Congresswoman Harriet Hageman on Stopping a Con-Con

During an interview on Cowboy State Politics with David Iverson, the host asked Congresswoman Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) to take a few minutes to explain to her constituents why an Article V constitutional convention could be dangerous. This audio clip is her response.

Congresswoman Hageman replied:

“Part of the reason that people want to have a constitutional convention is they don’t believe that we are adhering to our existing Constitution. And my view of it is how about if we enforce the Constitution as it currently exists and 95 or 98 percent of your concerns would go away.

“Just as we were talking about the First Amendment, talking about this grizzly bear issue is a 10th Amendment issue in reality. What are states’ rights? What authority should the state have in terms of wildlife management? I think that that my position always has been is how about if we adhere to and enforce the existing Constitution and then we can talk about what tweaks are necessary and how you would go about doing them.

“The problem with the constitutional convention is I don't see how there are constraints that that would not have result in a runaway convention.

“We have over the years, and I'm not reflecting on anybody in the in the House or the Senate right now, I haven't even met some of the new people in the House and the Senate and I look forward to that, but we've had people in previous years that I vehemently disagree with. They may have an “R” behind their name but I vehemently disagree with them on their policies, their positions, and their viewpoint of how Wyoming should be governed. Yet, had we had a constitutional convention when they were in positions of power, they most likely would have been the ones representing the state of Wyoming in that process.

“I think that it’s incredibly dangerous and I think that what we need to do is we need to enforce the federal Constitution, we need to enforce the state constitution as it is written, and I think that that solves the vast majority of the problems and concerns that we have. An example is the issue of the FISA warrants. I voted against the new changes to Section 702 of the FISA authorization and I did because it did not provide for a search warrant when someone is with these federal agencies, the FBI, etc., are going to go in and try to wiretap somebody whether it’s Harriet Hageman, or it’s Corey Lewandowski, or whomever it would be. My view is: under the Fourth Amendment it’s very clear you have to have a warrant to do that and there is no “national emergency” exception to that. You can get to court as quickly as you need to as they have proven over and over and over again to get the warrant. But that’s why I ultimately voted against that — because I believe that those changes, even though we got some good changes, we got 56 new changes to Section 702 and all of them were very positive. That was a real stickler for me because it’s constitutionally based.

“The whole issue of equal protection when you read about the University of Wyoming, for example, or these federal agencies engaging in this DEI nonsense, clearly those are a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Let’s make sure that those things are enforced and get rid of the DEI, get rid of the diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense because it’s a violation of our Constitution and the very foundation of our government. So, I think there’s enough to enforce right now. Simply changing the Constitution isn’t going to force these people to comply. We need to force them to comply with what we already have.”