Rubio Is Trying to Win Conservatives by Promising to Rig the Game

[applegrove]

Rubio Is Trying to Win Conservatives by Promising to Rig the Game

By Jamelle Bouie at Slate

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/01/why_marco_rubio_is_promising_to_hold_a_constitutional_convention_if_elected.html

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With that said, calls for a convention have gained a little more traction in the past five years. On the left, a small group of scholars and activists want a new convention to limit the power of money in politics. On the right, a larger and more influential group of activists want a convention to craft new amendments for term limits and a balanced budget amendment.

Rubio is speaking to the latter, and they like what they hear. “Rubio endorses Convention of States,” tweeted conservative radio host Mark Levin, an advocate for the move. “Will the other GOP contenders support it as well?” Likewise on Twitter, Mark Meckler, former Tea Party leader and president of a group advocating for the convention, said Rubio could earn conservative support with this move, calling it a “game-changer” for his campaign.

Rubio isn’t moving this initiative to the center of his campaign, so it won’t be a game-changer. But it could help on the margins, and convince a few skeptical conservatives that the Florida senator is on their side.

With that said, we should step away from the horse race aspect of this and note the extent to which everything here is a bad idea. A successful constitutional convention requires a level of consensus and judicious thinking that doesn’t exist in modern American politics, at least not in great quantities. And this is underscored by the nakedly ideological demands for term limits and balanced budgets. The former robs Congress of experience and expertise, and empower actors—lobbyists and interest groups—who have the time and money to fill the gap. The result isn’t more accountability—it’s a weaker legislature that can’t think beyond the short-term. And a balanced budget amendment is just a recipe for disaster, tying the government’s hands in the face of wars and economic crises. As ideas, they are more about sentiment—we want to shrink government—than they are about solving problems.


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