Philip Blumel: Are you ready for 2026? Hi, I’m Philip Blumel. Welcome to “No Uncertain Terms,” the official podcast of the Term Limits Movement. This is episode 278 published on January 19, 2026.
Stacey Selleck: Your sanctuary from partisan politics.
Philip Blumel: The 2026 legislative sessions are beginning, and U.S. Term Limits activists are in a dozen state capitals getting ready to advance the Term Limits Convention resolutions. We start the year with 12 states officially applying for an Article V Convention limited to the subject of Congressional Term Limits. How many will we have at the end of the year? We are already out of the starting box in Georgia, where the convention application was approved in the Senate in February of last year. But because Georgia has a two-year session, we already have one half of the state on board, and we’re already knocking on legislators’ doors there. Will Georgia be state number 13? Or if not Georgia, maybe Kentucky, New Hampshire, Arizona, Idaho? If you live in any of these five states, be sure to go to termlimits.com/takeaction and send a message to the relevant legislators right now. Termlimits.com/takeaction.
Philip Blumel: Next, although the Founders empowered the states to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution, no Article V Convention for that purpose has ever been held. That’s because historically, Congress has itself acted when states threaten to bypass it by holding such a convention. We expect that to happen again when the Term Limits Convention Movement reaches its critical mass.
Philip Blumel: But that doesn’t mean there has never been any other Conventions of the States. In fact, there’s been about 145 multistate conventions since the Constitution was ratified. The bulk of these have been organized through the Uniform Law Commission in its earlier incarnations. The history of the Uniform Law Commission, or ULC, is a case study in what happens when states use delegates to meet in convention to solve problems. It also offers some insight on the dreaded political bugaboo, the Runaway Convention. Founded in 1892, the commission grew from an offshoot of the American Bar Association into an independent body. Its purpose is to gather delegates from all the states to hammer out and propose model legislation so that states can use more uniform laws. By 1912, all 50 states and three territories were members. Since then, the Uniform Law Commission has drafted more than 250 Uniform Acts in such areas as commercial transactions, trusts and estate law, business entity law, organ donation, and interstate child support and custody. If you’ve heard of the Uniform Commercial Code or maybe the Uniform Trust for Minors Act, UTMA accounts, these are things that grew from proposals from the ULC. The ULC just held its 134th Convention of the States in July 2025 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Philip Blumel: Now, just like the Article V Convention, delegates are sent by all the states to set an agenda and make proposals. Just like the Article V Convention, the ULC has no power to create, alter, or abolish any law. It merely creates proposals that, if approved by the convention, are sent back to the states, to the legislatures who can approve them or reject them. It’s at that point that they have the opportunity to become law. I just got done reading a history of the Uniform Law Commission called “Forming a More Perfect Union” by Robert A. Stein, a ULC Commissioner from Minnesota. It was fascinating, and I agree with the author that the ULC plays an important role in helping our federal system work more smoothly. But I will say the book also was a bit boring. Now, this is no fault of Mr. Stein’s, but I was looking in the book for a hint of some conspiratorial drama. After all, there are Term Limits opponents out there that are actively stirring up fear about a potential Article V Convention that could run away and, I don’t know, ban guns or ban abortions or rewrite the entire Constitution, even if they were sent there to talk about term limits.
Philip Blumel: Now, surely there was some attempt by some conspiratorial cadre to take over the ULC in at least one of its 134 annual meetings. But no, there wasn’t.
Speaker 3: This is a public service announcement.
Philip Blumel: Term Limits opponents who try to stir up fear about a potential Article V Convention don’t like to talk about the lessons of history. When they do, they’re willing to deceive. In this episode’s public service announcement, we feature Susan Kay Dunn, who testified before the House Government Oversight Committee in Ohio in 2024. She’s an advocate of states using their Article V powers to rein in federal overreach, including but not limited to term limits, and is active with the Convention of States organization. In this clip, Dunn demolishes the false claim that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia warned against an Article V Convention today.
Susan Kay Dunn: I want to address one of the false claims that they have made before and will probably make again. It is the claim that the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was opposed to Article V Conventions to achieve their objective. Our opposition has cherry-picked a statement from Antonin Scalia while ignoring other statements that he made during an interview with the KALB Report in 2014. Justice Scalia was asked the question, “If you could amend the Constitution in one way, what would it be and why?” He responded saying, quote, “I certainly would not want a Constitutional Convention. I mean, whoa, who knows what would come out of that?” Then Scalia continued to speak. Yet opposition ends their quotation of his comments right there. They want you to believe that when Antonin Scalia said he would not want a Constitutional Convention, that he was referring to an Article V Convention for proposing amendments. At first blush, it’s not clear what he meant when he said Constitutional Convention was referring to an Article V Convention for proposing amendments, or a Constitutional Convention for writing a whole new Constitution like the one held in Philadelphia in 1787. Perhaps we can gain a clue from the rest of his statement.
