Convention of States is wrong. On August 21, 2026, Convention of States Action published “Inside Michael Barbuto’s crusade to save Nevada from entrenched constitutional misinformation.” I am linking directly to it because I am not afraid of anyone reading their arguments for themselves.
Their article begins by misstating the Nevada Republican Party platform, makes serious claims about Nevada Republicans without producing evidence, dismisses legitimate constitutional questions as “nonsense,” portrays opponents as fearful and power hungry, and advances the central COS claim that Article V is the Founders’ mechanism for restraining a federal government that refuses to obey the Constitution.
That central claim is wrong.
Article V changes the Constitution when the Constitution itself needs correction. Government refusing to obey the Constitution is a different problem entirely. As Albert Einstein warned, “Whoever is careless with truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.” Changing the supreme law of the United States is an important affair. Accuracy, honesty and willingness to confront contrary evidence matter.
CREDIBILITY MATTERS
After more than a decade working directly on this issue, I have repeatedly encountered COS conduct and claims that raise serious questions about the integrity of this movement. This is not about ordinary disagreement. It is about specific statements and actions that can be examined.
COS’s current article says the Nevada GOP “opposes Article V.” It does not. The platform supports the Constitution and specifically opposes Nevada applying for an Article V convention. The article also claims Nevada Republican candidates secretly support COS but are afraid to say so because they want GOP money, yet identifies no candidates, threats or evidence. COS calls serious constitutional objections “nonsense” while avoiding the underlying documents. And in 2020, Guard The Constitution publicly invited Mark Meckler or another qualified COS representative to debate Article V at the Idaho Legislature; COS did not provide someone to take the other side.
I have also personally documented Nevada COS conduct that was deceptive, including a 2026 resolution represented as a Douglas County submission even though it had not been adopted by the Douglas County Republican Convention. The current Nevada COS Director emailed this resolution to the 2026 Nevada GOP Convention Resolutions Committee as if it had been officially approved by a Douglas County GOP entity. It had not even been presented to one. People can examine the records and draw their own conclusions, but this history matters when COS portrays its critics as people afraid to defend their positions.
If you want Americans to entrust your movement with changing their Constitution, your factual accuracy and integrity are relevant.
COS’S FIRST CLAIM ABOUT NEVADA IS FALSE
The actual Nevada Republican Platform (lines 33-40) says: “We support the Constitution of the United States, which includes the Bill of Rights, in its original intent…”
It then says officials taking an Article VI oath must honor that oath “as the method of enforcing it,” and concludes:
“We oppose the Nevada Legislature applying for an Article V convention.”
That is not opposition to Article V. Article V gives states authority to apply for a convention; it does not require them to do so. Nevada Republicans can support Article V as part of the Constitution while deciding Nevada should not invoke it.
COS turns those entirely different propositions into one and then calls Nevada’s position an “oxymoron.”
That is not constitutional education. It is misrepresentation.
A DEFECT IN THE CONSTITUTION IS NOT THE SAME AS DISOBEDIENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION
This is the heart of the entire debate.
If experience reveals an actual defect in the Constitution, Article V provides a way to amend it. But if government officials exercise powers never granted, disregard constitutional limits, or violate their oath, that is not an error in the Constitution. It is an error in constitutional obedience.
James Madison described Article V in Federalist No. 43 as providing a means to correct constitutional “errors” and “discovered faults.” Exactly. Article V repairs actual defects in the constitutional structure.
St. George Tucker made the distinction even clearer by separately identifying constitutional “defects which experience may point out” and “abuses which unfaithful agents may practice.”
Those are two different problems.
Defects may require amendment. Abuses require enforcement.
If officials refuse to obey the Constitution we already have, adding more words does not solve the underlying problem of disobedience.
THE FOUNDERS TOLD US HOW TO HANDLE USURPATION
Hamilton addressed federal usurpation directly in Federalist No. 33. Federal acts outside delegated authority, he explained, are “merely acts of usurpation.” His answer was not to amend the Constitution. The Constitution itself remained the standard against which the usurpation was measured.
Madison was even more specific. In Federalist No. 44, when Congress exercises powers “not warranted by its true meaning,” he says the ultimate remedy must come from the people, who can elect more faithful representatives and “annul the acts of the usurpers.” Federalist No. 46 adds public opposition, refusal to cooperate, resistance by state executives and state legislative measures capable of creating serious obstacles to federal overreach.
That is constitutional enforcement: the people, the states, elections, federalism, separation of powers, refusal to cooperate where constitutionally appropriate, and political accountability.
The architecture already exists.
ARTICLE VI, NOT ARTICLE V, COMMANDS OBEDIENCE
The Constitution itself makes the distinction clear. Article V provides a process for proposing amendments. Article VI declares the Constitution supreme, limits federal supremacy to laws made “in Pursuance” of the Constitution, and binds federal and state officials by oath to support it.
