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And beyond the Seventeenth Amendment, there are three other amendments in the twentieth century “that may be traced to convention call movements”: the Twenty-first Amendment (repealing Prohibition), Twenty-second Amendment (setting limits on presidential terms), and the Twenty-fifth Amendment (clarifying presidential succession). Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Praeger, 1989), 75. Other issues inspiring a large convention movement have included petitions on the income tax (between 1939 and 1963), polygamy (1906–1916), and legislative reapportionment (1963–1969). Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears, 61–67. Michael J. Molloy, “Confusion and a Constitutional Convention,” Western State University Law Review 12 (1985): 793, 794.

9. The most ambitious recent discussion of a call for a constitutional convention is Larry Sabato’s A More Perfect Constitution (2007), which describes twenty-three proposals for changes that he would have a convention consider. A call for partial public funding of elections is among Sabato’s proposals.

10. See Sanford Levinson, Our Undemocratic Constitution: Where the Constitution Goes Wrong (And How We the People Can Correct It) (“Most liberals these days appear to be fully Madisonian in being close to terrified of the passions of their fellow citizens. They envision a runaway convention that would tear up the most admirable parts of the convention…”) (Oxford University Press, 2008), 174–75; Larry Greenley, “States Should Enforce, Not Revise, the Constitution!” New American (Nov. 29, 2010), available at link #229 (warning that a constitutional convention “may become a ‘runaway convention’ that drastically alters our form of government, or throws out the Constitution altogether and establishes an entirely new system of governance”); but see “Amending the Constitution by the Convention Method,” Heritage Foundation (Mar. 8, 1988), 4–89, available at link #230 (debunking the “myth of the runaway convention”).

11. Bruce Ackerman, “Unconstitutional Convention,” New Republic (Mar. 3, 1979), 8; Russell L. Caplan, Constitutional Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention (Oxford University Press, 1988); David Castro, “A Constitutional Convention: Scouting Article Five’s Undiscovered Country,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review 134 (1986): 939; Walter E. Dellinger, “The Recurring Question of the ‘Limited’ Constitutional Convention,” Yale Law Journal 88 (1979): 1623; Walter E. Dellinger, “Who Controls a Constitutional Convention? A Response,” Duke Law Journal (1979): 999; Gerald Gunther, “The Convention Method of Amending the United States Constitution,” Georgia Law Review 14 (1979): 1; Lash, “Rejecting Conventional Wisdom,” 197; Michael J. Molloy, “Confusion and a Constitutional Convention,” Western State University Law Review 12 (1985): 793; John T. Noonan, “The Convention Method of Constitutional Amendment: Its Meaning, Usefulness, and Wisdom, Pacific Law Journal 10 (1979): 641; Michael B. Rappaport, “Reforming Article V: The Problems Created by the National Convention Amendment Method and How to Fix Them,” Virginia Law Review 96 (2010): 1509; James K. Rogers, “The Other Way to Amend the Constitution: The Article V Constitutional Convention Amendment Process,” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 30 (2007): 1005; Ronald D. Rotunda and Stephen J. Safranek, “An Essay on Term Limits and a Call for a Constitutional Convention,” Marquette Law Review 80 (1996): 227; Laurence H. Tribe, “Issues Raised by Requesting Congress to Call a Constitutional Convention to Propose a Balanced Budget Amendment,” Pacific Law Journal 10 (1979): 627; William W. Van Alstyne, “Does Article V Restrict the States to Calling Unlimited Conventions Only? A Letter to a Colleague,” Duke Law Journal (1978): 1295; William W. Van Alstyne, “The Limited Constitutional Convention: The Recurring Answer,” Duke Law Journal (1979): 985.

12. Weber and Perry, Unfounded Fears, 74–75.

13. William W. Van Alstyne, “The Limited Constitutional Convention: The Recurring Answer,” Duke Law Journal