Constitutional Conventions: The Nuclear Option Nobody Mentions

4 min read

Article V contains a second amendment process where 34 state legislatures can force Congress to call a constitutional convention.

This mechanism was designed as an emergency exit if Congress became too powerful to reform itself.

Legal experts disagree on whether such conventions can be limited in scope, since the 1787 convention ignored its own mandate.

The U.S. has come within one or two states of triggering conventions multiple times, particularly in the 1960s and 1980s.

Multiple active movements are currently accumulating state applications, making this obscure process more relevant than most citizens realize.

Here's a fun fact that should probably keep more people up at night: there's a perfectly legal way to completely rewrite the U.S. Constitution without Congress lifting a finger. It's sitting right there in Article V, gathering dust like a fire extinguisher nobody's checked in decades.

Most Americans learn about constitutional amendments as this neat process where Congress proposes changes and states ratify them. That's how we've done it all 27 times. But there's a second path—one that starts with state legislatures and could theoretically end with a completely different founding document. And we've come closer to triggering it than you'd probably guess.

Article V Power: The State-Triggered Convention Process Everyone Ignores

The Founders built a backup plan into Article V. If two-thirds of state legislatures (that's 34 states) submit applications calling for a constitutional convention, Congress must call one. No discretion. No debate. The word used is 'shall'—the constitutional equivalent of 'you don't have a choice here.'

This wasn't an accident. The Founders worried Congress might become too powerful and refuse to propose amendments that limited its own authority. So they gave states an emergency exit. James Madison called it a way for the people to amend the Constitution 'without the concurrence of the Federal Legislature.'

Here's what makes this interesting: applications don't expire automatically. Some scholars argue applications from the 1900s are still technically valid. Right now, depending on how you count and which legal interpretation you favor, we might be anywhere from 6 to 28 states away from triggering a convention. Nobody's entirely sure because there's no official scorekeeper.

Takeaway
The Constitution contains a state-level override that could bypass Congress entirely—and the rules for triggering it are so ambiguous that nobody's certain how close we are to using it.

Runaway Risk: Why Conventions Can't Be Limited Once Called

Here's where constitutional scholars start sweating. Many state applications call for a 'limited' convention—say, one that only addresses balanced budgets or term limits. Sounds reasonable. One problem: there's no mechanism to enforce those limits.

The only precedent we have is the original Constitutional Convention of 1787. Delegates showed up supposedly to tweak the Articles of Confederation. They threw the whole thing out instead and wrote an entirely new document. The convention decided for itself what it could do.

Legal experts are genuinely divided on whether a modern convention could be constrained. Some argue Congress could set rules. Others point out that a convention—as a body exercising the people's sovereign power—might simply ignore any restrictions. Once delegates convene, they could potentially propose anything: eliminating the Senate, scrapping the Bill of Rights, creating a parliamentary system. The genie problem is real.

Takeaway
A constitutional convention might be the one political process where calling it 'limited' doesn't actually make it limited—because the body itself gets to decide its own scope.

Near Misses: How Close We've Come to Accidental Constitutional Rewrites

In the 1960s, state legislatures angry about Supreme Court redistricting decisions submitted applications demanding a convention. By 1967, we were reportedly one state away from triggering one. Congress scrambled to count applications and figure out the rules—because nobody had done this before.

The balanced budget amendment movement of the 1970s and 80s got even closer. By some counts, 32 states had submitted applications by 1983—just two short of the threshold. Several states later rescinded their applications, but whether rescission is even valid remains legally untested.

Today, multiple convention movements are active simultaneously: balanced budgets, term limits, federal spending restraints. Some organizations are quietly accumulating state applications while most Americans remain unaware the process exists. We've essentially been playing constitutional Russian roulette for decades, and the chamber might have more bullets than we thought.

Takeaway
The United States has nearly triggered constitutional conventions multiple times without most citizens knowing—suggesting our founding document's stability might be more precarious than we assume.

Understanding Article V's convention clause isn't about predicting doom—it's about recognizing how our constitutional system actually works. The document we treat as sacred includes a mechanism for its own radical transformation, one that deliberately bypasses normal legislative channels.

Whether that's a brilliant failsafe or a dangerous loophole probably depends on who's pushing for a convention and why. Either way, it's worth knowing this nuclear option exists—because political movements certainly do.