As America approaches its 250th anniversary, America at 250: Due Diligence turns to one of the most consequential — and least understood — provisions in the U.S. Constitution: Article V, and the question of whether the country should call its first-ever Article V convention.
This episode opens in the summer of 1787, inside a sweltering Pennsylvania Statehouse, where George Mason — one of the sharpest minds at the Constitutional Convention — warned that the founders were "building a cage without a key." Mason's insistence on a state-led convention process became Article V's second amendment pathway, a mechanism that has never once been used in 250 years of American history.
Today, that mechanism is at the center of a growing political movement. The Convention of States Project has organized more than 20 states behind a push to convene a convention aimed at imposing fiscal restraints, term limits, and jurisdictional limits on the federal government. Supporters call it the founders' intended check on a federal government that won't check itself. Critics warn it's a legal "pig in a poke" — a process with no rules for who attends, what they can do, or how it could be stopped once started.
To unpack the history, the strategy, and the stakes, the episode brings together three very different voices: a constitutional law scholar who has spent years studying Article 5's uncertainties, the leader of the nationwide campaign to trigger a convention, and a former U.S. senator whose book lays out why he believes the effort poses a serious danger to the Constitution as we know it.
Together, they wrestle with a question that traces straight back to George Mason's "cage without a key": is Article V's convention clause a safety valve the founders wisely built in — or a loophole that's never been tested because it's too dangerous to use?
Hosts Steve Herman
Steve Herman is a veteran journalist and former White House Bureau Chief for Voice of America. He brings decades of reporting experience to America at 250: Due Diligence, helping guide the series through the historical, political, and institutional questions that have shaped the United States.
Website: Steve Herman
X: @newsguyUSA
Bill Bernardoni
Bill Bernardoni is the founder of Bernardoni Media & Marketing and co-host of America at 250: Due Diligence. His work focuses on building, producing, and distributing podcasts and radio programs that bring serious conversations to broad audiences.
Website: Bernardoni Media & Marketing
Blog: The Bernardoni Brief
X: @BillBernardoni
Guests Featured in This Episode David Super
David A. Super is the Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Law and Economics at Georgetown University Law Center, where his research focuses on constitutional law, administrative law, and the federal budget. He has written and testified extensively on Article 5, including before state legislatures considering convention-related resolutions, and is a leading voice raising questions about the legal uncertainties surrounding a convention's scope, delegate selection, and ratification process.
Faculty Page: David A. Super — Georgetown Law
Mark Meckler
Mark Meckler is the co-founder and president of Convention of States Action, part of Citizens for Self-Governance, and a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots. He leads the nationwide campaign to call an Article V convention of states aimed at imposing fiscal restraints, term limits, and jurisdictional limits on the federal government — an effort that has secured resolutions from 20 states.
Website: Convention of States Project
X: @MarkMeckler
Russ Feingold
Russ Feingold is a former U.S. senator from Wisconsin, where he served nearly two decades and was the lone vote against the Patriot Act. He is the co-author, with Peter Prindiville, of The Constitution in Jeopardy: An Unprecedented Effort to Rewrite Our Fundamental Law and What We Can Do About It, which examines the risks of an Article 5 convention and the broader challenges of constitutional change in a polarized era.
Book: The Constitution in Jeopardy — Hachette Book Group
Listener Question
As America turns 250, do you think Article 5's convention clause is a safeguard the founders got right, a loophole too dangerous to use, or something that needs to be reformed before anyone calls a convention?
Join the conversation and respond by sending us an email by visiting RadioFreeAmerica.media.
