As part of my story development, I\u2019ve been thinking about throwing a Constitutional Convention into the plot.\u00a0 So, I checked my copy of the US Constitution and this is the relevant section:<\/p>\n
Article V<\/strong><\/p>\n The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.<\/strong><\/p>\n So, 34 states would need to propose the convention.\u00a0 It\u2019s a little unclear how the convention would be run (none have been called up till now) and no one knows whether its scope would be limited to some fixed agenda ahead of time or not.\u00a0 Then 38 states would have to ratify the amendments.\u00a0 Apparently, there has been much speculation in the past about the way votes would be counted and limitations on the scope of such a convention.\u00a0 But as a plot device it seems singularly fraught with both dramatic opportunities and problems.<\/p>\n Now a careful count of red and blue states made me aware that the red states cannot call a convention on their own never mind ratify its results.\u00a0 So, this convention will need to be some kind of a bipartisan effort that is seen as a last chance to head off secession by disgruntled red states.<\/p>\n The story telling opportunities I mentioned above probably occur where the various \u201csides\u201d get to make their points of view known and haggle between each other about what changes would allow both sides to agree to stay inside the same political framework.<\/p>\n One amendment that seemed interesting would be the right of a state to secede from the union.\u00a0 Recently we witnessed Brexit leading to the UK leaving the EU.\u00a0 Quebec has twice voted on leaving Canada and other Canadian provinces have also toyed with voting on secession.<\/p>\n Beyond this, there are several other amendments that sound interesting.\u00a0 But ultimately, I think the convention in the book will be a failure and non-constitutional actions will be necessary to resolve the disagreements between the various factions.\u00a0 So, this book will be about a national crackup, I think.\u00a0 But the main question is whether I can make it more than just a little entertaining.\u00a0 War is not my forte so writing a story with Americans fighting each other sounds very controversial.\u00a0 Can it be done without alienating enormous swaths of the reading population?\u00a0 Well, that\u2019s what I have to figure out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As part of my story development, I\u2019ve been thinking about throwing a Constitutional Convention into the plot.\u00a0 So, I checked my copy of the US<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1289,1263],"tags":[5307,1290,5205],"class_list":["post-38220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-constitution-convention","tag-my-fiction","tag-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n