 Aloha, and welcome to Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Tilly Ikeena, and I'm delighted that you're joining us today. We have a very interesting topic here in the state of Hawaii out in the middle of the Pacific. We often feel isolated, and we call upon our federal government for many things, from national defense to help with the economy, to help with our education and social needs, and so forth. And yet, have we ever sat back? Have you ever done that and thought, is this a good thing? Well, it may not be as good as we think it is, because it comes with a heavy price tag. Our founding fathers, when they established the Constitution, were a little bit leery about a giant central government, and so they had the amendments added to the Constitution, one of which, Amendment Number 10 says that powers that the federal government are delegated, or powers other than those delegated to the federal government, are reserved for the states. Now what does that mean? Well, it's something to think about that, because over the last 200-plus years, I think we've seen the state's powers shrink quite a bit. There's someone who's an expert on that topic today, and he's the president, CEO of an organization called Convention of States. His name is Mark Mechler. He's an attorney by training, but he is advocated completely to the process of helping states regain their power, and I think you're going to enjoy hearing what he's doing across the nation. So I welcome today to our program Mark Mechler, president of the Convention of States. Mark, welcome to the program. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you for having me. Well, Mark, you're a Californian. We won't hold that against you, but that was a little bit about where you live and what your state is like. Sure. I was born and raised in California. I grew up in Los Angeles, California about 25 years ago. To escape the big city, I moved out to the country. I live in a small town in Northern California up in the foothills of the Sierra near Lake Tahoe. I've been up there, like I said, for 25 years. I've been married for 25 years, got a couple of kids. It's the most, well, maybe the second most beautiful state in the country. Well, thank you for that, and certainly there's beautiful scenery in California, but you're faced with some of the same kinds of challenges that we're faced with, especially in terms of the relationship between state power and federal government. But before we dive into that, and you tell us about your national organization, let's go back to our founding fathers. The 10th Amendment, that's such an important amendment. Can we talk a little bit about that? What were our founding fathers thinking when they said that powers that were not delegated to the federal government are reserved for the states? Look, I think the 10th Amendment was intended to set a very specific tone for the relationship between the federal government and the state governments. Looking back, we sometimes forget that the states created the federal government, not the other way around. Sometimes we feel like we're subsidiaries of a giant federal government, but it was really supposed to be exactly the opposite. The 10th Amendment was intended to be a specific carve-out, saying that we've given a very specific, limited amount of a very specific enumerated powers to the federal government, and the rest was supposed to be reserved to us as the people and to the states. Now would you say our founders were actually suspicious of a federal government? It's not as if the colonists came to America for the purpose of building a giant federal government. No, and it's not just the fact that they had faced tyranny previously from the central government, it's that they had a belief in government close to the people. They understood that when you can talk to your representatives, when you can meet with your representatives, when you see them out in the community, those people are going to do a better job governing you than people who might be thousands upon thousands of miles away. So accountability is one of the values that we lose when government becomes more remote from the people, and our ability to hold government leaders accountable diminishes when they're far off in Washington, D.C. Yeah, you guys are in a unique situation because you're so far away, but even in California, literally a couple thousand miles away from Washington, D.C., we have a lot of unaccountable unelected bureaucrats that are making decisions for us from far away. They never even come to our states. That's not something that the founders intended, and they tried to protect against that with the 10th Amendment. Now from the early days of our nation, there was a movement that latched on to the idea that power should remain in the states and as little power as possible should be yielded to the federal government. It was called federalism. And for some of our viewers, I need to explain that it's not what it sounds like. Today, federalism sounds like the growth of the federal government, but the whole concept of federalism was originally the idea that government should be distributed amongst the federated states and that each state should have power and the states together should have so much power that the federal government could not dominate. What's the state of federalism now in the United States? It's interesting because we have a lot of discussion about federalism in the United States. And I think usually it's wrong. We talk about competitive federalism. This is where the states are able to compete in a federalist system. I would argue, Dr. that we have something today. What I described is almost cartelized federalism. If you have states acceding to the taking of power by the