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(The Center Square) – Legislation pending in the Carolinas legislatures would authorize each state to join a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to limit the power and spending of the federal government.
The federal governments has accumulated a “crushing national debt through unsustainable budgeting and spending,” says a resolution which has already passed the North Carolina House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate.
The U.S. Constitution allows two methods of enacting amendments, North Carolina state Rep. Dennis Ridell, R-Alamance, one of the sponsors of the resolution, told the Senate Judiciary Committee 1 this week. One is by Congress, the other is through a convention of states, the legislator said.
“What this bill does is helps North Carolina join the other 19 states that have already accepted and passed this resolution word for word,” Ridell said.
The resolution has three components: term limits for Congress, imposing fiscal restraints on the federal government, and limits on the power and reach of the government.
“We as state legislators have the power to initiate amendments to the Constitution,” Ridell said. “We don’t have to sit by and wait for Washington to get it right. We actually have a role here.”
In 2020, the national debt was $24 trillion, Riddell told the committee. Today it is $37 trillion.
“If you think that is sustainable and that’s not a problem, you are living in a fantasy world,” he said.
The convention would only be allowed to consider the three issues defined in the resolution, Ridell explained.
It would take 34 states approving the resolution before the convention could be called, he said. He was asked if Congress had tried to adopt solutions to those same three issues.
“If it’s been tried by Congress, it’s failed,” he said. “A balanced budget amendment – we keep waiting for it, no sign of it.”
The North Carolina Senate Judiciary Committee approved the resolution, sending it the Rules Committee.
In South Carolina, a similar resolution, House Bill 3007, calling for a Convention of States, is pending in the state Senate.
The South Carolina Legislature also approved a Convention of States resolution in 2022 which was signed into law by Gov. Henry McMaster.
