34|Ready: The Plan to Pre-Control an Article V Convention
This post was prepared some months ago. I am publishing it now at a reader’s request, as the strategy has quickened — a final clarity piece here before I turn fully to steadiness.
Dear friends
My apologies for the delay in following up as I had promised. Our family holiday was refreshing for my partner and son, but less so for me. Extreme heat, broken sleep, travel hubs, and insect bites set off my mast cells, so I spent more time alone indoors than relaxing with family and friends. And on my return home, I picked up a bug. So the pause has been out of necessity rather than choice, as my capacity for reflective writing has been limited. I aim to return to it by my original goal of 1 September.
In the meantime, a valued long-time reader has reached out, asking me to update and republish what I had written about the dangers of an Article V convention.
To remind you: on 7 May I published a piece setting out the case that Trump and his allies are working to rewrite the Constitution through an Article V convention. Their plan is to use state legislatures to trigger it, framing it as a set of limited reforms while in fact pushing towards a wider restructuring. The goal, I argued, is to lock in minority rule and expand executive power, with 4 July 2026 marked as the symbolic unveiling of a new constitutional order.
I followed that with another post on 11 May, explaining why an Article V convention is so unsafe: it has no fixed rules or limits. Once convened, it could be used to push through a full constitutional rewrite. That post urged US citizens to act at the state level to prevent it before it starts.
I had then investigated further, my intention being to return to the subject again, but interest at the time seemed limited. I set my notes aside, weighing the energy required against the response. That work had already left me with a structured draft, one I am now revisiting and updating in light of how the landscape has shifted.
Because earlier this week this reader told me they are seeing growing calls — especially among veterans writing on Substack — for a constitutional convention. When they have tried to raise highlight risks, they are often met with silence or dismissal. Their concern is that many of these groups do not realise Article V has no real safeguards and could be steered by the current administration for its own ends. With more state-level resolutions being introduced and new National Guard deployments prompting unease, they have urged me to write again now, with updated warnings and context.
I believe that their concern is justified. For those who remain unconvinced, please set aside my reference to the symbolic date, and consider the numbers. This image, captured from the Convention of States website on 2 January 2025 through the Wayback Machine, showed 19 states with a passed resolution, one state where it had cleared a single chamber, and 9 states with active legislation.
Here is where it stands today, merely 8 months later: 19 states have passed, 4 have advanced it through one chamber, and 18 have active legislation this year.
These numbers alone can give the impression that the story is simply about momentum: more resolutions introduced, more states edging closer to passage, the running total creeping upward toward thirty-four. But the real story is not only how many states have joined, but how those states are being prepared in advance.
Convention of States Action is not just counting votes; it is writing the rules.
Convention of States Action has drawn up a package of bills known as 34|Ready. On the surface, these bills look like simple instructions for how states might organise themselves if a constitutional convention were ever called under Article V of the Constitution. In reality, they are a coordinated attempt to set the rules of that convention in advance, on one side’s terms.
As I’ve outlined previously, the Constitution allows two ways to propose amendments: through Congress, or through a convention called by two-thirds of the states. That second path has never been used, which means the rules for how it would work are not written down anywhere. There is no official playbook. Convention of States Action is stepping into the gap with a playbook of its own.
34|Ready has two parts. One is a model resolution for choosing and instructing commissioners, which is the name they give to delegates who would attend the convention. The other is a model bill that sets penalties for commissioners who step outside their instructions, including criminal charges. Put together, these laws are not just about readiness — they are about control.
If a state legislature passes them, it is not only saying yes to the idea of a convention. It is also agreeing in advance to rules written by a national advocacy group, rules that tilt the ground before the convention even begins. From the outside, this may look like cautious preparation. From the inside, it is an effort to fix the terms of engagement so that once the process is triggered, one side already has the structure it wants in place.
The mechanics of 34|Ready
It's important to understand the mechanics of 34|Ready. There are only two bills, but each does a distinct job.
The first is the model resolution. It tells a state legislature how to select the people it will send to a convention, and how to frame their instructions. That means writing down in advance what they are authorised to support, how they must vote, and under what conditions they can be replaced.
The second is the control bill. This one goes further. It says that if commissioners disobey their instructions, their votes are automatically void and their positions are forfeited. It also sets out criminal penalties. In some versions, commissioners could face felony charges for casting a vote outside the bounds of the state’s script. The bill extends these penalties not only to commissioners themselves but also to anyone who interferes with their role.
From the outside, this may look like a safeguard. It reassures legislators who might be uneasy with the whole idea of a convention by offering a sense of order: clear rules, clear limits, clear punishments. From the inside, it functions as a template that can be dropped into state after state, creating uniformity where none exists in the Constitution itself.
That uniformity matters. Each time a state passes the pair together — the resolution and the control bill — it is not only adding one more step toward the 34-state threshold. It is also locking in the same partisan framework that Convention of States Action drafted, making it harder for any other set of rules to gain ground once the process begins.
