BBA Article V Convention Status

At present, the legislatures of 26 states have fully passed and transmitted applications to Congress for the specific purpose of calling a convention to propose a federal Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) to the U.S. Constitution. These states, with “live” or outstanding applications to Congress to call a BBA Con-Con, are highlighted in red on the map below. Only eight more states are needed to trigger a risky convention. To ensure they don’t reach the required three-fourths or 34 states, residents of the 26 states with outstanding BBA Con-Con applications are urged to get rescission resolutions passed.

Residents of targeted and untargeted states are urged to stop the passage of any BBA Con-Con applications in their state legislatures.

To view and take action against currently-introduced Con-Con application resolutions visit our State Action Alerts page and/or the Take Action section of this action project.

BBA Constitutional Convention Threat

A BBA Article V convention would have the inherent power to be a runaway convention that could make harmful changes in the Constitution, including a new ratification procedure, or even completely rewrite it.

Apart from the problems with an Article V convention of any type, a Balanced Budget Amendment itself would tend to legitimize the longstanding usurpations of powers by federal officials by changing the question about legislation from “Is it constitutional?” to “Will it balance the budget?”, thereby moving our nation away from its founding as a constitutional republic (rule of law) and toward being a democracy (rule of men).

BBA Loopholes

Based on most drafts of Balanced Budget Amendments (BBAs), we would expect a BBA to have loopholes. One example of such a loophole would be: Congress would be exempt from having to balance the federal budget in the event of variously defined national emergencies, such as war, etc. A second example of a BBA loophole would be: Congress would be permitted to approve a deficit budget if 60 percent of both houses of Congress agreed.

A BBA with such loopholes could not be counted on to guarantee an end to budget deficits.