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PRINTER'S NO. 1012
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HOUSE RESOLUTION
No.
357
Session of
2017
INTRODUCED BY COX, BIZZARRO, BRIGGS, CUTLER, DEAN, DONATUCCI,
FABRIZIO, FRANKEL, GILLEN, GOODMAN, HANNA, J. HARRIS, IRVIN,
KAUFER, NEILSON, PASHINSKI, C. QUINN, RABB, RADER, SONNEY,
VITALI AND WHEELAND, MARCH 20, 2017
REFERRED TO COMMITTEE ON STATE GOVERNMENT, MARCH 20, 2017
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Calling for a Free and Fair Elections Amendment to the
Constitution of the United States via a Convention of States,
pursuant to Article V of the Constitution of the United
States, to authorize the states to apply disclosure rules and
reasonable guidelines on election campaign contributions and
expenditures.
WHEREAS, Our first President, George Washington, declared in
his 1796 farewell address: "The basis of our political systems
is the right of the people to make and to alter their
Constitutions of Government," and it was the clear intention of
the framers of the Constitution of the United States, as noted
by James Madison in Federalist No. 52, that the Congress of the
United States should be "dependent on the people alone"; and
WHEREAS, The articles of the Constitution of the United
States guarantee the right of the people to govern themselves,
the Bill of Rights contained in the first amendments to the
Constitution of the United States protect the inalienable rights
of the people, and the Declaration of Independence states that
"to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
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deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed";
and
WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution of the
United States provides: "The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,"
which, until 2010, had consistently been interpreted to allow
the several states to establish their own laws governing the
financing of elections; and
WHEREAS, Prior to 2010, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had
consistently exercised its legal authority to mitigate
corrupting influences in its electoral process by establishing
laws governing the financing of elections; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court decisions in
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) and
McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission (2014) removed
restrictions on amounts of independent and aggregate political
spending, effectively denying the several states the ability to
establish their own laws governing the financing of elections,
and the removal of those restrictions has resulted in the undue
influence of powerful economic forces, which have supplanted the
will of the people by undermining their ability to choose their
political leadership and determine the fate of their states and
the nation as a whole; and
WHEREAS, Elections for public office should be free of the
corrupting influence of excessive spending by outside interests
and fair enough that any qualified citizen is able to run for
public office because free and fair elections with a level
playing field ensure a robust debate and a healthy marketplace
of ideas in the halls of our governments, and therefore a Free
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and Fair Elections Amendment should be added to the Constitution
of the United States to guarantee the preservation of the
inalienable right to self-determination and self-governance for
future generations of Americans; and
WHEREAS, Article V of the Constitution of the United States
grants the states co-equal power to the Congress of the United
States to propose Federal constitutional amendments and was
added at the urging of our founding fathers so that the several
states could protect themselves and their citizens from
encroachments by the Federal Government or in the event that the
Federal Government would someday become unresponsive to the will
of the American people; and
WHEREAS, Some of our most respected presidents have endorsed
the Convention of States as an essential safeguard to our
Constitutional Republic, including President Abraham Lincoln
when he spoke of amending the Constitution of the United States,
stating that "The convention mode seems preferable, in that it
allows amendments to originate with the people themselves," and
President Dwight Eisenhower, stating that "Through their state
legislatures and without regard to the Federal Government, the
people can demand a convention to propose amendments that can
and will reverse any trends they see as fatal to true
representative government"; and
WHEREAS, Article V of the Constitution of the United States
requires the Congress of the United States to call a convention,
upon the application of two-thirds of the legislatures of the
several states, for the purpose of proposing amendments to the
Federal Constitution, an assurance made abundantly clear in
Federalist No. 85 by Alexander Hamilton, who noted: "The words
of this article are peremptory. The Congress 'shall call a
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convention.' Nothing in this particular is left to the
discretion of that body"; and
WHEREAS, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania desires that the
delegates to the Convention of States be comprised equally from
individuals currently elected to state and local office, or be
determined by election, in each congressional district in
Pennsylvania, for the purpose of serving as delegates, though
all individuals elected or appointed to Federal office, now or
in the past, be prohibited from serving as delegates to the
convention, and intends to retain the ability to restrict or
expand the authority of its delegates within the limits herein
expressed; and
WHEREAS, The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania intends this
resolution to be a continuing application considered together
with applications calling for a Convention of States passed in
the 2013-2014 Vermont legislature as R-454, the 98th Illinois
General Assembly as Senate Joint Resolution No. 42, and as
approved by the Senate of the Ninety-Eighth General Assembly of
the State of Missouri in 2015 as Senate Concurrent Resolution 24
and the House of Representatives of the One Hundred Sixty-Fourth
General Court of the State of New Hampshire in 2015 as House
Concurrent Resolution 2 and all other passed, pending and future
applications, the aforementioned concerns notwithstanding until
such time as two-thirds of the states have applied for a
Convention of States and the convention is convened by the
Congress of the United States; therefore be it
RESOLVED (the Senate concurring), That the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania call for a Free and Fair
Elections Amendment to the Constitution of the United States via
a Convention of States, pursuant to Article V of the
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Constitution of the United States, to authorize the states to
apply disclosure rules and reasonable guidelines on election
campaign contributions and expenditures; and be it further
RESOLVED, That a Free and Fair Elections Amendment allow
states to place reasonable limits on campaign contributions,
establish disclosure rules, provide for stricter enforcement of
existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs
and ensure that American elections are free and fair so that the
will of the people is reflected in the actions of the Federal
Government; and be it further
RESOLVED, That the Secretary of the Commonwealth transmit
duly certified copies of this resolution to the President and
Vice President of the United States, the President pro tempore
of the United States Senate, the Majority and Minority Leaders
of the United States Senate, the Secretary and Parliamentarian
of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States
House of Representatives, the Majority and Minority Leaders of
the United States House of Representatives, the Clerk and
Parliamentarian of the United States House of Representatives
and each member of Congress from Pennsylvania, with the
respectful request that the full and complete text of this
resolution be printed in the Congressional Record and that this
resolution be referred to the committees of the United States
Senate and the United States House of Representatives having
proper jurisdiction over its subject matter, and to the
presiding officers of each legislative body of each of the
several states that have not yet applied for the calling of a
Convention of States, requesting the cooperation of lawmakers in
those particular states in approving applications compelling the
Congress of the United States to call a convention for the
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purpose set forth in this resolution.
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