federal government, certain states that prefer big government, ganging up against states that don't necessarily like big government, they would, you know. So it's an interesting state of federalism in America. It's certainly not what the founders intended. Now, why is it that big federal government has become so attractive? I know following the Depression and in the World War II, the bigger the government was, the greater the economy seemed, it seemed to be a solution to many of the ills in the United States. And people somewhat fell in love with that. But what is it that drives this notion of big central government? I think it's something that's very dangerous, which is I think people generally say, it would be nice if somebody else could take care of me. Maybe our state is having trouble doing that, so we're going to look to the federal government far away. I think there's a flip side to that coin. It's always important to remember that a federal government that can give you everything can also take everything away. And so one of the things that we don't pay attention to is kind of like the proverbial frog in the boiling water and the pot of hot water that's moving towards boiling. It happens slowly. Our rights get chipped away one by one more and more that federal government tells us what to do. We don't even realize it's happening until we get to where we're at today. Here's an interesting statistic. The average state budget is 65% controlled by the federal government, meaning the money that you think your legislature has the right to spend on your behalf, the decisions they're supposed to make. Those decisions, 65% of them, actually being made in one way or another by the federal government. Now, for some of our viewers, they may be watching us and saying, oh, there you are going along partisan lines. Republicans are for a small government and states' rights. Democrats are for a big government and no rights among states. What do you see your thought about that? Is this truly a partisan issue? It's absolutely not a partisan issue because this is actually the debate that I'm engaged in nationally is not about the appropriate size of government. It's about a much simpler question. It's not about any particular program, how much welfare they should be, or how much military there should be. The question is really, who decides? In Hawaii, do Hawaiian citizens decide for themselves through their legislature, through their communities, or does the federal government decide from far away? Do you decide between you and your doctor, or you and your school, you and your teachers, or does the federal government make those decisions for you? And whether you're in a state like mine, California, or a supermajority of Democrats like Hawaii, I want our legislature to have the power to decide for Californians. I think they do a better job than Washington DC can do for us. Now, Mark, you've been at the helm of a nationwide movement called Convention of States, and that's the name of your organization as well. Would you tell our viewers just a little bit about what Convention of States is all about, and how it came to be? Sure, I've participated as a grassroots activist for about the last 10 years, and the first four years or so engaged in more traditional political activity, trying to help people get elected and things like that. What I realize is my friends who are Democrats, my friends who are Republicans, and by the way, I'm neither, I'm an independent, everybody was frustrated. It didn't matter who was in Washington DC, it didn't matter who we voted for, who we sent there, it seemed like they weren't representing us. And so what I looked at is, and listen to people are a lot smarter than me, we have a structural problem. We have a power problem where the power is now concentrating in Washington DC, and regardless of which parties there, whether the Democrats control the White House and Congress or the Republicans control the White House and Congress, people are very unhappy and very frustrated. So there is a structural fix for that. It's found in Article 5 of the Constitution. In that article, it gives you and me, through our state legislatures, the power to call a convention, to get in a Convention of States and to propose amendments that would restructure the power balance between Washington DC and the states. Essentially, my goal is to restore some of Hawaii's sovereignty and California's sovereignty. All the states should have much more sovereignty than they do today. Now that's an interesting term sovereignty, and it makes some people rather nervous. Does sovereignty in any way connote necessarily secession, or in any case, a lack of patriotism for the nation? Well, yeah, this is the nature of federalism. The states were supposed to retain certain sovereign rights, and most of government was supposed to take place at the state level. We have a power pyramid in the United States with the very top today is the federal government, very broad, very unenumerated powers. They can do almost anything they want to do, and the states now have been relegated to very limited powers and very specific powers, and it was supposed to be the opposite. Really, the states were supposed to be at the top of the power pyramid, all connected. We're not talking about secession. We're just talking about who decides. My opinion, I just spent a bunch of time in Hawaii is people in Hawaii would like to decide for themselves, and I think are more than capable of doing so. Now you said that a convention of the states could be called by the separate states. In other words, the states themselves could take a certain action and call for the holding of a convention of states nationally. How would that process work? The Constitution specifies