Case study — Indiana’s SB 450
Indiana’s Senate Bill 450 shows how this strategy looks when it takes shape in law. At first glance, it reads like a procedural checklist. It's only when you look closer, that you see it is a framework for control.
The bill makes three kinds of moves.
First, it changes the language. Instead of calling the state’s representatives “delegates”, it calls them “commissioners”. This shift matters. A delegate is usually understood as someone who represents and negotiates on behalf of a wider public. A commissioner, by contrast, is someone carrying out a specific commission under fixed orders. Commissioners are not meant to exercise judgement — they are meant to obey.
Second, it binds those commissioners tightly at the state level. They must swear an oath to follow the General Assembly’s instructions. They are barred from supporting changes to core constitutional provisions — not just the Bill of Rights, but also amendments protecting civil rights and voting. If they vote outside those limits, they automatically lose their position and may face felony charges once they are back under state jurisdiction. On paper, this leaves no safe room for dissent.
Third, it sets up a shadow governance structure. The bill creates an advisory group with authority to monitor commissioners, report violations, and push for removal within twenty-four hours. The attorney general is given power to revoke a commissioner’s credentials and to notify the convention that their votes are void. In practice, this means the state can keep its delegation under constant watch and instant discipline.
From the outside, Indiana’s SB 450 may appear to be a cautious measure, ensuring order and protecting the Constitution. From the inside, it functions as a pre-emptive control system — one that defines commissioners not as free participants in a national meeting, but as state-bound agents carrying out a predetermined script.
The illusion of safeguards
One clause in Indiana’s bill may sound reassuring. Commissioners are told they cannot support changes to the Bill of Rights, the main body of the Constitution, or key amendments such as the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 26th. That looks like a guardrail. It seems to say: the most important protections are off limits.
But that impression does not hold once you step outside the statehouse and into the convention itself. The binding rules exist under Indiana law, and the penalties can be enforced only when commissioners return home. Inside the convention, there is no national mechanism to police them.
That gap creates three problems.
The first is enforcement. A commissioner who breaks Indiana’s rules may face disqualification or prosecution later, but in the moment, their vote is cast like any other. Nothing in the Constitution forces the convention to void it: congress cannot intervene, the courts cannot intervene, and other states cannot intervene. The leash exists only once commissioners are back under state jurisdiction.
The second is asymmetry. Indiana can bind its own commissioners, but it cannot bind anyone else’s. A majority from other states could put sweeping changes on the table — Indiana’s rules could not stop them. The state could pull its commissioners out, but it could not prevent the convention from continuing.
The third is scope. The bill rules out formal changes to certain amendments, but it leaves room for structural changes that would weaken them in practice. For example, nothing prevents commissioners from supporting a new amendment that narrows federal power, shifts authority to state legislatures, or restricts the jurisdiction of courts. Those moves could blunt the reach of the 14th Amendment without ever repealing it.
From the outside, the prohibition looks like a safeguard. From the inside, it is a symbol — reassuring to sceptical lawmakers but unable to block a determined convention majority, and permissive of changes that could cut deep while leaving the surface text of the Constitution untouched.
The broader playbook
The Indiana bill is one piece of a larger sequence. To see the whole playbook, it helps to step back and look at how Convention of States Action organises the process from the very beginning.
The first step is not in the legislature at all. It begins with mobilisation. On its own website, CoS asks supporters to sign a petition and then recruit five family members or friends to sign it as well. Their highly coordinated action strategy urges people to call their representatives, join local volunteer teams, become social media or prayer warriors, become state content writers or events coordinators, and even take on roles as district leaders. The effect is to create a multiplying chain: each supporter is turned into a recruiter, each recruiter into a small organiser.
The aim is to generate visible pressure so that when a resolution is introduced, lawmakers can be told there is already a groundswell of citizen demand. While this may look like a spontaneous movement, it is merely the opening move of a coordinated plan.
The second step is introduction of a resolution calling for an Article V convention. This step draws attention because it directly adds to the running total toward the thirty-four state threshold.
The third step is the control bill. Sometimes it is passed alongside the resolution, and sometimes beforehand. On the surface, it appears to be a safeguard — a way to make sure commissioners will follow state instructions. In practice, the control bill locks in detailed rules for who may serve as commissioner, what oath they must take, how they may vote, how many each state sends, and how quickly they can be removed. It also carries the enforcement clauses that threaten commissioners with felony charges if they step outside the state’s script.
Each state that moves through all three steps is doing more than signalling their interest in a convention. It is adopting a common set of rules written outside its borders.
From the outside, this looks like a patchwork of local action. From the inside, however, it is the construction of a disciplined bloc that will arrive at a convention already unified, already pre-structured, and already prepared to act as one.
The asymmetry
When you set the Convention of States playbook beside what is happening on the other side, the imbalance is clear. CoSA has a sequence that begins with mobilisation, moves through state resolutions, and then locks in control bills. At each stage, the steps are uniform and coordinated.
Progressive or bipartisan groups have not built anything like this. There are no parallel petitions asking citizens to pressure lawmakers against a convention. There are no model bills ready to be dropped into blue-state legislatures. There is no common rulebook waiting to guide how commissioners should be chosen or instructed if a convention were called.
