I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We the People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate information. The Constitution on a non-partisan basis.

In today's show, we turn our attention to the 2016 presidential campaign.

What are the Democratic and Republican candidate saying about the Constitution?

And what should we the people make of their ideas?

There's lots to discuss, so we'll jump right in. Here to provide us with context and commentary

are two members of the National Constitution Center's Coalition of Freedom

Advisory Board, and it's always great to have them as returning guests of We the People.

Ilia Shapiro is a senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C.

and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review.

Michael Dorff is the Robert S. Stevens, Professor of Law at Cornell University Law School.

Gentlemen, welcome back, and let's get right into it.

One of the interesting proposed constitutional amendments is the Madison Amendment, which is supported

by Senator Ted Cruz, the language which was initially proposed by Ronald Reagan's Justice

Department in the 1980s says the following. Quote, the Congress on application of the legislatures

of two-thirds of the several states, which all contain an

identical amendment, shall call a convention solely to decide whether to propose

that specific amendments to the states, which, if proposed, shall be valid to all intents and purposes

as part of the Constitution when ratified pursuant to Article 5.

Mike, tell us about the context of that amendment, what is it trying to achieve and how does that fit in in terms of similar proposal in history?

The, probably the best place to start would be the existing amendment procedure which is set forth in article five and that allows for constitutional amendments either when proposed by two-thirds

of each house or when proposed by conventions. And the, I'm sorry, or the, I'm sorry, or,

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