SC call for constitutional amendment reining in federal power clears last major hurdle
A South Carolina bill that calls for a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution to rein in the federal government passed the Senate Wednesday.
The 27-13 vote marked one of the last major hurdles the bill needed to clear to make South Carolina the 19th state to pass legislation calling for a convention. It now goes back to the House to decide whether to agree with the Senate’s changes to the bill, which are mostly semantic.
Thirty-four state legislatures would need to approve similar bills for Congress to call a convention of states.
The bill, H. 3205, seeks to tap a little-used section of the Constitution allowing states rather than Congress to hold a convention to propose changes to the founding document. Under the bill, South Carolina delegates would be sent to a convention to discuss congressional term limits, fiscal restraints for the federal government and reining in federal powers.
A convention of states has only been called once before in the nation’s history, when delegates were called to fix the Articles of Confederation. Delegates ultimately tossed out the Articles and wrote the current Constitution in what some have dubbed a “run-away convention.”
“If you say never, what you’re doing is taking one of the most powerful arrows the framers put in our quiver, and we’re saying as state legislatures that we are never going to put that arrow in our bow and use it,” state Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, told opponents Wednesday who said it’s wrong to call a convention of states and could trigger unintended consequences.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle questioned Wednesday whether delegates to the convention would be restrained from talking about or taking action on unapproved topics.
“We’re plowing new territory here,” Sen. Tom Corbin, R-Greenville, said. “We’ve never done this before and we don’t know what the rules are.”
And Sen. Dwight Loftis, R-Greenville, questioned if delegates could vote to take up other topics not listed.
Campsen conceded that there is some risk, but said anything that comes out of a convention of states would need to be approved by 38 state legislatures, providing a crucial stopgap for anything too extreme.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also passed a bill last month that threatens any “unfaithful delegates” who act outside the bounds of the proposal with felony charges and up to five years in prison. The full Senate hasn’t debated the bill.
“You say, ‘probably not,’ but there’s no absolutes here,” state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, told the bill’s sponsors of the legislation’s unpredictability. “You’re gambling by the passage of this.”
Voters already have the power to make change in Congress., said state Sen. Vernon Stephens, D-Orangeburg.
“We don’t have to go through a convention to do that,” Stephens said. “We can do it every election cycle if we’d like.”
This story was originally published March 9, 2022 at 6:06 PM.