Susan Kay Dunn: Here is his entire statement. “I certainly would not want a Constitutional Convention. I mean, whoa, who knows what would come out of that? But if there were a targeted amendment that were adopted by the states, I think the only provision I would amend is the amendment provision. I figured out at one time what percentage of the populace could prevent an amendment to the Constitution. And if you take a bare majority of the smallest states by population, I think something less than 2% of the people could prevent a Constitutional Amendment. It ought to be hard, but it shouldn’t be that hard.” The full quotation makes it clear that Antonin Scalia supported amending the Constitution. In fact, he thought it should be easier to amend the Constitution by the states. This paints a very different picture. This suggests that when he was opposed to a Constitutional Convention, he was actually referring to a convention like the one in Philadelphia in 1787, not an Article V Convention. Please note that our opposition will use the term “Con-Con” when they’re actually referring to an Article V Convention for proposing amendments. There have only been two Constitutional Conventions in U.S. history.
Susan Kay Dunn: The one in 1787 and one in 1861 for the Confederate Constitution. Our opposition’s use of “Con-Con” causes confusion and reinforces the mental image or fear of a junta not merely to propose some amendments, but would rewrite the entire Constitution. Don’t be fooled. This is intentionally and totally misleading. For additional clarity on Antonin Scalia’s true opinion, we can look to a 1979 panel in which he participated. This was at the time of the Balanced Budget Amendment drive. Regarding Article V Convention, specifically, he said, “The Congress is simply unwilling to give attention to many issues which it knows the people are concerned with, which issues involve restrictions upon the federal government’s own power. I think the Founders foresaw that and they provided this method in order to enable a convention to remedy that.”
Philip Blumel: Let me share with you an episode from the Robert A. Stein book. What happens if a multistate convention, like the Uniform Law Commission, proposes something that is grossly unpopular? Let’s find out. In 1999, some folks argue that the ULC went off the rails when it approved the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, or UCITA. This was a proposed amendment to the Uniform Commercial Code regarding transactions involving computer information. The details of the proposal are not important for our purposes. The key thing is that this turned out to be a very controversial act that sparked squabbling even before the 1999 meeting, which turned out to be probably the most contentious one ever. Nonetheless, through debate and negotiation, the 50 state delegates of the ULC found enough common ground to approve the act, and then it was sent to the states. There it received backlash from the public, affected companies, and consumer organizations, and the states themselves. Uh oh, trouble. But here’s the key. Keep in mind that just like the Article V Convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution, the ULC doesn’t have any power to create, alter, or abolish any law. So what ended up happening was that 48 states rejected the ULC proposal altogether, and two, Virginia and Maryland, approved it with significant modifications.
Philip Blumel: That is to say, the proposal was essentially rejected. And this is hardly the first time ULC proposals have been rejected. The ULC has proposed many dozens of ideas that the states have ignored or overtly rejected, usually without the fireworks. Keep in mind that in the case of an Article V Convention, three quarters of the states, that is 38 red and blue states, have to ratify any proposal approved by an Article V Convention. Such are the checks and balances of the convention process. This isn’t theory. This isn’t fearmongering. This is history.
Philip Blumel: Next, a shout out now to Bert Accomando, who just published a book titled “We The People”, a Term Limits Manifesto. In it, Bert surveys the power relationship between the people and the government through the revolution and constitutional period to today’s era of career politicians and special interests. He sees term limits as an achievable solution to restore government accountability. Bert describes the progress made by U.S. Term Limits in persuading 12 states to officially apply for an Article V Amendment Proposing Convention limited to the subject of Congressional Term Limits. This, he agrees, is the most practical path to reform. But he goes further, calling for Americans to provide the visible public support needed to move state-level politicians to act.
Philip Blumel: And this is what he and his organization aims to provide. Sounds good to me. Bert Accomando’s book “We The People” a Term Limits Manifesto can be found in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle version at Amazon.com. An audio version, I hear, is on its way. Thanks, Bert.
Stacey Selleck: Like the show? You can help by subscribing and leaving a five-star review on both Apple and Spotify. It’s free.
Philip Blumel: Thanks for joining us for another episode of “No Uncertain Terms.” The Term Limits Convention bills are moving through the state legislatures. This could be a breakthrough year for the Term Limits Movement. To check on the status of the Term Limits Convention resolution in your state, go to termlimits.com/takeaction. There you will see if it has been introduced and where it stands in the commissioning process on its way to the floor vote. If there’s action to take, you’ll see a Take Action button by your state. Click it. This will give you the opportunity to send a message to the most relevant legislators urging them to support the legislation. They have to know you are watching. That’s termlimits.com/takeaction. If your state has already passed the Term Limits Convention resolution or the bill’s not been introduced in your state, you can still help. Please consider making a contribution to U.S. Term Limits. It is our aim to hit the reset button on the U.S. Congress, and you can help. Go to termlimits.com/donate. Termlimits.com/donate. Thanks. We’ll be back next week.
Stacey Selleck: Find us on most social media at @USTermLimits. Like us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and now LinkedIn.
Speaker 3: USTL.
