DALLAS – A growing movement that calls for a change to the federal government’s powers has been gaining momentum in Texas.
“We have grown by 500 percent since June of 2015,” one of the leaders of the Texas branch of Convention of States organization, Tamara Colbert, told the Southeast Texas Record.
Colbert said that in Article V of the Constitution there were two ways to purpose amendments. The first way can only be done by Congress, but a second way would be to call a Convention of the States.
"What Article V gives the states is the authority to convene,” she explained. "So the states put together that call, which is in the form of a resolution."
She said there were eight states that have passed the resolution: Alaska, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee.
The plan, Colbert said, was that the states would get together and talk about suggestions, solutions and amendments that would fix the "structural issues at the federal level."
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott’s office has shown great support for a Convention of States. In his The Texas Plan document, Abbott wrote, “…the Constitution itself is not broken. What is broken is our nation’s willingness to obey the Constitution and to hold our leaders accountable to it.”
Gov. Abbott also wrote, “All three branches of the federal government have wandered far from the roles that the Constitution sets out for them.
“The Texas Plan is not so much a vision to alter the Constitution as it is a call to restore the rule of our current one. The problem is that we have forgotten what our Constitution means, and with that amnesia, we also have forgotten what it means to be governed by laws instead of men.”
The document also lists nine proposed amendments.
Colbert explained the growth of her organization was due to the fact so many citizens were growing tired with the overreach of the federal government.
"In America right now the federal government is using American tax dollars for whatever it wants, thinking there is an endless supply of money from the taxpayers,” she said.
"They are bankrupting my children. So they are operating out of their bounds."
She also said it came down to the federal government intervening in the private lives of citizens.
"In America, the federal government decided that the Thomas Edison light bulb was no longer good enough for us to use. So we are no longer allowed to use the Thomas Edison light bulb. The federal government has decided that we can only have a certain kind of toilet in our home. That is federal overreach."
Colbert said she believed that if Texas passed the resolution and called for a Convention of States, many other states would follow.
“Once Texas passes our resolution we believe it is going to open the flood gates for other states to pass the resolution,” she said.
The organization will be putting on a simulation on Sept. 21-23 in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. It also will be streaming it online.