The Big-Money Right-Wing Push to Upend the Constitution—and Kill Birthright Citizenship
Mother Jones illustration; Getty
For years, powerful right-wing figures have pushed a plan: Have states call a convention to amend the Constitution. It now has more momentum than ever, in part because it would allow a path for proponents of ending the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants.
A provision in Article V of the Constitution states that if a majority of state legislatures petition Congress, there will be a convention to propose amendments. This would allow states to shape federal policy. But an Article V convention could also open the floodgates for other sweeping changes to be proposed and potentially ratified by states. (Constitutional law observers and critics of this idea have long warned of the risk of a “runaway convention” that throws away the Constitution and rewrites it from scratch.)
This once-fringe idea is gaining purchase among politicians and interest groups hoping to bypass congressional gridlock and advance contentious causes. It has been spoken of by President Donald Trump’s inner circle and MAGA-aligned conservative groups.
“I say do it,” former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said of calling an Article V convention in an undated video shared in November by Convention of States Action, a dark money–fueled organization led by Tea Party veteran Mark Meckler that is pushing states to ask Congress for a convention. “It’s going to be good for the country. I don’t know what’s going to come out of it, but I think that is a space that allows us to have the conversation that I care about: What does it mean to be American today?”
Calling an Article V convention, Ramaswamy once told homeschooling champion Michael Farris, co-founder of Convention of States Action and former CEO of the Alliance Defending Freedom, “will have a useful function for the country.”
Ramaswamy was particularly interested in using the convention as a way to discuss birthright citizenship. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order attempting to end that right. Called “Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship,” if allowed by the courts, it would deny automatic citizenship to US-born children whose mother is unauthorized or on a temporary visa at the time of birth and whose father is neither a citizen nor a legal permanent resident.
As I’ve written before, the president can’t eliminate birthright citizenship through executive order without running afoul of the Constitution and more than a century of legal precedent. Indeed, the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant rights groups, as well as several states, already have filed lawsuits challenging the presidential action on constitutional grounds. On Thursday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump’s order, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.”
If Trump’s plan to unilaterally reinterpret the Constitution with the stroke of a pen gets embroiled in or thwarted by protracted litigation—as it most likely will—a convention of states led by conservatives could serve as a fallback or a Hail Mary. “Birthright citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution,” says Stuart Richardson, research manager at the watchdog group Accountable.US. “We’re reaching a point where they’re becoming not unconstitutional, but anti-constitutional. They have to go so far as to amend the Constitution or completely throw it out and rework it because they can’t achieve their agenda based on even a layman reading of the Constitution.”
Ramaswamy has also reflected on the possibility of a free-for-all gathering to tinker the Constitution. In an interview with Shawn Ryan, a former Navy SEAL and one of the most popular podcasters in the country, he acknowledged the potential to “open Pandora’s box” and concluded, “I don’t think we’ve got to that point as a country yet.” Still, the project is increasingly closer to the mainstream and centers of power, having garnered support from some Trump Cabinet nominees, such as embattled defense pick Pete Hegseth and now-confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Convention of States Action is also a member of the advisory board for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 mandate for a Trump comeback.
Launched in 2013 by Farris and Meckler, Convention of States Action describes itself as a grassroots movement to “bring power back to the states and the people.” Its publicly stated vision is for a convention that would only allow for amendments that “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials.” But observers like Georgetown University constitutional law professor David Super have noted that the language is vague enough that it could conceivably encompass a wide range of measures.
In early December, Convention of States Action appeared to test the waters of public opinion by posting on X a survey asking respondents to weigh in on Trump’s proposal to end birthright citizenship. More than 80 percent of 543 voters agreed with the idea. Prior to that, in March 2024, the group published a blog post titled, “How a Convention of States Can Help Solve Our Border Crisis.” It advocates for calling a convention to transfer authority over immigration enforcement at the border from the federal government to the states. Proposed amendments, the article reads, “could cover the wet-foot dry-foot policy, disallowing birthright citizenship, and other immigration issues, [and] would force the Federal Government to act. If, for some reason, they do not, then the states would be free to defend their borders as they see fit, with safeguards to prevent abuse by said states.”
Among the endorsers of the organization’s mission is disbarred Trump attorney John Eastman, a longtime supporter of ending birthright citizenship. In a 2021 appearance on Newsmax, Eastman said an Article V convention was “the only remedy available” to contain the uncontrolled expansion of the federal government. A senior adviser of the group, former US Sen. Rick Santorum, proposed eliminating automatic citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants as part of his 2016 presidential bid.
Convention of States Action didn’t respond to a request for comment about the group’s position on birthright citizenship or whether a convention of states could or should propose an amendment regarding that issue.
In 2023, Convention of States Action brought in around $10.6 million in revenue. About 30 percent of that—$3.2 million—came from one undisclosed donor, according to an audit report. Texas oil billionaire and Trump megadonor Tim Dunn sits on the board of directors of the organization. A friend of Meckler, Dunn is also a founding board member of its parent company, Citizens for Self-Governance, which has received significant contributions from donor-advised funds. (As I’ve written before, these funds distribute untraceable donations from anonymous sources and are a secretive catalyst for the money machine in politics.)
“When we started Convention of States and I was there at the beginning, I knew we had to have a spiritual revival, a Great Awakening, and a political restoration for our country to come back to its roots,” Dunn, a pastor who has built a powerful political machine in the Lone Star state to advance his theocratic agenda, said at the Convention of States summit in 2019. “What I did not expect is that Convention of States would be an organization that would trigger the Great Awakening, and that’s what’s happened, and it’s a miracle, and that is why we’re doing the Lord’s work if we go around it the right way.”
At a November event organized by the Dunn-backed Texas Public Policy Foundation, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts threw his support behind Convention of States Action’s mission. “There’s a whole bucket of longer-term objectives we need to be thinking about,” he said, “and we just need to keep as a tool in our toolbox some equally radical ideas that are very sound and legitimate, like the convention of states. Just because Trump and [JD] Vance won doesn’t mean that we should give up on that project.” Roberts described the Heritage Foundation as a “sponsor” of Convention of States Action.
“What are they trying to get out of this?” says Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US. “It’s imposing their agenda on the rest of America. That looks like taking away our rights.” For the billionaire class funding organizations like Convention of States Action, he adds, “there’s a short-term and long-term play. They have a friendly Congress and a friendly administration, but they’re also thinking about what 10 or 20 years look like down the road.”
Two-thirds of state legislatures—currently 34 states—must call for a convention for it to happen. (A proposed amendment would still have to be ratified by three-fourths of states.) To convince as many states as possible to join the cause, Convention of States Action has created a model resolution for state legislatures to adopt. So far, according to the group, 19 states have passed resolutions, with more like Republican-led South Dakota and Wyoming considering legislation.
Meanwhile, a Democratic state legislator in California is advocating for following in the footsteps of New York in withdrawing previous applications for a convention, including one focused on gun control, over fear of opening the door of a convention for a Republican-controlled Congress. “I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution,” state Sen. Scott Wiener told the New York Times.
Constitutional law experts and public interest groups argue that the Constitution doesn’t offer concrete guidelines—nor are there any precedents—to govern the workings of a convention. Indeed, a 2016 congressional research report enumerates several open questions about how it would play out, including whether a convention could consider any issue beyond the scope of states’ requests, how delegates would be chosen, and what role, if any, the president might have. As Richardson of Accountable.US puts it, “We’re in totally uncharted territory.”