It was never supposed to be this way. How often you have heard that complaint about the way our federal government works.

A complaint made by both the left and the right that the system is broken and that it cannot be fixed because the very Congress,

President and Supreme Court, who have the powers to fix it, are actually part of the problems themselves.

But what if the states of the United States, those 50 separate power centers, could get together and propose their own amendments to the Constitution,

rewriting the rules that govern Congress, the Supreme Court and the President?

Well, that kind of escape hatch actually exists. It is written into Article 5 of the Constitution that states can insist on a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution

if enough of them get together to do it. It takes two thirds. It has never happened, but it could. And the question is, should it?

Well, that sounds like the makings of a debate, so let's have it. Yes or no to this statement. Call a convention to amend the Constitution.

A debate from Intelligent Squared US, we are at the Kaufman Music Center in New York City in partnership,

with the National Constitution Center with four superbly qualified debaters on stage who will argue for and against the motion.

As always, our debate goes in three rounds and then our live audience here in New York votes to choose a winner and only one side wins.

Let's meet our debaters. We have two debaters arguing for the motion. First, let's say hello to Larry Lesick.

Hi, Larry.

And Larry, you're a professor at Harvard Law, you're a constitutional lawyer, you're well known as a pioneer in the field of internet law, but you are also well known for taking strong advocacy positions against corruption and government and specifically the influence of money in politics.

You ran in the last presidential election in the Democratic primary. What were you hoping to accomplish other than winning the White House fear so?

So my objective was to drain the swamp. But, but I wanted to do it in a more loving kind of rainbow coalition like Ray.

Larry Lesick, thank you, tell us please who your partner is in this debate.

So my partner is my friends, Mark Mechler.

Mark Mechler, ladies and gentlemen, hi, Mark.

Mark, you are president of Citizens for Self Governance and that's the umbrella organization for the Convention of States Project, which whose goal is to have the kind of convention that we're arguing about tonight.

You are also co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots.

So would it be exaggerating to say that you and your debate partner, the potential Democratic nominee, are not sitting on the same side of the political spectrum?

...