MTV writer Ana Marie Cox published an op-ed in which she labels the conservative Convention of States (COS) project as racist.
Her commentary seems to be sparked by Jim DeMint’s recent endorsement of the COS project when he joined the COS staff as a senior advisor. Cox said, “A convention of states would be an end run around Donald Trump’s legislative incompetence, but it’s born from the same impulse that elected him: the fracturing of political norms and a desire to shore up white supremacy by any means necessary.”
According to the COS website, that isn’t the purpose at all. The website says,“A convention of states is a convention called by the state legislatures for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution. They are given power to do this under Article V of the Constitution. It is not a constitutional convention. It cannot throw out the Constitution because its authority is derived from the Constitution.”
Cox fears the COS project because she fears an advancement of states’ rights. “Well, here we can’t claim surprise that a process centered on empowering ‘states’ rights’ tracks with every other past movement that has waxed nostalgic for a weak federal government; ‘states’ rights’ is almost always synonymous with the rollback of people’s rights, and this somewhat more convoluted version of the legal argument is no different,” says Cox.
“In some arguments for a convention of states, this retrograde desire for oppression is obvious. DeMint’s organization cites the reversal of the Obergefell case, the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision, as one reason to call a convention. The Arkansas Senate’s resolution calling for an Article V convention involves two amendments: one that defines marriage as ‘between a man and a woman,’ and one declaring that life begins at conception. Just because some proposed resolutions don’t explicitly target civil rights — and instead talk about limiting the jurisdiction of the federal government — doesn’t mean they are any less threatening to the pursuit of social justice in this country.”
Essentially what Cox is arguing here is that overturning the decision for each state to have the power to decide whether or not to legalize gay marriage is a threat to the pursuit of social justice, and a threat to social justice is apparently racist — even if it is not directly applicable to any race issue. Furthermore Cox argues that the decision about when life begins should not be left up to the states, she believes it is a threat to social justice.
