The idea of having the states call a constitutional convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution, under the process laid out by Article V of the document itself, has divided liberty-minded thinkers of late. I’ve taken a more skeptical line than many, prompting a reader to ask: where is my better plan? Here’s my reply, slightly expanded:

Before deciding on what would be a better plan, I suggest a preliminary question: better for what purpose? A better way to enact a balanced budget amendment? To overturn the Citizens United decision? To rewrite the U.S. Constitution more broadly through a dozen new amendments? Those are three different reasons why states have passed Article V resolutions in recent years, and each of them might result in a different answer as to what is a “better plan.”

That having been said, I agree in wanting to look for better alternatives for the constitutional amendment process given the practical flaws that presently beset the convention idea. Originalist legal scholar Michael Rappaport of the University of San Diego School of Law has done the most toward trying to devise a more practical blueprint for letting states initiate amendments under Article V. He argues — I think cogently — that if we agreed in a first round to enact more exact and predictable rules for how an amendment process would work, we could then move on to substantive proposals without as much worry about massive uncertainty, litigation, or potential constitutional crisis. Here’s one piece in which he explains his argument. The idea of a compact approach in which states would pre-agree on how a convention would work and what it could propose is touched on in this 2014 testimony by Ilya Shapiro. Under that idea, the requisite two-thirds of the states would all need to have signed on to the same compact to activate the process. — W.O.

P.S. One more point that you didn’t ask about, but which I’ll answer anyway: don’t assume that people with your or my political views will dominate an Article V convention. Even if such a convention is organized so that each state has a delegation of equal size — by no means assured — the work of the U.S. Senate is a reminder that equal state voices do not always lead to the outcomes any of us might prefer. Nor is it safe for you to assume that state legislatures as currently constituted will always be the ones picking the delegations; some states will use popular election to select convention delegates, and some state legislatures may change composition if voters come to believe that their state legislative vote is really a vote on national constitutional issues.

Of course, few if any amendments proposed by either side would actually make it past the constitutionally required final hurdle of ratification by three quarters of the states. That works to caution against both unbridled enthusiasm by adherents of the convention idea, and unbridled alarmism on the part of opponents.