While Congress must issue a call setting a time and place for a convention, there is nothing in the Constitution stating delegates must actually meet there. Given the circumstances of no funding, and the tremendous costs involved of renting a hall for several hundred delegates, providing services and security for these delegates, setting a vast communications network needed to publicize such a convention plus other such expenses, it is likely the convention will instead turn to a much cheaper, more universal method of communication--Internet teleconferences, which will allow delegates to "meet" on a single website, conduct business, exchange ideas, speeches, documents, debate the issues and vote all while remaining in the comfort of their own homes, still attending to their daily lives. This method of conducting convention business will also allow for delegates from all different economic strata rather than the rich and super rich as are found in Congress now to become delegates as the delegates will still be able to keep their current incomes and sources of revenue unlike members of Congress who must travel to Washington D.C. where they become prey to lobbying efforts. As the voting and discussion at such a convention will certainly be designed to accommodate such delegates, it will be easy for any delegate to simply "pick up" the conversation hours later and remain fully involved in convention business while still having a normal life. Further, as the teleconferences can easily be saved and distributed live on the Internet, it will allow a true, real time observation by any American interested in the proceedings on his computer.

It is also likely the convention committees will use such teleconferences to gather information and input in the form of surveys, forms and other Internet data directly from the American people. The Internet of course will provide direct communication between the delegates and the people they represent as well as allowing the delegate to remain in the district he represents so that he can continue to communicate with his electors face-to-face all the time the convention is in session thus allowing the electors to keep an "eye" on the delegate and his activities.

The agenda for an Article V Convention will be determined (1) by the already submitted applications on currently on file in the Congressional Record; (2) any new issues the states submit to the convention for its consideration and (3) any amendment issues submitted by the delegates themselves. Presumably, the delegates will reflect in these issues the desires of those Americans who elect them to the post for specific amendment proposals.

The fact that many amendment proposals involving many amendment issues does not mean a convention will actually propose a large number of amendments. As discussed elsewhere, proposing and ratifying an amendment to the Constitution is a difficult matter at best.

However, as with any meeting, the convention may choose in establishing its rules of procedure rules that would limit motions or amendment proposals by a single state delegation. Therefore, unless the convention itself limits the number of amendment proposals that a single state delegation may advance, there is no restriction on the number of amendment proposals a single state delegation may propose.

However, as with Congress, only an actual congressional member or in the case of an Article V Convention, a delegate, may actually offer an amendment proposal to the convention for its consideration. If this rule of limiting who can actually offer an amendment didn't exist, total chaos would ensue as it would anyone could propose amendments. However the Constitution makes it clear that only Congress or an Article V Convention may propose amendments to the Constitution thus preventing any such action. the reason states cannot offer amendment proposals directly is it would violate separation of powers giving a single political body (the states) the ability to both propose and ratify amendments without review by anyone. Thus states cannot offer amendment proposals without first either presenting them to Congress or a convention for consideration and review.

The Article V Convention however as described elsewhere in these FAQs, will most likely be conducting its work on the Internet. Unlike Congress therefore, the use of the Internet will enable the convention to have a much more direct, interactive communication with the people the delegates will represent and will enable the people to have a much more direct input to the delegates and the convention than is possible with Congress. Unlike Congress in which rich, highly paid staff members and lawyers are employed by members of Congress to prevent direct access between the member and the public, the convention will have a small staff and unless the specific delegate hires staff members, will have no rich, highly paid staff members and lawyers to act as roadblocks for public access. Thus, there will be a direct link between the public and the delegates. In short, an Article V Convention will be able to listen to the American public more attentively and better than Congress ever has.

As delegates will be able to remain in their homes because the convention will be held on the Internet rather than be forced to travel to a distant, unfamiliar meeting location such as Washington D.C. where they would be prey to the special interest lobbyists and other money peddlers so common to Congress today they will easily be able to directly and personally deal with members of the public in their own district who actually elected the delegate.

But thanks to the Internet the convention will be able to do much more than Congress does. A simple web page form with appropriate security measures will allow members of the public to submit amendment proposals and issues to the delegates. The form will inform people whether an amendment issues has already been submitted and filters will prevent the submission of duplicate issues and amendment language thus preventing automated spam from flooding the site. The public will be able submit comments on forums about amendment proposals which the delegates will be able to monitor via email messages. Delegates will be able to respond to the public via the Internet by posting their own web sites and email letters to the public. All of this will be public information which can viewed by the public, unlike Congress which goes to great efforts to hide and obfuscate public information regarding its activities and certainly does not allow for direct public input into its business preferring instead to accept "campaign" contributions by the lobbyists to be the only source of "public" input listened to by Congress.

Because of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment the Article V Convention will be under the same restraint as Congress when it comes to proposing amendments for ratification, that is, it will require two-thirds of the state delegations voting in favor of any amendment proposal before the convention will be able to submit a proposal for ratification consideration.

As with any group, the convention will be composed of a variety of citizens representing the entire political spectrum. Naturally some of these political views will conflict forcing the delegates to compromise and work out solutions in order to reach the required two-thirds consent necessary to pass an amendment proposal.

