Former Sen. Rick Santorum told Newsmax that a Convention of States is needed to stop the wild Democratic spending in Congress and pass a balanced-budget amendment to keep the country ''living within its means.''
''The fact that you have [President Joe Biden] now not complying [with a U.S. Supreme Court order], I mean, that's the whole point of the courts, and the Congress, and the checks and balances on the authoritarian president,'' Santorum said Tuesday on ''The Chris Salcedo Show."
''The only way to just rein [in] this lawlessness that we're seeing in Washington, D.C., is for the people to act through their state legislatures calling for a Constitutional Convention to actually put constitutional constraints on the power of the president and his and Congress's ability to spend money.''
Under Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the document can be amended either by legislation passing two-thirds of the House and Senate, or when two-thirds of state legislatures call for a Constitutional Convention to submit amendments that are then ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.
Two organizations, the Convention of States Foundation and Convention of States Action, run by Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler, have been working to collect signatures and get legislation on the agenda in the various statehouses around the country to hold a Convention of States and change the Constitution to take power away from the federal government and give it back to the states.
According to the organization, 34 states are needed to agree to hold the convention and then 38 states need to ratify any proposed amendments that come out of it.
Fifteen states have already passed legislation to hold the convention, nine other states have passed the legislation in one chamber of their respective state houses, 17 have legislation on the agenda this year, and the remaining seven have not taken any action, according to the organization.
Santorum said holding such a convention soon is necessary to try to get a federal balanced-budget amendment, so Congress is required to stop spending beyond what it takes in.
Just over 20 years ago, Santorum voted for such an amendment during his first year in the Senate, which ended up failing by one vote.
''People forget this, which wasn't that long ago, a little over 20 years ago, we passed it in the House when Republicans took control of the House in the 1990s and we had the votes. We had every Republican vote for it, but one Republican, at the last minute. changed their mind, and it failed by one vote,'' he said.
''Had we passed that, you would have a much smaller government today because government would have to live within its means, and to me, that's the most important thing: constraining the quantity of power.''
Note: See Newsmax TV now carried in more than 100 million U.S. homes, on DirecTV Ch. 349, Dish Network Ch. 216, Xfinity Ch. 1115, Spectrum, U-verse Ch. 1220, FiOS Ch. 615, Frontier Ch. 115, Optimum Ch. 102, Cox cable, Suddenlink Ch. 102, Mediacom Ch. 277, AT&T TV Ch 349, FUBO and major OTT platforms like Roku, YouTube, Xumo, Pluto and most smart TV’s including Samsung+, Sony, LG, Vizio and more – Find All Systems that Carry Newsmax – Click Here
Related Stories:
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.