Gov. Ron DeSantis has started lobbying other states to join Florida's call for a constitutional convention. He began with a state where he happens to be on a Presidential Primary ballot this week, despite already withdrawing from the race.
The Florida Republican held a media availability. with South Carolina state lawmakers in Charlotte outside the state capitol. There, he extolled a need for states to demand Congress call a constitutional convention on term limits for federal lawmakers.
"The people in the states have the ability to propose changes to discipline Washington. The Founding Fathers structured the Constitution like that for a reason," DeSantis said.
The Florida Legislature passed resolutions to petition for constitutional conventions earlier this year.
If two-thirds of the state governments — or 34 of the 50 current states — approve identical petitions, it would prompt the first constitutional convention since the drafting of the U.S. Constitution.
Article V in the Constitution provides two ways to ratify amendments. But in the nation's history, every constitutional amendment was approved the same way: with Congress proposing amendments that later were ratified by three-fourths of state Legislatures.
The alternative process endorsed by DeSantis drives the federal government from the state level. If two-thirds of Legislatures call for a convention, one must occur. Florida this year became the 16th state to demand a convention on term limits.
It also became the 26th to call for one on a balanced budget, something DeSantis mentioned in South Carolina. Two other petitions are also under consideration by the Legislature this year. One would prohibit members of Congress from passing laws regulating citizens that exempt federal lawmakers. Another would give U.S. Presidents line-item veto power on federal budgets.
But DeSantis said term limits supporters specifically asked him to talk with lawmakers considering petitions in other states. DeSantis said he spoke to lawmakers in Indiana about the issue the same day he appeared in South Carolina.
"I've told folks that are supportive of the term length limits movement, put me in if there's a way I can be helpful," DeSantis said. "If it's me going and speaking to different folks throughout the country that are in state legislative chambers, I'm happy to do it."
Of course, much of the attention on DeSantis' official visit to South Carolina centered on a federal election, not the Constitution.
DeSantis spent much of the past year running for President but suspended his campaign in January, days after a distant second-place showing to former President Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses.
But since candidate qualification in states happens long before the date of Presidential Primaries, he remains on the ballot, including in South Carolina. The Palmetto State will hold its Republican Presidential Primary on Saturday, Feb. 24, when 50 delegates are up in a winner-takes-all contest.
Trump is expected to win, and leads former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, the only other major contender seeking the GOP nomination, in all polls.
Many have speculated, considering Trump's ongoing legal troubles, about whether DeSantis plans to still try and make a fair showing in ongoing Primaries and caucuses. That would allow him to make a push for the nomination at a brokered Republican National Convention.
But he said that's not his focus.
"As far as I'm concerned, the Primary is over," he said.
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