COS Handbook

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V. THE PROCESS

Our Political Plan to Call a Convention of States

The Grassroots

The leadership of the COS Project believes the success of a Convention of States depends directly on American citizens. Our plan is not only simple, it is realistic:

• We will build a viable political operation that is active in at least 40 states.

• These 40 states have approximately 4,000 state house districts. Our goal is to have a viable political operation in at least 3,000 of these districts.

• We will have 3,000 district captains who will organize at least 100 people in each district to contact their state legislators to support a convention of states, and turn out at least 25 people per district at legislative hearings.

Legislators must know that our grassroots team will have their backs if they support a Convention of States. A widespread grassroots organization has been missing from the Article V movement.

CSG's President, Mark Meckler, was the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots—the largest tea party group in the country. Michael Farris is the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association. As such, he brings with him over 30 years of grassroots leadership and activism in all 50 states. Eric O'Keefe was the lead organizer for the term limits movement that resulted in 23 states passing ballot initiatives to that effect. We not only have experienced staff for this project, but we are also networking with like-minded coalition members across America.

The strategic advantage of a fresh start on the application process is that we will be building current grassroots operations in all of the states needed to ratify any proposed amendments, and have them all addressed at one convention. If one of the existing proposals (such as the balanced budget applications) achieved 34 valid applications, CSG certainly would support it as well. Unfortunately, the balanced budget plan relies on applications that were enacted ten, twenty, and thirty years ago. The grassroots organizations that achieved those victories are long gone. Starting fresh insures that we have current political operations in all the states necessary to actually ratify any proposed amendments.

Starting fresh also allows us to avoid any legal difficulties that may arise during the “aggregation” process. Applications must deal with the same issue in order for them to be counted towards the necessary 34 states (or, in order for them to be “aggregated”). Many of the balanced budget applications, for example, are sufficiently different that they may be subject to legal challenge when the time comes to determine which states are included in the count. It is unlikely all balanced budget applications currently pending will be successfully aggregated. We will be proceeding with a unified application using the same operative language in all states.

Thus, there is both a legal advantage (clear aggregation) and a political advantage (current grassroots networking) to a fresh start on the application process. Moreover, we will have a greater ability to protect our liberty by addressing the full scope of the problems in Washington, D.C., through a Convention of States.

This unique strategy combined with strong grassroots support will provide a clear path to victory.

Only one question remains. Will you help?

Sign the COS Petition, be a leader https://conventionofstates.com/take_action
Volunteer here https://conventionofstates.com/take_action/volunteer

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