there are two ways to propose amendments. The first is the federal government through Congress, two-thirds of each house could propose an amendment and then put it out to the states for ratification by 38 states or three-quarters of the states. The second way, the way that we're utilizing today is two-thirds of the states can act through their state legislatures by joint resolution between the houses to call for a convention. And when you get to 34 states, the states gather in convention and they debate proposed amendments. Those amendments, by the way, and this is really important. I know you have this idea going on in Hawaii right now about a constitutional convention you deal with every 10 years on your ballot. This is very different because in this convention, it can only be called for a very specific purpose. And so there are limited things that can be discussed at the convention. That's what we're engaged in right now. By the way, 12 states have already passed this call for a convention. I was just about to ask you that. You've seen 12 who've jumped on board. How many are in the hopper very close to coming on board now? And how many do you need ultimately? 34, right? We need 34, there are 19 states right now that have passed it in one house or another. So we're halfway there. You have to pass in both houses in the same session. So we have to restart in a bunch of those. But we know we've got momentum in at least 19. And I think we have a very good shot in 2019. I'm passing another 10 to 12 states. I hope to finish in 2020 and then be in convention by 2021 is the goal. Well, I'm also glad you clarified that this issue, at least for our Hawaii viewers, is not the same thing as the constitutional convention, which is going to be a ballot measure on our November 6th general election ticket. And in other words, we're talking about something totally different. What would be the first step Hawaii would have to take if enough people in Hawaii were interested in having a convention of states? Legislatures, it gets sponsored in one or both houses. So it's called a joint resolution. It has to go through a committee process. We have a committee hearing. We actually had a committee hearing in 2018. It goes before a committee. People come in and testify in favor and against. Once you get out of the committee, you go to a general vote on the floor. Once you pass it in both houses, then it adds to the 12 resolutions that are already on file. Recently, you did have people come and testify at the Hawaii State Legislature in favor of a convention of states. The resolution did not pass. What were some of the reasons you think it didn't pass at that time? You know, I think it's the same reason that it doesn't pass anywhere that it doesn't pass. And that reason is fear, quite simply. And what's put out there, and then the one objection I'll just state it openly is that people say is they fear what they call a runaway convention. In other words, they fear that we'll get into convention and then people will do whatever they want. See, because the way this resolution actually reads, there are only three things that can be discussed in conventions. Anything that would impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, like maybe a balanced budget amendment or generally accepted accounting principles. Anything that would impose term limits on federal officials, that would include Congress, the courts, as well as the bureaucracy. Anything that would limit the scope and power of this government. Nothing else can be discussed in convention. People come in and they're worried that they convention can do whatever it wants. That's just not the case, but that fear is definitely out there. Well, thank you, Mark. We're gonna take a quick break now and then come back and talk with you a little bit more about this. My guest today is Mark Mechler, the president and CEO of Convention of States. We're on Think Tech Hawaii's Hawaii Together. We'll be right back in just a moment. Don't go away. Hello, everyone. This is the video of Think Tech Hawaii delivering in Japanese. Hello, Hawaii. This is the host of the Japanese broadcast, Kunisue Yukari. We're delivering from 2 p.m. to the weekend. We're delivering information on the Japanese community, useful information, news, and other guests. Hello, Hawaii. Please watch on the weekend from 2 p.m. This was host Kunisue Yukari. Aloha. Hi, I'm Bill Sharp, host of Asian Review here on Think Tech Hawaii. Join me every Monday afternoon from 5 to 5.30 Hawaii Standard Time for an insightful discussion of Contemporary Asian Affairs. There's so much to discuss and the guests that we have are very, very well-informed. Just think we have the upcoming negotiation between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. The possibility of Xi Jinping, the leader of China remaining in power forever. We'll see you then. I welcome you back to Hawaii Together on Think Tech Hawaii, the broadcast network that is producing every week about 35 hours of live television on all kinds of issues from the state of Hawaii. Here in downtown Honolulu, Think Tech Hawaii looks at politics, government, science, technology, education. You name it. If it's relevant to the world, we are talking about it. ThinkTechHawaii.com. I'm Kaley Akina, and today my guest is Mark Mechler, the president, CEO of Convention of States. We've been talking about why it's so important to get a hold of the runaway growth of the federal government. And I'm gonna go back to Mark now. And Mark, let's just talk again about that runaway growth of the federal government. You see, when I talk to people about the federal government, I certainly do hear different things. Americans are proud. Some are angry. But for the most part, nobody