Kathleen Cerutti

I oppose HCR16, which would have NH apply to Congress for the calling of a convention, under Article V of the Constitution of the United States, to propose a constitutional convention relative to implementing term limits for elected members of both houses of Congress. The following are some of my reasons for opposing HCR16: The text of HCR16 appears to limit the scope of the convention to an amendment to the Constitution that would “set a limit on the number of terms that a person may be elected as a member of the United States House of Representatives and to set a limit on the number of terms that a person may be elected as a member of the United States Senate.” But, in fact, Article V of the Constitution does not stipulate that a convention be limited to considering one amendment or subject. This would put at risk the civil liberties and states’ rights now enshrined in the constitution for all Americans. In addition, Article V does not offer rules on how a convention would be convened or conducted, such as how the delegates to the convention would be chosen, how votes would be counted, or how amendments would be ratified. There are too many unknowns and the stakes are too high to rely on this method to propose amendments to the Constitution, especially when a tested method (the way all 27 current amendments were added to the Constitution) is available under Article V.