That means if the threshold of thirty-four states were reached tomorrow, one bloc would arrive at the convention already trained, disciplined, and unified. The remaining 16 — or fewer — states would arrive unprepared, each scrambling to decide its own process on the spot. From the outside, that might look like fair participation. From the inside, it would feel like entering a game where the other side had written the rules in advance.
The same asymmetry is playing out at the national level with Trump’s Executive Orders. It is becoming increasingly plain that the Trump administration came into office with a clear plan and the steps already prepared to accomplish it. The other side entered the new term saying “we’ll know soon enough whether the whole Project 2025 thing is worth getting worked up about.” Nine months later, they are still trying to assemble a credible plan to oppose it. Meanwhile, the machinery Trump set in motion is steadily being built out, agency by agency, rule by rule.
In both cases — the push for an Article V convention and the rollout of Executive Orders — the pattern is the same. One side has treated preparation as power. The other is treating preparation as something that can wait.
The stakes
The likely result of treating preparation as something that can wait is that the ground is already set by the time the contest begins. Once thirty-four states are on board, the convention will not open on neutral terms. It will open with one bloc already organised under a shared framework, while other states arrive without agreed rules, without tested procedures, and without a common strategy.
That imbalance matters more than the headline count of states. If the bloc shaped by 34|Ready can act in unison, it will dominate the early rules of the convention. Those early rules will then shape what proposals come forward, how votes are counted, and what dissent is possible. In that way, the real outcome is set before the first amendment is even proposed.
From the outside, the process may look orderly — resolutions passed, commissioners seated, debates conducted under rules — but it will soon become clear that those rules were written long before the gavel came down, and that the convention is being steered by the only side that prepared in time.
Who is the prepared bloc?
When we look closely at who stands behind the Convention of States project, the picture sharpens. This is not a loose coalition of concerned citizens working independently. It is a roster of political figures, media personalities, and institutions that already hold sway over conservative politics.
High-profile politicians have lent their names: Marco Rubio, Mike Braun, Mike Dunleavy, Ron Johnson, and Greg Abbott. Former officials like Mark Meadows, John Kasich, Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, and Ben Carson have done the same.
Conservative media voices form another layer. Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro, and even the late Rush Limbaugh have amplified the call for a convention, giving it reach into millions of homes.
Think tanks and advocacy groups provide the infrastructure. The Heritage Foundation, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the Mississippi Center for Public Policy have all endorsed the movement, offering policy arguments and organisational muscle.
And then there is the legal bench. The Convention of States Board of Reference includes names like Randy Barnett, Charles Cooper, John Eastman, Michael Farris, Robert George, C. Boyden Gray, and Andrew McCarthy. These are lawyers and scholars whose work has shaped conservative constitutional theory for decades.
For opponents, this list reads like a catalogue of the very figures they most distrust. For supporters, it signals legitimacy and seriousness. Either way, it makes one fact plain: the bloc that has prepared in time is not anonymous. It is made up of some of the most recognisable and well-resourced players on the American right.
What this means
When you set these endorsements alongside the 34|Ready framework, the pattern is clear. The strategy is not being advanced by isolated lawmakers or local activists testing an idea. It is being carried forward by a coalition of national politicians, conservative media figures, major think tanks, and constitutional lawyers.
That matters for how the convention would take shape. The same people and institutions who have prepared the legal templates are also prepared to legitimise the process in public debate, defend it in court if challenged, and amplify it across the media landscape. The preparation is not only in the bills themselves. It extends into every arena where the battle would be fought.
For opponents, that is the central lesson. This is not just about counting to thirty-four states. It is about recognising that one side has already integrated political muscle, media reach, legal expertise, and state legislation into a single strategy. That is what it looks like when preparation is treated as power.
These notes were written some months ago, but I hope you can now see that the struggle is not simply over the number of states on the tally. It is over the shape of the convention itself, long before it is called. The strategy behind 34|Ready is to fix the rules in advance, so that if a convention is triggered it can be driven by a single political bloc with the power to reshape the Constitution on its own terms. What is different now is not the strategy itself, but the pace at which it is advancing — and the urgency of paying attention to it.
Awareness is the first defence. If you find this useful, I ask you to share it with five people you know — friends, family, colleagues — just as Convention of States Action asks its supporters to do with their petition. They are building momentum by multiplication, and the only way to counter it is to spread awareness with the same discipline. The more people who see what is happening, the harder it will be for an authoritarian project to pass itself off as an orderly civic exercise.
And for those waiting for me to return to the thread I left open last week — about how Your Time Starts Now will take shape to steady you — I have not forgotten. I need a few days’ rest, and then that will come. In the meantime, I hope this piece offers some clarity for you to carry forward.
— Lori
Time for me to press print and get out the highlighter again.
Please rest up. Positive vibes from across the Atlantic.
I had no idea, and yet the process is textbook Aleks. I will share this widely as your research is very important to get out to a wider audience.