is satisfied. Nobody is satisfied. And there's some issues that resonate over and over again. One of them happens to be the size and impact of the federal government and what that means in terms of our taxes. Another issue has to deal with term limits and whether government has any capacity to change. Mark, what are some of the biggest motivators to people for wanting to have a convention of states that would reel in the power of the federal government? You know, I think all of them are just common sense things. So the first is anybody who is out there working for a living, managing a family or their own personal life knows you gotta balance your checkbook. You can't indefinitely spend more money than you bring in. And that's what the federal government is doing. We're over $21 trillion in debt right now. They say with off-book liabilities, long-term liabilities are about $140 trillion. No, I don't even know what that means. I don't think anybody does, except we're broke. And so the bottom line is we can't keep doing that. People know the federal government needs to get its house in order. And so there's something called a balanced budget amendment where you could force the federal government to do that so that folks will make the difficult decisions in Congress they have to make to balance the budget. About 85% of Americans support that one really easily. In other words, a convention of states would give the states the power to force initiatives like the balanced budget. And what else could there be that could come about from a convention of states? Well, here's another one that's really popular. There's an incredible frustration in America with people who go to Congress. They make it a lifetime career. They become incredibly wealthy while they're there. The longer they're there, the less in touch they are with the citizens of their own state. And so we need to impose term limits on Congress. About 85% of Americans over the last 30 years consistently poll, they want term limits on Congress. And so I think that's something we could do out of a convention. So by the way, people also, when they discuss it, want term limits on the Supreme Court. Maybe we don't have to have such severe fights about the Supreme Court anymore. And they want term limits on federal bureaucrats who are unaccountable. So these are things that we could actually impose from the states. The federal government and Congress will never impose on itself. Mark, you mentioned earlier that the notion of a convention of states is not at all partisan, that there are supporters and detractors on both sides of the aisle. Who are some of the allies in the government now who would really like to see a convention of states? And along with that, where would you say the current presidential administration is on this matter? So the project itself started on the right, I think, just because for a long time, I think the left wasn't paying as much attention to the Constitution. I think we've seen that shift. I hear a lot of federalism talk from folks on the left that are frustrated with Washington DC right now. I agree with them that federalism is the way to go. The Trump administration hasn't commented on this at all. So I think it's just not in their line of sight. And frankly, because it has to come from the states, not from Washington DC. But you see some, what I would describe as very moderate people like Marco Rubio from Florida is in favor of Senator Marco Rubio from Florida is in favor of this. Senator Ben Sasse is in favor of this. Governor Jeff Bush is a guy who's in favor of this and is spoken out in favor of it. So there are a lot of folks, I would say, are very moderate and middle of the rest. The people who oppose this, interestingly, tend to be people on the far right and people on the far left. The broad swamp of the middle of America is in support of these comments and ideas. I think you're talking about people who tend to be more in favor of activism. And as such, a convention is an opportunity for activism. In fact, you've seen a lot of enthusiasm over the idea of a constitutional convention of the states and have actually done a national simulation. You want to tell our viewers about that? Yeah, so this has never been done in American history. It's been the Constitution. It's been there since the very beginning. It was put there unanimously by the founders. There was no debate about it. But we've never done it. And so we wanted to try to see how it would actually work. And so two years ago, we got together in historic Williamsburg, Virginia. We brought in legislators and retired legislators from all over the country, two to three from every state, about 150 of them from across the country. They spent two days in a convention. They used the same sort of rules they would use in a convention. They debated amendments along these three subject matter areas I described. They came out with six proposals, among them balanced budget and term limits, things like that. It was really incredible for me. One of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. They were delegates from Hawaii as well. And they debated like statesmen. It was amazing to watch. I think we're very good people, become great people, rise to the circumstances, understand they were dealing with something as important as our Constitution and the foundations of our government. Really an incredible inspiring thing. You can watch it online, by the way, at conventionofstates.com. You can click on or type in simulation and you can find about six hours of videotape of that simulation. There have been several issues that have gone national over the last decade and there have been mixed results, sometimes catastrophic results. One of those that has divided people hotly