Indiana General Assembly draws closer to calling for an Article V convention

• • By Caleb Crockett, TheStatehouseFile.com

Senate Joint Resolution 21 passed through the House Judiciary Committee 10-2 at the Statehouse on Monday.

SJR 21 seeks to invoke an Article V convention, where specific delegates from every state would amend the Constitution to enforce term limits for the nation’s legislators.

Rep. Alex Burton, D-Evansville, one of the committee members who voted in favor of the joint resolution, explained to TheStatehouseFile.com what SJR 21 is about.

“If passed here in the coming days, (Indiana) will be the 11th or 12th state in the country that’s passed a resolution urging Congress to enact term limits,” Burton said.

Thirty-eight states need to ratify a joint resolution in order for legislature term limits to be discussed at an Article V convention.

Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn, D-Fishers, provided an email statement on why she voted in favor of SJR 21 and how she believes it is possible to garner more support for it.

“Part of the reason Americans are so disillusioned with national politics is their overwhelming belief that career politicians run this country, not everyday working people and families,” she said. “Enacting term limits on members of Congress will restore Americans’ and Hoosiers’ faith in our democracy and ensure that running for office is about service and sacrifice, not personal enrichment. I believe that more safeguards surrounding an Article V convention would only make others more supportive overall.”

Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, further detailed what it would mean for an Article V convention to take place.

“If (the state legislatures) pass these resolutions, then an Article V convention would be triggered,” Vaughn said. “There would be delegates to this convention elected from states, and they would open up and deal with constitutional issues.”

Burton touched on the importance of creating term limits for Congress and how Hoosiers have impacted that decision.

“From what I gather, I think this conversation and this resolution passed and came before state legislature a couple of times prior, and with it being my first session, I thought I would carry on that work,” Burton said. “I think it said somewhere around 84% of Hoosiers agree with term limits for Congress. When we see so much stagnation, and the average tenure of a person who’s been in Congress has been there for quite a while, something different needs to be done.”

Some people are concerned about invoking an Article V convention because, as Sen. J.D. Ford explained back in January, “There is nothing that could limit the convention to a single issue, so delegates could write amendments that revoke any of our most cherished rights, like to peacefully protest, freedom of religion or right to privacy,” said Ford. “There’s no rules for preventing corporations from pouring money into this convention to ensure that they get their way. So in my opinion, a convention would not be the right way to go about this.”

Vaughn also voiced concerns around how it could impact constitutional rights moving forward.

“That’s one of the reasons we oppose it. It’s never been done before,” Vaughn said. “There aren’t really any guardrails in place, and so our fear is you open up the Constitution for revision, and there goes our First Amendment, there goes another amendment. It’s just a very risky way to make changes to this document that has stood for over 200 years and has been a good guiding principle for our country. We just don’t think it’s a good idea to make constitutional changes this way.”

Vaughn agrees with enforcing term limits but feels uncertain about doing so in this manner.

“This would say, in the United States Constitution, members of Congress can only serve X amount of terms.” she said. “That’s the other thing, what number is it? We support reasonable term limits, but we think it needs to be about six terms, and some people are talking about maybe two or three terms, which would do away with a lot of institutional knowledge. The number is really critical, and that’s another weakness of SJR 21, it’s ‘oh let’s have term limits.’ Well, what exactly are we talking about?”

Burton acknowledged the concerns about an Article V convention and gave reasoning as to why he is pushing forward with SJR 21.

“I think the uncertainty raises some concern, which I completely understand that, but I also don’t want to slow down a process and potentially slow down what many Hoosiers say they want in terms of term limits.” Burton said.

Burton and his colleagues will work to address those concerns moving forward.

“There was a lot of concern about what may be brought up to the floor, who would actually serve as a delegate,” he said. “A lot of ‘what ifs,’ which are incredibly valid points, but I think that as we move forward now we can get down into the weeds.”

Caleb Crockett is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news site powered by Franklin College journalism students.