Remarks
Some may smack their forehead, and exclaim “Oh no, not more government! and more costs!” To this kind of objection, I would say one of the purposes of The Constitutional Council would be to ensure that expansion of the Federal government be trimmed back and kept constitutional AND ensure that all expenditures by all parts of the government be audited. I can essentially promise with these powers The Constitutional Council would pay for itself many times over every year, and basically be a very good investment as well as a secure anchor for the Constitution.
Some might stand back and observe that it appears that the suggested U.S. Constitutional Council would have an overarching role over the government, superseding Articles I and II. That indeed is the general idea, but only insofar as it does not participate in setting policy, writing laws, or participating in politics. Politics need to be shut out of any deliberation where the adherence to the Constitution is paramount.
Comments are expected, but I would ask those commenting to consider the following as an early draft submitted here to address the growing chaos that We the People are experiencing, and I particularly request commenters to offer constructive suggestions, and not just brickbats reflectively thrown out against something apparently never thought of before. If you don’t like it, please offer improvements or alternatives (preferably civil, but not civil war).
The role and purpose of the Constitutional Council is to protect and ensure that the integrity of the US Constitution is protected and preserved.
Remarks
The overall concern here is to strengthen and preserve the Republic. We could discuss for any amount of time how the Republic is being debased, degenerated, and perverted, but we will not do so because it is assumed that the deteriorated state of the Republic is an established fact, and that fact of deterioration is a problem which very much needs attention. The purpose of this forum is to discuss what can be done to shore up and secure the integrity of the Republic. Many people think the way to do this is by adding reform amendments to the Constitution [1]. This makes sense because the Constitution defines the structure of the Republic, and thus is the basis of the Republic.
At this website, however, we take the view that trying to secure this republic with reform amendments will never be completely adequate; and that ultimately the only way the task can be properly managed is by vigilant living guardians. In other words, such a task requires sentient people to watch over the machinations of humans who make up our government, and inanimate laws and amendments will not do the job. One important reason for this is that without something like the US Constitutional Council there is no effective means of enforcement when the Constitution is not followed. Obama himself stated publicly 23 times that he could not grant citizenship to the children born in the US of illegal immigrants because doing so would be unconstitutional he admitted, but after being continuously urged to do so by a chorus of liberals and leftists, he did it anyway. And what were the repercussions? Actually, we are just beginning to find out and we will continue to do so for probably a very long time all because there was nothing like the US Constitutional Council to stay his hand.
What is meant by the overall concept of using people to secure our republic as opposed to amendments? Well, for a long time people have been wanting to reform our constitution by imposing term limits on Representatives and Senators. It will be possible to do this once the Amendment for Reform is added to the Constitution. However, I am confident it will not make any substantive difference, especially after a few years. Why? Because the Representative and Senators will figure out ways to get around it. If you do not think so, consider California where term limits were implemented in 2012. Now California has arguably the most corrupt and worthless government in the Union. Maybe term limits made some minor differences, but they certainly did not make California's government better. What is needed in general is not more laws and constitutional amendments, but better enforcement of the existing laws and the Constitution, which the Constitutional Council, or something like it employing human guardians, can provide.
1 For example, Mark Levin offers ten proposed reform amendments in his book The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, Threshold Editions, Aug 13, 2013
