When I grew up in the South, the standard justification for the Civil War was that it was not about slavery, it was about “states’ rights.” That is what this constitutional convention is promoting. I’m not worried that war is coming soon, but clearly discontent is building. Much of this article is about the evils of money in the political system. My view is that the Supreme Court’s conservative justices are largely responsible for that problem, in part by striking down their fellow Republican’s legislation, the McCain-Feingold Act, and of course the more recent decisions, such as Citizens United v. FEC. This has basically turned Washington over to the billionaires and corporations and their lobbyists.
On term limits, I think their efficacy is debatable. Sometimes it takes a while to learn how the system works. In the old days, this meant that some old timers like Everett Dirksen, Bob Dole, Sam Nunn, etc., could get some good things done. Now they use their expertise to block legislation rather than create it, but that could change. Another big problem is gerrymandering. Each party creates safe house districts that make it impossible for the opposing party to challenge the incumbent. House elections are no longer genuinely democratic (small “d”); they are rigged by both parties to return the incumbent in every election.
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