All together, these political and constitutional hurdles will limit the number of amendment proposals coming out of an Article V Convention to a small number just as has happened in Congress. Over the years literally hundreds of amendment proposals have been proposed in Congress but only a handful, 27 in all spaced over a period of over 200 years have actually been proposed by Congress for ratification. With the convention having a life of only a few weeks, it is likely the number of amendments proposed by the convention will much less, perhaps as few as only one or two amendment proposals. Beyond all these limitations for the convention is the fact that there is no guarantee that any amendment proposal will receive the required three-fourths ratification consent thus presenting another political and constitutional hurdle entirely out of the control of the convention which, by the time the amendments shall have been presented to the states for ratification, will have adjourned permanently.

It is possible that because of applications already on file, the convention will again visit the electoral college. Currently however, there are no applications on file for a "clarification" of the Second Amendment. Therefore such an amendment would have to come from initiation by a delegate or a new application filed by a state.

While it is possible the convention may attempt to propose amendments addressing each of these supreme court ruling issues, the likelihood of this is small. As noted above, each amendment proposal will face a difficult path to ratification and therefore it is likely the convention will take a more practical, pragmatic approach.

Instead of attempting to write an amendment to solve each problem the convention is asked to resolve by proposing an amendment, the convention may instead decide that the best solution to the problems facing the United States is to provide its citizens with a new set of constitutional "tools" which will in turn allow the people to solve these problems after the convention has adjourned.

It is possible the convention may come to realize that the indirect democracy the United States has operated under no longer is operative. Therefore the convention may determine that a form of directed democracy will better suit the nation in the coming centuries. As such it will not pass proposed amendments to solve or deal with each Supreme Court ruling but instead will most likely address the overriding question of proposing an amendment that defines the court's power of judicial review (as this question has never answered by a constitutional amendment) as well as providing a means whereby the people can review those court decisions in some manner.

Because Congress has, over the years, seen fit to regulate and control much, of not all of our economy through the commerce clause it is possible economic amendments will be discussed and possibly proposed at the convention. Such amendments may include balanced budget and repeal of federal income tax along with common practice of federally mandated programs requiring the states to pay for the program commonly referred to as federal mandates.

It is also possible the convention other solutions in the economic area to solve problems America faces. For example, the convention may come to realize our current taxed-based government might be better served if the income for the government was based, not on taxes on the citizens, but on interest in investments in the economy from which the government would derive its funds. Naturally the convention would set up a system whereby the people would regulate the government in this and there would be a transition time as the time necessary to invest built up meaning that people would still pay taxes but less each year. The advantage, of course, would be that as soon as investment money began building a return, taxes would be lowered, first with the lowest income as they would pay the least tax and therefore money to cover their financial income would appear first, and later trickling up the economic ladder finally to the most wealthy freeing them from paying taxes last, basically creating a trickle up economy. Finally such an amendment proposal by the convention would consolidate several other amendment proposals as balanced budget as the amount of interest available to the government would be all that would available forcing a balanced budget.

The Constitution does not specify what form an application submitted by a state must have. Because of this, states have been free to submit whatever they desire in the application frequently using the application for political rather than constitutional reasons. Thus, it has become common for states to submit an application containing language asking for a specific amendment proposal or issue rather than just a convention call. Earlier applications submitted by the states contained no amendment issue and have been given the name "general" applications by most constitutional authorities. However constitutionally whether an application contains a proposed amendment issue or not, it is just as valid an application and just as binding upon Congress to cause it to call an Article V Convention.

Because the action of the application by the states is for a convention call rather than a specific amendment, the issue of any amendment proposal contained in the application is constitutionally irrelevant to the purpose of the application (the purpose being: to cause Congress to call an Article V Convention). The reason that applications are a trigger for a convention call, rather than a specific amendment issue,  is because:   if the application were for a specific same-subject amendment only, it would mean that the states could actually ratify an amendment issue before the written language was finalized (assuming that three-fourths of them "applied" for the same amendment issue).  There then is essentially no need for both steps.  But that is unlikely that two-thirds of the states will word their amendment applications the same way.  There must exist a phase for the states to all work on the final wording of each amendment before being submitted for ratification.  That is the purpose of the convention, and the reason the same-subject requirement makes no sense. Otherwise, Congress would then be put in the position of calling a convention to propose an amendment which the states were essentially already prepared to ratify. That means that the convention would have the power to add language into the Constitution without anyone having the authority to review it, which is the purpose of ratification.  The Framers of the Constitution clearly intended that all amendment proposals, whether proposed by Congress or convention, must be ratified before taking effect (i.e. as stated in Article V: "...which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states..."). So, it is clear that the application language of Article V cannot refer to a same-subject amendment, since the language of each issue can vary greatly when initially submitted (since the states do not collude on the wording prior to submission of an amendment). The language is hammered out in the convention. Not before the convention. 

Further proof of the fact that the applications are for a convention call rather than a specific same-subject amendment is that the above scenario currently exists. The record shows that 39 states have applied for the repeal of the 16th Amendment which authorizes Congress to tax and collect income tax. If, as many suggest, the applications are same-subject, then it follows that even without writing the amendment, federal income tax has already been repealed.  That is, enough same-subject amendments already exist.  If "same-subject" is the correct interpretation as to how applications should be counted, the IRS has not gotten the message, since it continues to collect income tax despite having no constitutional authority to do.

Many people suggest that the applications must be "counted" on the basis of the amendment issue (same-subject) asked for in the applications. Some have even suggested that unless the applications are exactly worded the same Congre