Insider: There’s a 50-50 chance states will call for a constitutional convention within 5 years: conservative legal scholar

A conservative movement to call a first-of-its-kind constitutional convention is gaining momentum. And a leading legal mind behind that movement predicts a “roughly” 50% chance of that convention happening within five years.

Rob Natelson’s work and advocacy is the legal backbone of the much of conservative movement to call a convention. Natelson, a conservative constitutional scholar, has written extensively and published numerous academic articles on Article V of the Constitution.

Article V provides two methods to amend the Constitution. Either Congress can pass an amendment — which is how all 27 amendments to the Constitution were added — or two-thirds of US states can call for a convention to amend the document, which has never been done.  …

Convention of States, unlike previous movements pushing for a convention, is bankrolled by powerful conservative interests.

“What we’re seeing now, that we haven’t really seen before, is people putting money into it. The Mark Mecklers of the world are putting money into it,” Viki Harrison, director of Constitutional Convention and Protecting Dissent Programs at Common Cause, told Insider.

Meckler’s groups, Convention of States Action and Citizens for Self Governance, have received millions of dollars from groups including the Koch-connected DonorsTrust, the Mercer Family Foundation, and groups connected to powerful conservative lawyer Leonard Leo, tax filings obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy show.

“It’s the first time any of these applications have had this much movement in quite some time,” said Harrison, who lobbies against the convention movement in statehouses across the country.