With Congress' initiative, the US Constitution has been amended 27 times. But never has the core American document been amended through a state-led process — the second track that the founders created under Article V of the Constitution.
Conservatives are frustrated by Democrats' control of Washington and — even when Republicans are in charge — the growing size of government.
"The idea of states coming together is going to scare the living hell out of Washington," state Rep. Bill Taylor of South Carolina, who led his state's push to pass a call for a convention, told Insider. "They are going to be terrified of the states."
The Convention of the States movement is just one of the organizations pushing for such a convention. But it's perhaps the best funded and has made the most recent progress — and has ties to former President Donald Trump's orbit, such as former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum and John Eastman, the conservative legal scholar who supported Trump's effort to overturn the election.
With Republicans poised for a "wave election" in November, more GOP-controlled states could join the pro-convention-resolution crowd.
Republicans pushing for a convention are playing the long game, similar to how they spent decades working to overturn the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
This time, conservatives want to constitutionally reduce the size of government, make it easier to fire federal employees such as Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' director, eliminate whole Cabinet-level agencies, and enshrine a nine-justice Supreme Court.
