Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts promotes the convention of states: “We realize the objective isn't just short term. It's long term.”

Roberts: “Just because Trump and Vance won, doesn't mean that we should give up on that project”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From a November 19, 2024 Texas Public Policy Event, streamed on YouTube 

KEVIN ROBERTS (PRESIDENT OF THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION): There's a whole bucket of longer-term objectives we need to be thinking about, and we just need to keep as a tool in our toolbox some equally radical ideas that are very sound and legitimate -- like, the Convention of States. Just because Trump and Vance won, doesn't mean that we should give up on that project. 

...

And Heritage -- maybe having something to do with my being there the last few years -- has become a sponsor of the Convention of States, because we realize the objective isn't just short term. It's long term. And I know that President Trump and Vice President Vance are thinking about that.   

As Media Matters described in 2023:

The Constitution has been amended 27 times, always by securing two-thirds support in both chambers of Congress as a first step. Article V of the Constitution provides for another option, though, in which two-thirds of state legislatures call for a convention to consider and put forward amendments. In both cases, any proposed amendment would then need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. [Mark] Meckler and his organization want to use the second, never-before-used method as a way of fundamentally transforming the federal government.

In theory, any kind of amendment could come out of a convention like the one envisioned by Meckler. In practice, virtually everybody pushing for this unlikely process are right-wing activists with a conservative agenda aimed at limiting progressive elements of the federal government.