to Republican ideas. By diluting the population, you are diluting the ideas of the people."
McClain said ratifying the amendments after the convention serves as a check on both political parties.
"It's an incredibly high bar," McClain said. "Getting 38 states in this day and age to agree to anything. It has to be a bipartisan effort."
Still, he recognized that this is a complicated legal argument, and his fellow representatives might need some time to digest it all.
HJR 1 is waiting on additional hearings in the House before a committee decides whether to put it up for a vote. But the idea has support from Republican leadership in the Ohio Senate.
Senate President Matt Huffman, R-Lima, introduced a similar joint resolution for a convention of states that didn't pass during the last General Assembly.
Anna Staver is a reporter with the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau. It serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Constitutional convention: Lawmakers want Ohio to join other states
