A right-wing effort to amend the U.S. Constitution is being denounced by Christian group Faithful America as a “frighteningly real” threat.
The Constitution has only been amended via two-thirds majority vote in Congress and ratification by three-fourths of states. However, Article V of the founding document also allows amendments to be ratified in a constitutional convention, which can be triggered at the request of two-thirds of state legislatures.
The group Convention of States Action (COSA), backed by prominent Republican lawmakers like Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and conservative media figures like Fox News host Sean Hannity, is hoping to force a convention that critics say could allow a small right-wing minority to fundamentally change the country’s legal framework.
Faithful America, which backs social justice causes and opposes “Christian nationalism,” has launched a petition calling on state legislatures to reject the COSA plan as “an effort to write Christian nationalism into our Constitution, overturn our most basic freedoms, and replace the separation of church and state with an American theocracy.”
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“COSA is an extremist project — endorsed by far-right figures like Speaker Mike Johnson, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson — that seeks to force a Constitutional convention, throw out civil rights and the New Deal, and enact an American theocracy,” the Faithful America petition page states.
“There are zero rules for such a convention, meaning that the people whom conservative states select to rewrite the Constitution could be unelected, unaccountable, and funded by right-wing billionaires like the Koch Brothers — with no limit to what they can change,” it continues.
Faithful America goes on to say that the COSA plan would “allow Christian nationalism to gut the Constitution in Jesus’s hijacked name,” while urging state legislators to instead “reclaim Christianity’s prophetic voice for the true Gospel values of love, equality, and social justice.” The petition had been signed over 10,000 times by Thursday evening.
Newsweek reached out for comment to COSA via online press contact form on Thursday night.
COSA says that a convention held under its plan would only allow amendments that “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials.”
While the Constitution does not lay out a specific process for how amendments would pass in a convention, the group is advocating for each state to have a single vote—which would give sparsely populated red states like Wyoming, with a population of around 580,000, as much power as roughly 39 million residents of blue state California.
At the moment, 19 Republican states have already signed on to the COSA plan, with efforts to pass legislation ongoing in several other states. A total of 34 states would need to back the plan for a convention to be called. Any amendments coming from a convention would still need to be ratified by at least 38 states.
While the COSA effort has been gaining steam, Democrats currently control enough state legislatures that the plan is unlikely to become a reality soon. Republicans command 28 state legislatures, while Democrats preside over 19. Control is split by the parties in the three other states.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
