Hawkeye Reporter

It’s been more than two months since President Biden was inaugurated, and the Iowa Convention of States (COS) has experienced a change among its members, according to a national COS executive.

“Our movement is more energized than I have ever seen it,” said Rita Dunaway, senior vice president of legislative affairs for the national COS team. “The fact that the Biden administration looks like it's on a path to make D.C. bigger and more powerful than ever before, I'd say the silver lining would be that it is a wake-up call to the people in the state to see that there is a meaningful solution. It is a long-game solution that has the potential to reign in not only this administration but future administrations as well.”

The COS project is a nonprofit group calling for a convention called by state legislatures under Article V of the U.S. Constitution to propose amendments to the constitution.

“What I can tell you about its progress in Iowa is that it passed three-person subcommittees in both the House and the Senate but it is still just sitting in the full committees and they have not acted on it yet, but it did pass in both subcommittees,” Dunaway told the Hawkeye Reporter.

Overall, COS Iowa has 25,000 members who are working at engineering change by organizing a national convention.

“Our Convention of State resolution proposes amendment on the three subject matters, which include imposing fiscal restraints on Washington, limiting federal power and jurisdiction and setting term limits for federal officials,” Dunaway said in an interview.

Iowa legislative sponsors who introduced the resolution include GOP state Sens. Zach Whiting, Brad Zaun, Dan Dawson and Dennis Guth, as well as state Reps. John Wills, Shannon Lundgren and Bobby Kaufman, also all Republicans. 

“I'm surprised, honestly, that we haven't yet passed a resolution in Iowa," Dunaway said. "It seems to me that Iowa is a state where people have an appreciation for policy-making that happens close to home rather than policy being handed down from this massive centralized government in Washington, D.C.” 

Iowa isn’t the only state inching toward passing a COS resolution.

“The West Virginia Senate just passed a resolution on a voice vote on March 24 and now it is headed to the House,” she said. “Wisconsin passed a resolution through their House last year and is now pending in the Senate. It looks really good there. South Carolina and North Carolina look good for this year as well.”

Florida was the last of 15 states whose legislatures passed a COS resolution, according to media reports. 

A total of 34 states need to join before action can be taken toward hosting a convention of states as outlined in Article V of the U.S. Constitution.

An obstacle is the fear of a "runaway" convention, which Dunaway says is irrational.

“There is zero precedent for this idea of a runaway convention,” she said. “The whole idea is complete fantasy and conjecture. There is actually a rich history of various interstate conventions in America and not one of them has ever run away. Not one of them has ever gone outside the bounds of what they were scheduled, prepared and scheduled to do.”

Other states whose legislatures have passed the resolution include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Missouri, Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.