Constitutional Convention Conference Slated at Harvard

Activists, Scholars, Lawmakers to Debate Article V Amendment Process

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Tea Party Patriots, the nation’s largest tea party organization, today announced that Mark Meckler, Co-Founder and National Coordinator, will co-chair the Conference on the Constitutional Convention at Harvard Law School along with the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University and law professor Lawrence Lessig.  The event, September 24-25, will feature people from across America from the Left and the Right to discuss the advisability and feasibility of a Constitutional Convention.

The conference will host legal, legislative and history experts who will discuss their interpretations of Article V, their understanding of how the Founders viewed the provision and how a Constitutional Convention would operate today.

“It is clear Congress cannot enact the change we desperately need,” said Meckler.  “The Tea Party Patriots neither endorses nor opposes an Article V convention at this time.  But America is clearly in crisis, and we think it’s an important discussion in which all American viewpoints should be represented. The Founders included the Amendment process for the states to resist federal overreach and a convention would give states the chance to exert their authority and overturn unconstitutional laws. It is an idea that deserves reasoned discussion without the partisan or ideological underpinnings.”

WHO: Mark Meckler; Co-Founder and National Coordinator, Tea Party Patriots

           Lawrence Lessig; Director, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University

WHAT: Conference on the Constitutional Convention

WHERE: Harvard Law School, Pound Hall’s Ropes Gray Room

WHEN: September 24-25, 2011

“From the Tea Party Right to the Progressive Left, there is agreement that something fundamental has gone wrong,” says Lessig.  “The solution to that disagreement is democracy. We should begin the long discussion about how best to reform our democracy, to restore its commitment to liberty and a Republic, by beginning a process to amend the Constitution through the one path the Framers gave us that has not yet been taken — a Convention.

Tea Party Patriots is a national grassroots coalition with more than 3,500 locally organized chapters and more than 15 million supporters nationwide.  Tea Party Patriots is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets.  Visit www.TeaPartyPatriots.org.

For further information, please contact Jameson Cunningham with Shirley & Banister Public Affairs at jcunningham@sbpublicaffairs.com or (703) 739-5920 or (800) 536-5920.