is the Affordable Care Act in terms of health care. Have any thoughts about that? Before that, let me say this. Prior to the Affordable Care Act, Hawaii had a very progressive system in which we had over 95% coverage of all people in the state of Hawaii. It was a public-private partnership between businesses and the states. But with the Affordable Care Act, we went through a real roller coaster and are just getting our system back into gear a bit. Do you think that there are lessons to learn about federal control over large processes such as health care? Yeah, I do. I think the Affordable Care Act is a perfect example. Whatever you believe in, whether you believe in single-payer and totally private system, I think the states are much more well-equipped to handle that on their own. I mean, you described it perfectly for Hawaii. Hawaii had an understanding of what their citizens wanted and needed and could afford. And California is different and Texas is different. And I'm in favor of the states doing what they wanna do. I'd like to see that money and that control return to the states and let the states figure it out on their own. And Hawaii had a system that was working. Why should the federal government get in there and mess it up? That's really fundamentally the point of convention of states generally. Let's let our states do what they know how to do. Let's make sure that they have the funds. You don't have to pay those funds to DC and have them come back, keep the funds right there in Hawaii or California, Texas, and design a system that works for your own citizens. I'm gonna ask you to kind of take a backward step and instead of focus solely on the United States, look across the world. Do you think that there's any relationship between strong central government, versus states' rights, as we're talking about in the United States and in the lessons we've learned about democracy in other nations? I think there, I mean, the closest that we can see, I think in modern times is the European Union. And obviously the European Union is a loose confederation of sovereign nations. I think it's an example of something very dangerous. I think we're trending towards that. The EU, by its very structure, is more centralized. You don't vote for your representatives in the EU. They're appointed. They are not accountable to people, to regular people back in the home states. I think that's very dangerous. I think that's why we're seeing pushback against the EU. You're seeing things like Brexit and people rising up in other countries against EU control. So I think that's where we're headed. Actually, more centralized control, less input from the people. I think ultimately people rebel against that. Ultimately too, any kind of convention of states would be an activist movement. I'm sure you've got lots of stories of people who have been successful in achieving their state's endorsement of this. Do you want to tell us one or two of those stories before we go? Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a diversity of stories. Two that I would take out that I think are really interesting are very different states. One is Alaska. I would argue Alaska is kind of the last frontier state. So it's really got still the frontier mentality. It was one of our states that passed very early on. I think the most interesting thing is Alaska passed. We really as a national organization have almost nothing to do with it. The activists acted on their own. They're very independent folks. They don't have official committee meetings in the legislature. They do it by the telephone because of the geography. And they pretty much said, hey, just leave us alone. We've got the materials. We'll get it done. And they did. Another state that's really interesting is Texas. And Texas is this vast geographic state that's got a big population about 27, 28 million people right now. It took two full sessions and they only meet every other year. So it's a four year process to get it done. In the end, they had over 150,000 grassroots activists involved in that movement. The one piece that I would add to that I think Hawaii should be really proud about. I think that we have one of the strongest leadership teams anywhere in the country in Hawaii. Mark White leads that team. He's there in Honolulu. Really strong grassroots network there. I was there. But population, by the way, as a percentage of population, Hawaii has about double the average number of citizens engaged in conventional states as anywhere else in the country. Well, that's incredible. And I think that may be in part be that there's a sense of helplessness from the state level itself as to how to solve many of our problems. And by loosening the grasp that the federal government has on Hawaii, we may find a new pathway to solution. Mark, we've come to the close of our program. I want to thank you for being here. Any last word to our viewers before you leave? Yeah, the main thing is, if you want to know more about this, go to conventionofstates.com. It's all there. If you go to the FAQs and spend a half an hour, you'll be an expert on the subject. And if you want to help Hawaii and the other states take the power away from the federal government and return it to the citizens, sign up and become part of the convention of states project. Mark, I'm so glad you joined us today. Thank you for all your hard work and thanks to all of the members of your organization here in the state of Hawaii and nationwide. Mark Mechler, convention of states. Aloha and thank you for being with us, Mark. Aloha, thank you. And to all of you watching on Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network, we look forward to seeing you next week on Hawaii Together. I'm Kay Lee Ikeena. Until then, aloha.