Article V changes the Constitution. Article VI binds government to the Constitution.
That is why the Nevada Republican platform specifically connects Article VI with enforcement.
JEFFERSON SAID: DEFEND THE CONSTITUTIONAL LINE
Thomas Jefferson addressed federal encroachment directly in his December 23, 1791 letter to Archibald Stuart. He wrote that strengthening the states against encroachment: “cannot be done by any change in the federal constitution”
because: “the preservation of that is all we need contend for.”
Instead, Jefferson said the states themselves should erect barriers “at the constitutional line.”
Jefferson saw the danger of federal encroachment and did not say, “Change the Constitution every time Washington crosses the line.” He said to preserve the Constitution and defend the line.
When government crosses the constitutional line, enforce the line. Don’t move it.
FEDERALIST 49 MATTERS
Madison also examined a proposal in Federalist No. 49 involving conventions for altering a constitution or “correcting breaches of it.” He acknowledged the people’s ultimate authority but rejected repeated convention appeals as the proper ordinary method for maintaining constitutional boundaries, warning about instability, passion and partisan influence.
Federalist 49 was not discussing an Article V convention, but the principle is directly relevant: Madison considered convention appeals as a response to constitutional breaches and warned against making them the routine enforcement mechanism.
That deserves a serious answer from COS.
THE EMERGENCY CHECKLIST ANALOGY
My aviation and flight-safety background makes the distinction simple.
Suppose an aircraft has an engine fire. The crew has a properly designed emergency checklist directly in front of them, but they ignore it.
Do you conclude the checklist failed and start rewriting it while the airplane is burning?
Of course not.
You execute the checklist.
If experience later reveals an actual flaw in the checklist, then you amend it. But failure to follow the checklist is not proof that the checklist itself is defective.
The same principle applies to the Constitution.
America’s problem is not primarily that politicians have run out of constitutional restrictions to violate. The problem is that they violate restrictions already there—and We The People too often allow it.
COS CANNOT DISMISS SERIOUS QUESTIONS AS “NONSENSE”
The COS article calls concerns about a runaway convention “all a bunch of nonsense” and a “runaway convention fantasy.” But there has never been an Article V convention, and serious constitutional questions remain about convention scope, delegate authority, congressional involvement, application aggregation and procedure.
What COS cannot legitimately do is make those questions disappear by ridiculing the people asking them.
The history of 1787 also cannot simply be brushed aside. The Philadelphia Convention was called within a defined framework and ultimately produced an entirely new Constitution and ratification procedure violative of the majority of delegate commissions from the states that sent delegates. Madison acknowledged that in at least one important respect the Convention departed from the tenor of its commission.
STOP TELLING OPPONENTS WHAT THEY SECRETLY THINK
COS also claims Nevada candidates secretly support the movement but are afraid to admit it because they want Republican Party money. Who? Which candidates? Which races? Who threatened their funding? Where is the evidence? The article provides none.
Likewise, calling opponents fearful, power hungry or misinformed does not answer Federalist 33, 44, 46 or 49. A “Constitution Coach” title does not answer them either—particularly when Patriot Academy itself tells prospective coaches they are “NOT expected to be the authority on the subject.”
Titles do not prove constitutional propositions. Documents do.
THE QUESTION COS STILL MUST ANSWER
Nobody disputes that Article V is constitutional. Nobody disputes that genuine constitutional defects may require amendments.
The question is: Was Article V designed as the Founders’ mechanism for making government obey constitutional restrictions it is already refusing to obey?
The documentary record repeatedly proves no! Hamilton says unconstitutional exercises of authority are usurpations. Madison tells the people to replace unfaithful representatives and explains how states can resist unwarranted federal measures. Article VI binds government by oath. Jefferson says federal encroachment should be answered by preserving the Constitution and defending the constitutional line. Tucker distinguishes constitutional defects from abuses by unfaithful agents.
That is the debate COS must answer.
A defect in the Constitution is not the same thing as disobedience to the Constitution. When the Constitution actually contains a defect, amend it. When government violates the Constitution, enforce it.
Educate the people. Expose the usurpation. Use the states. Use elections. Hold officials to their oath. Replace unfaithful representatives. Make constitutional violations politically unbearable. Nullify and Interpose!
America does not suffer because the Constitution contains too few restraints on Washington.
America suffers because Washington repeatedly ignores restraints already there—and because We The People have too often allowed it.
The Constitution is not the problem. Our failure to enforce it is.
ARTICLE VI — NOT ARTICLE V. ENFORCE THE CONSTITUTION. DON’T REWRITE IT BECAUSE GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO OBEY IT.