states will now have renewed power. For some reason, this is the
great secret — even though it’s in black and white in the Constitution itself: the states together have enormous power, more power
than the federal government. The states used to meet, used to have
compacts, used to make agreements; today it is considered strange
to even think about this.
So I think our first major challenge is to start getting at least
some people to understand that there are ways to bypass the federal
government, to bypass the Obamas, and the Congress, and the Su-
preme Court — which is exactly why the Framers did this. George
Mason, two days before the end of the Constitutional Convention
in Philadelphia, gets up and says, “We have one way of amending
the Constitution here right now. Congress, by two-thirds vote, pro-
poses amendments to the states. Three-fourths need to ratify. But,”
he said, “if we have an oppressive Congress, if we have a tyrannical
federal government, they’re never going to propose amendments to
reign themselves in, or to reform themselves. We have to have a way
to bypass Congress, so there is an option other than violence for the
American people to address it.”
And that’s why this part of Article V was developed. It was ad-
opted by the Convention. It was sent to the state Ratification Con-
ventions, and it was one of several reasons why the states ratified the
Constitution. So everything I’m suggesting and talking about is
based in our heritage. It’s based on what the Framers intended. The
people who oppose us have eviscerated the Constitution, they evade
the Constitution, and they will no doubt claim they’re standing for
the Constitution while we’re trying to breathe new life into it.
RUSH: Some moderate Republicans and others might say, “Mark, if
you revere the Constitution so much, why do you want to change it
with your proposed amendments?”
LEVIN: I do revere the Constitution. I just wish it was in play for the
most part right now. When the President of the United States says,
“I’m going to fundamentally transform America,” there’s no Constitutional authority for that. He’s got a limited role under the Constitution — which, obviously, he defies on a daily basis.
And he’s not the only one. Congress doesn’t have the power to
pass general legislation just willy-nilly, covering everything from
light bulbs, to toilets, to health care, and so forth. Their power is
limited, too, but they refuse to live within it. The Supreme Court’s
power today is beyond anything that the Framers recognized,
whether in Philadelphia, at the Constitutional Convention, or the
state conventions.
If the Constitution had been drafted the way this government
is set up today — the way the Presidency is now functioning,
the Court, the Congress, and this massive administrative state I call
“the fourth branch of government,” the bureaucracy that kicks out
3,000 laws a year — it would never, ever have been ratified, any
aspect of it. So I would say to these critics: what you are defending
is not the Constitution. You’re defending the status quo, you’re de-
fending statism, and you have no proposals or suggestions for how
to deal with it.
RUSH: That really is the key. It isn’t the Constitution any more, and
all you’re trying to do is get back to it.
LEVIN: Exactly right. My suggested Constitutional amendments
— and I provide them as examples to encourage people to consider
this process — are all steeped in what our Framers said. In each
chapter, I quote them. These are not abstractions. They’re not
novelties. I’m not trying to create a new country or change the
Constitution. We’re trying to reinforce the actual original Constitution, and address the abuses and violations that are occurring on
a regular basis.
RUSH: What do you say to people who argue, “No, no, we don’t
need to mess with the Constitution. All we need to do, Mark, is
elect more conservatives to Congress, get a conservative President,
some conservative judges, some conservative appointees, and rein in
the bureaucracy — if we just do that, we can turn this around.”
LEVIN: First of all, we are not messing with the Constitution.
They’ve messed with the Constitution. Otherwise, we wouldn’t even
need this discussion, frankly. We are turning to the Constitution to
save the Constitution.
As for the notion that we only need elect a Republican President,
or have a Republican Congress, or just change the Court, the last
time I checked it wasn’t that long ago we had a Republican
President, and for six years a Republican Congress. Did they do
anything to reverse the course of big government? Did they do
anything to try and reestablish some aspect of the Constitution?
RUSH: No. In fact, they now seem to want to agree with Democrats
on truly destructive things.
LEVIN: Exactly right. The Republican Party today is for the status
quo. Obamacare is passed. That’s the status quo. They may have
some timid suggestions on how to rearrange the deck chairs, but
that’s about it. There’s really nothing that they bring to the table to
address the core problem. And what we’re talking about here is a
systemic problem that no election or election cycle can fix.
Let’s say we elect Ronald Reagan today. How is he going to fix
the Supreme Court? Let’s say we elect a Republican Congress today.
How is the Republican Congress going to affect right now what’s
going on at the EPA, with a Democrat President? We have 100 years
or more of a trajectory of taking this country toward the exact
opposite of what the Constitution provides for. We have a
“There are ways to bypass the federal government, the Obamas,
the Congress, and the Supreme Court — which is exactly why the
Framers did this.” — MARK LEVIN
