Far-right extremist groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and wealthy interests have refocused on holding a constitutional convention, which threatens to throw out our most basic rights and freedoms while writing Project 2025-like policies into our Constitution. In fact, the Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, started supporting a constitutional convention just after the paper was released. We have to stand up to them.

What is a constitutional convention?

Article V of the United States Constitution requires Congress to hold a constitutional convention once two-thirds of state legislatures (34 states) call for one. 

But there are no rules for an Article V Convention in the Constitution – it doesn’t give an explicit explanation of what a convention would look like, what procedures would be in place, and what issues (if any) would be off-limits. 

This leaves several major questions unanswered, questions that would determine whether a constitutional convention would pose an existential threat to our civil liberties, like:

• How will delegates be chosen? Will there be any limits placed on the role of well-funded special interests in influencing the selection of delegates?
• How will votes be allocated amongst delegates? One person one vote? One vote per state? Something else?
• What kinds of changes would the convention consider?
• Will the Convention start with the U.S. Constitution or write an entirely new document?

If a convention is run by people who are unelected and unaccountable to the people, no civil right will be off-limits, including our rights to free speech, privacy, freedom of religion, and so much more. And while We the People would be unrepresented, wealthy interests certainly would be. 

Who wants to hold a constitutional convention?

While many different advocacy and interest groups have called for a constitutional convention (for many different reasons), right now it is most concerning that extremist groups and the ultra-wealthy see a convention as the best pathway to write their far-right agenda into the Constitution. 

ALEC, along with the Convention of States (COS) and many wealthy businessmen, have been leading voices in the calls for an Article V Convention, which they see as a crucial step to implementing their agenda, which goes even farther in extremism than the Project 2025 Agenda. 

Are they actually getting close?

There are different campaigns calling for a constitutional convention, with one requiring a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) leading the charge with 28 of the required 34 states. Next is COS with 19 states calling for one.

But while the far right extremists and ALEC fall short of the 34-state threshold to call a convention on their own, they are trying to come up with underhanded legal theories that would allow them to count states’ old, defunct, and unrelated calls for a convention towards their total.

For example, California has made seven different calls for a convention, the most recent calling for an amendment on gun safety. None are related to any of the leading calls for a convention, but ALEC wants to count their call anyway.

What can we do?

We cannot let far-right extremists and wealthy business interests overhaul our constitution and put our most basic rights and freedoms on the line. 

To learn more about how you can help, visit our Article V campaign page, where you can find actions you can take to defend our most basic rights and freedoms.

You can also visit DefendOurConstitution.org to see whether your state legislature has made a call for a far-right convention.