As of the last election, the GOP controlled 33 legislatures, just one shy of the two thirds of the 50 states required to call such a convention. Already 12 states have passed bills to begin the process to convene a new convention. And the failure of the federal GOP agenda in Washington even with Republican control of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court has only added to the drive of those behind what's called the Article V movement to actually make it a reality.
The primary backers of this movement are the radical right, including recently ousted Heritage Foundation head Jim DeMint, and ALEC, the lobbying group that provides libertarian, pro-business, right wing legislation to be passed by those very same state legislatures.
Right now, there are two separate but not necessarily conflicting agendas for what to accomplish at the convention. One group of supporters wants to pass a federal balanced budget amendment while another wants to simply implement spending and term limits while allowing states more latitude to basically ignore federal policy.
If you shudder at the prospects of those policies actually being enshrined in the Constitution, imagine all the other crazy ideas that will spring from the far right during such a convention and the pressure on the Republican delegates to pass them.
With the chaos of the Trump administration and the failure of the GOP agenda, we can be sure that ALEC and the ultra-rich, ultra-right, libertarian Republican donors will be pushing as hard as they can to make an Article V Constitutional Convention a reality. The results would be even better for those oligarchs than a functioning Republican party in Washington because their wish list would be enshrined in the new Constitution. And that should make us all afraid.
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