Subjects Inside: Article V Applications  FAQ, Application Counts By Congress, Articles, AVC Legislative Report, CRS Reports, Convention of State, Compact for America, COS, CFA--Which States are Which?, The Historic Record of COS, COS, CFA Laws, COS Articles, CRS Reports on COS/CFA, COS, CFA Financial Records, CFA Financials, COS Financials, COS/CFA Financial Conclusions, John Birch Society, Con-Con, Runaway Convention, Who Called the Convention, Congressional Vote on a "Runaway" Convention, "Obey the Constitution, Only Two More States", Illegal Rescissions, The Phony Burger Letter, The Madison Letter, Fotheringham Exchange, JBS Articles, Sibley Lawsuit, General Interest, Article V.org, Robert Natelson, History of Article V, Counting the Applications, The Numeric Count History, Congressional Decision of May 5, 1789, Development of Article V, The Committee of the Whole, The Committee of Detail, August 30, September 10, Committee of Style, September 15, Official  Government Documents, History of FOAVC, Founders, Audio/Visual, Links, Contact Us, Legal Page, 14th Amendment, The Electoral Process, Packets, Definitions, Numeric, (Applications grouped by numeric count as required by the Constitution),  Same Subject (Applications grouped by amendment subject, not required by the Constitution for a convention call).

FOAVC believes the activities of the organization Article V.Org led by Dan Marks warrant a full page. At the time of the events described below Mr. Marks was living in the state of Hawaii. He has since moved to the continental United States. Ironically, the state of Hawaii is the only state which has never submitted an application to Congress for a convention call. Despite this Mr. Marks and his organization ArticleV.Org can probably be credited with causing the official count of state applications for an Article V Convention call currently occurring in Congress.

In April, 2013 Mr. Marks sent a letter to the Clerk of the House of Representatives Karen Haas inquiring as to the official congressional count state applications submitted to Congress by the states for an Article V Convention call. The letter included the text of 42 state applications published in the Congressional Record. Mr. Marks had earlier contacted the House Parliamentarian Tom Wickman who suggested Mr. Marks direct his inquiry to Ms. Haas.

Mr. Marks stated in a later interview the reason he made the inquiry was various groups throughout the years had cited a variety of  numbers as to the number of applying states submitting applications to Congress. However there appeared to be no reference to any official count of applications recorded by Congress. Assuming this was an oversight on the part of these groups Mr. Marks made in his inquiry hoping to establish once and for all what was the official count of applying states by Congress.

Instead that inquiry revealed the primary reason a convention call has never occurred. House of Representatives Counsel Kirk Boyle was forced to admit Congress had never bothered to establish a methodology to count the applications so that a convention call could occur. Thus, despite the Constitution mandating Congress call a convention "on the application" of the several state legislatures and despite the fact the states had submitted over 500 applications enough to cause several calls by Congress,  Congress had never bothered to compile a single state application for the purpose of actually obeying the Constitution. In short, Congress had deliberately ignored the Constitution for over 200 years.

To rectify this constitutional embarrassment in June 2013, Boyle requested Mr. Marks' permission to submit his 50 page letter of inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee for "consideration." (Note: On May 5, 1789 the House of Representatives made it clear no application was to be submitted to a House committee for its "consideration" See: Page 11 C). Mr. Marks gave his permission in July, 2013 allowing the letter to be submitted to the committee but made it clear he would not tolerate the committee burying his request.

In January, 2015 with a rule change in the House of Representatives Rules, the House Judiciary Committee began, for the first time in United States history, compiling applications for an Article V Convention call  submitted by the states into a list of "purported" applications by the states. The reason the applications are referred to as "purported" is the list of applications has not been reviewed by the Senate which must do so before the list can become an "official" list of Congress. The committee published (and continues to publish) copies of the original documents of application received by Congress from the state legislatures.

It soon became apparent however that the House Judiciary Committee did not realize the scope of the problem they had taken on for themselves. Having ignored the applications for centuries the applications were simply recorded in the Congressional Record haphazardly as described in the Congressional Record in November, 1977 then sent to the national archives at the end of each congressional session where they were buried among millions of pages of congressional record. The applications were not even indexed. Thus the committee faced the daunting task of going through every box of record stored in the national archives to locate the applications.

To address this issue, Congressman Luke Messer introduced a bill which required the staff of the National Archives (who are better equipped and many times larger than the house committee) locate the applications within a period of two years following passage of the bill. At present, (November, 2016) the bill remains in the House Judiciary Committee.

The articles detailing the Dan Marks letters are published below in publication order.

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