{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Key to the Cage: Is It Time for an Article V Convention?","description":"As America approaches its 250th anniversary, America at 250: Due Diligence turns to one of the most consequential \u2014 and least understood \u2014 provisions in the U.S. Constitution: Article V, and the question of whether the country should call its first-ever Article V convention. This episode opens in the summer of 1787, inside a sweltering Pennsylvania Statehouse, where George Mason \u2014 one of the sharpest minds at the Constitutional Convention \u2014 warned that the founders were \u201cbuilding a cage without a key.\u201d Mason\u2019s insistence on a state-led convention process became Article V\u2019s second amendment pathway, a mechanism that has never once been used in 250 years of American history. Today, that mechanism is at the center of a growing political movement. The Convention of States Project has organized more than 20 states behind a push to convene a convention aimed at imposing fiscal restraints, term limits, and jurisdictional limits on the federal government. Supporters call it the founders\u2019 intended check on a federal government that won\u2019t check itself. Critics warn it\u2019s a legal \u201cpig in a poke\u201d \u2014 a process with no rules for who attends, what they can do, or how it could be stopped once started. To unpack the history, the strategy, and the stakes, the episode brings together three very different voices: a constitutional law scholar who has spent years studying Article 5\u2019s uncertainties, the leader of the nationwide campaign to trigger a convention, and a former U.S. senator whose book lays out why he believes the effort poses a serious danger to the Constitution as we know it. Together, they wrestle with a question that traces straight back to George Mason\u2019s \u201ccage without a key\u201d: is Article V\u2019s convention clause a safety valve the founders wisely built in \u2014 or a loophole that\u2019s never been tested because it\u2019s too dangerous to use? Hosts Steve Herman Steve Herman is a veteran journalist and former White House Bureau Chief for Voice of America. He brings decades of reporting experience to America at 250: Due Diligence, helping guide the series through the historical, political, and institutional questions that have shaped the United States. Website: Steve Herman X: @newsguyUSA Bill Bernardoni Bill Bernardoni is the founder of Bernardoni Media & Marketing and co-host of America at 250: Due Diligence. His work focuses on building, producing, and distributing podcasts and radio programs that bring serious conversations to broad audiences. Website: Bernardoni Media & Marketing Blog: The Bernardoni Brief X: @BillBernardoni Guests Featured in This Episode David Super David A. Super is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics at Georgetown University Law Center, where his research focuses on constitutional law, administrative law, and the federal budget. He has written and testified extensively on Article 5, including before state legislatures considering convention-related resolutions, and is a leading voice raising questions about the legal uncertainties surrounding a convention\u2019s scope, delegate selection, and ratification process. Faculty Page: David A. Super \u2014 Georgetown Law Mark Meckler Mark Meckler is the co-founder and president of Convention of States Action, part of Citizens for Self-Governance, and a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. He leads the nationwide campaign to call an Article V convention of states aimed at imposing fiscal restraints, term limits, and jurisdictional limits on the federal government \u2014 an effort that has secured resolutions from 20 states. Website: Convention of States Project X: @MarkMeckler Russ Feingold Russ Feingold is a former U.S. senator from Wisconsin, where he served nearly two decades and was the lone vote against the Patriot Act. He is the co-author, with Peter Prindiville, of The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It, which examines the risks of an Article 5 convention and the broader challenges of constitutional change in a polarized era. Book: The Constitution in Jeopardy \u2014 Hachette Book Group Listener Question As America turns 250, do you think Article 5\u2019s convention clause is a safeguard the founders got right, a loophole too dangerous to use, or something that needs to be reformed before anyone calls a convention? Join the conversation and respond by sending us an email by visiting RadioFreeAmerica.media. ","author_name":"America at 250: Due Diligence","author_url":"https:\/\/sites.libsyn.com\/621300","html":"