In 2017 when I first began to truly wrestle with the enormity of our debt problem, I had a premonition similar in nature to the plan David Walker revealed to me in our meeting at his home in June 2024.

Back in the early years, (2017-2020), as I struggled with the enormous challenge of trying to gain access to Congress members, the difficulty of getting an official action from a Congress member, combined with the constant restart every two years back to zero with each new Congressional session, I couldn’t help but think surely there has to be a better way.

As I sought a better way, I contemplated the three branches of our government.

If Congress, our legislative branch, was the problem maybe one of our other branches could be the solution?

The executive branch, our president, was an option, but it is rife with even bigger problems.

I’m not talking about problems with any particular President’s personality. Obama, Biden and Trump are the three presidents who have held power since the start of this effort.

I’m talking about the challenges presented by trying to accomplish something through any U.S. president.

The challenges include overcoming the gatekeepers I spoke of earlier. If I had found reaching a Congress member to be tough, reaching the president would be exponentially tougher.

If by some miracle one could actually catch the attention of the president, there still remains the problem that the Constitution gives no power and assigns no role for the president in creating or ratifying a constitutional amendment.

Chasing the president seemed truly asinine.

What about the third branch of our federal government, the judicial branch?

We have all heard stories through American history of non-powerful, nonwe a l t h y, common people of our nation bringing great change to our nation through our Supreme Court.

One example would be Brown versus Board of Education, but there are many others also.

Getting the Supreme Court to take on a case seemed like a good idea to me. It certainly bypasses a lot of hurdles that I just reviewed.

A case worthy of trial before the Supreme Court would be powerful in its verdict. A Supreme Court case on this issue would draw huge attention from the media.

Media attention is a good thing. American power attorneys and politicians crave media attention.

I pondered: What could be a possible legal complaint for such a case?

The best I could come up with was that by failing to do their most basic duty of managing our budget, Congress had failed the American people and they should be held liable for the resulting insolvency we face today.

My contemplation didn’t go anywhere, but these are truly thoughts I had and that I wrestled with.

David Walker was about to bring his whole premonition I experienced regarding using the legal system into focus.

My initial phone conversation with David Walker happened on May 1, 2024.

On June 19, 2024, I met David at his home in Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial.

Initially on the phone, and then more thoroughly at his home, David detailed his plan.

It is wild. It tied in perfectly with my premonition.

David had somehow been led to investigate the legislative actions of all 50 states since the formation of the country.

In addition, David received financing from a wealthy friend of his to finance the exhaustive legal work necessary.

Article 5 of the U.S. Constitution contains the prescriptive legal basis for amending the Constitution.

Article 5 states simply: “The Congress...on the applications of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments, ……” Well, it sounds good, but so does the concept that Congress shall manage our nations finances. It all makes good sense. It all sounds good.

But the devil is indeed in the details. The tragedy is the details are not specified.

Modern business writers will tell you there is a basic principle every business owner must realize. That principle is that if more than one person is in charge of any particular responsibility, then, functionally, no one is in charge.

That is precisely what is happening regarding this aspect of our Constitution.

Who exactly is Congress? I know, technically our Congress is collectively all elected members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, (some would argue for and some against whether the vice president would be included.)

But who specifically is supposed to be certifying, recording and maintaining information regarding what states are asking for a Constitutional convention, as outlined in Article 5, at any given time?

The Constitution does not spell that out. No specific person is identified to be responsible for this function.

The adage holds true. All 535 members of Congress are technically responsible, so functionally no one is in charge of tracking this critically important aspect of our Constitution.

Compare the language regarding this issue when our constitution was written in the late 1700’s versus modern language around the same type issue in the No Budget No Pay Act (H.R. 5755) that Scott Peters( D-CA) and Bill Huizenga (R-MI) have filed in the current Congress.

Keep in mind as you read the legal language below that the No Budget No Pay Act simply requires that “Congress” will pass a budget and all federal appropriation bills by Oct. 1 or they will begin to go without pay.

