Why MAGA Republicans are afraid of literally rewriting the Constitution is growing

Republicans have big plans if they take back the White House and both chambers of Congress in January. President-elect Donald Trump’s disruptive agenda spans immigration, economics and foreign policy. But Democrats across the country fear the GOP has an even loftier goal: a complete rewrite of the Constitution.

At issue is a provision that allows Congress to convene a new convention to propose changes to the country’s basic text. But as the New York Times recently reported, states like California are now trying to withdraw their previous calls for a constitutional convention. They fear that even a convention convened under Trump, dealing with a narrow issue like a balanced budget amendment, would result in an “out-of-control convention” with anything and everything on the table.

It’s not an unfounded concern for Democrats. After all, the men who gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 were not there to draft a new constitution. The Continental Congress had given delegates only “the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation,” which only loosely governed the 13 independent American states. Instead, they emerged with a document that not only abolished the Articles entirely but also provided for a new form of government.

Crucially, the draft submitted to states for ratification was intentionally incomplete. Under the Articles of Confederation, the only method of revision required the unanimity of all 13 state legislatures. As you can imagine, this made the chance of change extremely slim. The Constitution offered two alternatives, both in Article V of the text:

The first method has been used to add 27 updates to the Constitution since its ratification, most notably with Congress’s first passage of the Bill of Rights. These first ten amendments were crucial in blocking the imminent calls for a second convention from people like Patrick Henry and other Anti-Federalists. Since then, there have been sporadic calls over the years to convene a new assembly to revise the constitution – but like many reform movements, the politics of changing the status quo have been difficult to overcome.

As someone who loves testing and formulating exciting hypotheses, I can understand why the idea of ​​a new convention has both appeal and critics. The amendment process in Congress has stalled over the past half century. Proposed amendments that would require a balanced budget, ban flag burning and abolish the Electoral College have not passed the House or Senate and have not been sent to states for approval. Submitting proposals directly to Congress, where new agreements could be made and various coalitions formed, would avoid the thorny issue of which party controls Congress at any given time.

But the convention process isn’t exactly a panacea for everyone seeking constitutional change. The hurdle for convening a convention — two-thirds of state legislatures — is lower than the three-quarters approval required by states to ratify a proposal. It is a hurdle that could not be overcome recently with the push to enshrine gender equality in the constitution. The most recent success was in 1992.

Since Republicans only hold 28 of 50 state legislatures, there is little chance that amendments will be pushed through and passed by a Republican-dominated convention. Ultimately, while I won’t tell any state’s Democrats that it’s unwise to withdraw their state’s call for a convention, I think it’s best for now to keep the idea of ​​a backdoor reboot firmly in the realm of political fan fiction to leave.