Article V of Our Constitution Provides Us the Means to Combat Federal Overreach

The Texas Legislature is currently considering renewing its 2017 call to Congress to invoke Article V of the U.S. Constitution to propose amendments curbing federal overreach. The Article V effort seeks to restore federalism and individual liberty, requiring thirty-four states to call a convention and thirty-eight to ratify changes. To date, 19 states have passed resolutions calling for an Article V convention, but, unless renewed this Session, Texas’s application for an Article V convention will expire this year. This should not be allowed to happen. Although critics warn of a “runaway convention” that could destabilize the Constitution, history and built-in safeguards dispel these fears.

Public frustration with Washington is intense. A 2023 Gallup survey found 69 percent of Americans viewed “big government” as a greater threat than big business or labor. By February 2025, Gallup reported that 16 percent named government the nation’s top problem, with distrust fueled by perceived corruption. The federal government’s unchecked growth fuels these concerns. The national debt has soared to $36.22 trillion as of this writing.

To arrest our fatal trajectory, the proposed amendments would impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and limit the terms of office for its officials and for members of Congress. As the polling cited above demonstrates, these proposed amendments echo a need strongly felt by a majority of Americans.

However, opponents, like Common Cause Texas, fear a convention could propose extreme changes—reviving segregation or gutting rights (even though no such amendments have been proposed!). More precisely, the Constitution’s ratification hurdle—38 states needed for ratification—ensures stability. Our country has amended its Constitution 27 times, each requiring broad consensus. Pre-1787 history supports this: at least 30 interstate conventions set protocols limiting delegates’ scope. The Supreme Court, in Smith v. Union Bank of Georgetown (1831), affirmed Article V conventions as state-driven, not chaotic.

Critics also mislabel Article V a “constitutional convention.” Unlike the 1787 Philadelphia event which was a constitutional convention, a convention of states is an amendments-only process. Oklahoma’s former Attorney General Scott Pruitt clarified in his 2016 study that Article V excludes “plenipotentiary” overhauls, and states can recall rogue delegates. Historical pressure proves this approach’s efficacy: Virginia and New York’s 1788-89 Article V threats spurred Congress to pass the Bill of Rights.

Let’s dig deeper into the charge that any amendments convention will transmogrify into a “runaway convention,” subverting the objectives of those who called for it in the first place.

Some of these critics believe their runaway-convention prediction is proven by history: The 1787 Convention, some argue, itself was a runaway convention. This charge was first made after the Philadelphia Convention completed its task. The language authorizing the Convention mandated that the delegates would meet “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.” But the Convention did far more: It scrapped the old Articles.

But those who argue that the 1787 convention was “runaway” ignore an important truth. As I have written, The Constitution crafted at the Philadelphia Convention is among the greatest, if not the greatest, governing document produced in history. If it was the child of a ‘runaway convention,’ then, given the crisis of our overreaching federal government, one is inclined to suggest that we have another—sooner rather than later.

Contrary to critics’ concerns, the rewards offered by an amendments convention are transformative. Beyond curbing debt and regulation, an Article V push could combat civic illiteracy—33 percent of Americans can’t name the government’s branches. The Article V process itself would teach us once again that our rights stem from “Nature and Nature’s God,” as the Declaration asserts, not from Washington.

In 1979, Justice Antonin Scalia called Article V a “minimal risk” worth taking, a view he echoed here. The Founders foresaw federal overreach and armed the states with this remedy. With Washington unyielding, it’s time for states to wield it. The Constitution endures not by inertia, but by our resolve to enforce it.

For these reasons, Texas should renew its call for a convention of states.