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Committee hears memorial to rescind five historical Article V applications
Summary
The committee heard Senate Joint Memorial 8008, which would rescind all prior Washington state applications for an Article V constitutional convention. Sponsors and public witnesses said rescission would "clean the slate" on century-old applications and avoid an unintended trigger for a constitutional convention.
Senate Joint Memorial 8008, presented to the State Government & Tribal Relations Committee, would rescind all prior applications by the Washington legislature that requested a constitutional convention under Article V of the United States Constitution.
Connor Schiff, counsel to the committee, summarized Article V options and told members that the state has made five Article V applications in its history; he said there is no national repository for those applications and that legal scholars disagree on whether such applications expire. The staff memo the committee received identifies five applications dating from 1901 to 1963.
Senator Deb Krisha Dawson, identified as the prime sponsor, described the five historical applications and said they covered different subjects: an unrestricted application in 1901; a 1903 application pushing for direct election of U.S. senators; 1909 and 1911 applications concerning bans on polygamy; and a 1963 application seeking a limited convention addressing federal restraints on state initiative and redistricting powers. Dawson said rescinding those prior applications would prevent Washington's historical filings from contributing to a future two-thirds threshold that could call a constitutional convention.
Public testimony supporting the memorial included remarks from Charles Beck, a resident testifying that the measure would "clean the slate," and Dennis Siegel of the Washington Federation of State Employees, who said an Article V convention is untested and could present risks to constitutional stability.
Witnesses urged the committee to advance the memorial. No formal vote was taken during the hearing; committee staff closed public testimony and the committee proceeded to other business.
The memorial does not itself change federal law; it would only instruct the state legislature to rescind prior in-state applications. The staff summary noted uncertainty in legal scholarship about whether historical Article V applications remain effective and that no state has ever used the Article V convention method to amend the U.S. Constitution.
