Suppose Congress fails to amend the 22nd Amendment, and the Supreme Court rules out the switcheroo scheme. In that case, far-right groups have been working for years on a backup plan to use the states to initiate a full-scale Constitutional Convention to rewrite the US Constitution to keep Trump in power.
The Third Term Project also calls for an Article V Constitutional Convention, a gathering to amend the Constitution held by Congress when “two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary…or, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states.”[11]
Trejo’s project isn’t the only one fantasizing about a Constitutional Convention. A resolution by Republicans for Renewal “Calls upon federal and state legislators to initiate appropriate constitutional amendment processes under Article V to achieve these goals.” [12]
Despite objections from groups like the John Birch Society, the Article V plan has gained a foothold in far-right circles since the Tea Party era. An Article V convention has been the core aim of the Texas-based Convention of States (COS), an organization founded by former Tea Party Patriots leader Mark Meckler and Michael Farris, the founder of Home School Legal Defense and onetime CEO of the Christian Right group, Alliance Defending Freedom.
While still a way to go, the effort is advancing. In January, COS announced that 19 of the requisite 34 states had passed resolutions endorsing its cause.[13]
COS’s self-description focuses on the need for an Article V convention to “impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress” – not, incidentally, similar to the frames currently being mustered by DOGE to fire federal workers and push in the direction of an authoritarian presidency.
In February, the Convention of States Oregon drove this point home, writing, “Driving through Austin, Texas, you notice a billboard towering above you. Is Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw?? This is part of our campaign to make the DOGE cuts permanent.”[14]
Mark Meckler also described the group’s broader political aims. For instance, Utah COS published an update by Meckler of the group’s April 29, 2023, conference in Austin, Texas. Meckler wrote,
“On April 29, COS leaders and devoted patriots assembled at the Texas Capitol in Austin to demand that our elected leaders take action to end the humanitarian crisis at our southern border…We must act NOW to repel this unprecedented invasion…Convention of States Action has the largest organization of liberty-loving grassroots activists in the United States. Although our primary objective is to pass the COS Resolution and call an Article V Convention, we simply cannot sit by and watch as mass genocide sweeps across our southern border. Imagine the impact of Texas passing this groundbreaking legislation – a Texas Border Defense Unit to defend US citizens. Think about if our southern states step up and do what the federal government has failed to — secure the border against an invasion of dangerous cartels.”[15]
It should be noted that the segment of the far right that most consistently refers to immigrants coming to the US as a “genocide” is the white nationalist movement.
Given the persistence of the Trump echo chamber in heralding a third bid for the presidency, it is concerning that several individuals currently serving in the Trump regime have strongly endorsed Meckler’s Convention of States.
According to Convention of States, the highest-ranking Trump official to endorse the project is Vice President J.D. Vance, “The Vice President-elect of the United States is a supporter of Convention of States. That’s right…Vice President-elect JD Vance supports the movement to call an Article V convention to limit the power, scope, and jurisdiction of the federal government.”[16]
Mark Meckler recounts the origins of Vance’s support in a July 2024 COS video,
“Back in in May of 2022, he was canvassed by our team, he was talked to by our State Director Bill Scott, who I literally just got off the phone with, talked to him about Convention of States, he said, ‘Absolutely he was a supporter.’ We asked if he was if he was willing to sign the statement that says that he is a supporter. Super excited, we have a vice-presidential candidate that is an official supporter of Convention of States.”[17]
Convention of States has since pushed a petition to support their project by declaring “Join Vice President JD Vance in supporting the Convention of States and draining the swamp. Sign the petition today!”[18]
The cabinet member most publicly involved with the group is Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, a speaker at the 2019 Convention of States conference. After hearing about it at several events, Hegseth reportedly reached out to COS and invited Meckler to Fox News, where he worked at the time. As Meckler recounts, in their meeting Hegseth “gave the best pitch for convention of states I’ve ever heard in my life,” recalling that Signal-aficionado told him, “I will do anything I can to help you. I don’t want to charge you. I don’t want anything for it. I don’t have a lot of time to give to causes because of my career and my family and all this stuff, but you guys are my cause.”[19]
At the COS conference, Hegseth lambasted the “one-world government run by bureaucrats,” and stressed the importance of education, bemoaning the Christian nationalist style that “you rip God out of schools and then you wonder why we go why we are where we are in this country.” He told the crowd, “You guys could not have a better leader in this righteous cause than Mark Meckler.” Then, praising those gathered for pushing the Article V Convention at the state level, Hegseth described that after much effort, “You end up usually dragging them [state legislators] across the finish line after educating them to do the thing they really should have done in the first place. But you…can’t do that unless and until you build an army that holds them accountable…We are at a revolutionary moment and…you get a chance to be a part of the second American Revolution without the bullets. Okay that’s where we are.” [20]
Hegseth elaborated on the Article V Convention, saying that,
“So our founders gave us this gift, may we live worthy of it. And to put it in our current context why now as well. Because a lot of us breathed a big sigh of relief on Election Day of 2016 and then we’ve spent the last two or three years watching what they’ve done to President Trump and…if they can do it to him the way that they’ve done it, they will do it to every single one of us in a blink of an eye. Now is our moment to build that army whether you’re being successful in your legislature or not because the day and the moment will come where you can get it past. The right people do get elected. Committee assignments change and then you’re there to add your state to the number of states that build this movement.”[21]
Others in the regime publicly endorsed the project well before Hegseth. In a 2016 interview with COS booster Mark Levin, prompted by Levin’s statement that “you were an early supporter of Article V Convention of States,” now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded, “absolutely.” Rubio’s reasons are those currently being wielded by DOGE-backers, including that an “activist Judiciary that has imposed on itself this view that they are super legislators,” and “Regulatory Agencies which in many cases now supersede the Congress in terms of writing law and setting policy.”[22]
Rubio continued, “So, how do you fix it? And the answer is the people fix it. Article 5 created a mechanism by which people could take charge of the Republic and…course correct using the Constitution as a way to further limit government.”[23]
Also in 2016, at a time when just six states had endorsed the COS project, now-Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins stated in a Fox News broadcast that, “The American people are mad and they’re looking for a way to say no more…And our Founders in their brilliance gave us a tool to do that, and it’s in Article Five.”[24]
In a 2018 interview with Mark Levin, current US Ambassador to Israel and anti-LGBTQ bigot Mike Huckabee said of an Article V Convention, “I have endorsed it and I believe very strongly that it’s the only way we’re ever going to get a balanced budget amendment. It’s the only way we’re ever going to be able to bring some real reform to our system.”[25]
Not to be left out, in June 2022, COS described current White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as a “happy supporter of Convention of States,” quoting the Trump spokesperson as saying, “Convention of States aligns with the principles that I believe, a government for the people by the people.”[26]
COS also claims support from other prominent Trump allies in government, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, who was involved in the effort in the U.S. House to overturn the 2020 election, offering yet another avenue for a Trump third term.[27] A MAGA-energized Trump third-term effort could give Article V backers a boost. While Meckler’s COS has not yet taken up the call for a third term, it has a national network of trained activists waiting for an unrestrained convention to tear the Constitution to shreds.
