Akkam’s Razor

Update: As expected, the Democrats caved, including local Representatives Pat Murphy and Joe Sestak.  The roll call in the House can be found here, and the Senates tally forthcoming.

In the spring of 1987,  the year of the 200th anniversary of the first Constitutional Convention, President Ronald Reagan began calling for another.  Reagan had been frustrated by Congress’ failure to brovide him with a Balanced Budget Ammendment.  Reagan’s solution was to call for a new Constitutional Convention, as described (but never tested) in Article V of the Constitution, where each state would get delegates to propose a balanced budget ammendment, and then pass it on to the individual state legislatures for approval.  Reagan succeeded in getting agreement from 32 of the required 2/3 of the States, but was eventually blocked by an unlikely coalition of Constitutional defenders, fearful of the seismic changes [pdf] regarding preemptive federalism and the erosion of states’ rights.