Just as in the Article 5 language, one might think that the simple reference to “Congress” is enough.

But look at the detailed language that the current bill written almost 250 years after the Constitution was written uses to make sure that this seemingly simple law is complied with.

You will notice that the language is quite specific about who has what responsibility and who shall do specific tasks.

From HR 5755, No Budget No Pay Act in the current Congress. Keep in mind this is not all of the text in this simple straightforward bill, but this is certainly enough to make the point.

Again, this is merely some of the verbiage from the current Bill HR 5755 the No Budget No Pay Act in the current 119th, Congress.

“In the House of Representatives: 1.) REQUEST FOR CERTIFICATIONS. On October 1 of each year, the Chief Administrative Offi cer of the House of Representatives shall submit a request to the chairperson of the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives for the certifi cation of determinations made under paragraphs (2) (A) and (B).

2.) DETERMINATIONS: the Chairpersons for the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives shall...” – blah, blah, blah…….

You see my point. We’ve learned over the past 240-plus years that you must be incredibly specific if you expect a Congress to be accountable to anything.

The founders were simply too trusting that those who came after them would simply recognize and do the right thing.

Sadly, that was a tragic mistake in this instance.

The reason it is possible to go back and research what states have requested an Article 5 Amendments Convention since the beginning of our nation is interesting.

One must understand that a state, such as Oklahoma, does not request an Amendments Convention by placing a phone call, sending a text, sending an email, or even mailing an old-fashioned letter to Congress.

A state, such as Oklahoma, requests a convention to amend the Constitution by moving a piece of legislation through the state government just as they would any other piece of state legislation or law.

It becomes official by being proposed, debated, voted on and signed by the governor just like any other law. The process is long and difficult. Records are made. Records are kept.

But again, who in Congress is assigned to compile all this information from each state legislature is not clear and as a result, through 2024, no one in Congress had.

Spoiler alert: That would change in 2025 due to our efforts.

Stay tuned for later chapters.

State lawmakers are busy. State lawmakers come and go. Federal lawmakers are busy. Federal lawmakers come and go.

On this issue, everyone at both the state and federal level failed to see the forest. They were blinded by the trees, so to speak. No one was keeping track of the big picture.

David Walker and his team did the painstaking research.

What they learned is incredible.

A prominent constitutional attorney in Washington, D.C., was hired. He found that the requirement that 2/3 of the states simultaneously request a convention to amend the Constitution had been met.

The fact is state laws had passed in “two thirds of the several states” requesting a Constitutional convention to address our federal debt from 1979 to 2017.

Wow! It’s hard to imagine that perhaps the most important provision in our U.S. Constitution (without a doubt, the most important provision regarding state sovereignty), which is the means to amend our Constitution, was mismanaged to this extent because no one was paying attention.

Furthermore the reason it was coming to light now was not because Congress finally got its act together.

Nor did this come to light because the states came together to demand Congress meet its Constitutional requirement.

The reason it came to light is because ordinary citizens recognized that our nation was in bad trouble and decided to take matters into their own hands.

Let’s reflect back on Tom Coburn.

Is this perfectly in line with what Tom said had to happen? Yes it is exactly what Tom said.

Tom said our Constitution gives the ultimate power and responsibility of managing our nation to “we the people.”

“We the people” own this nation.

“We the people” have to take ownership of our nation’s problems.

“We the people” have to find and demand a solution.

Tom said it had to happen this way.

The problem is it will still take the Supreme Court to force our Congress to go back and make it right for the state their constitutional power to call an Amendments Convention.

But at least now we have a case.

God gave me a charge and a premonition that the courts would need to play a part.

David Walker’s plan seemed to be playing directly into both Tom’s words and my premonition.

God brought me to David. It was exciting, but of course the devil is in the details.

But God is good and we are on a new course. It feels right It feels like God is in this.

Let’s hope so because without God’s help, this is a no there is no hope in this effort.

For our common good, R. Brian Walter Matthew 20v26-28