Florida Senate - 2014                                     SM 658
       
       
        
       By Senators Stargel and Benacquisto
       
       
       
       
       
       15-00757-14                                            2014658__
    1                           Senate Memorial                         
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States,
    3         applying to Congress to call a convention for the sole
    4         purpose of proposing an amendment to the Constitution
    5         of the United States which requires a balanced federal
    6         budget.
    7  
    8         WHEREAS, the Legislature of the State of Florida passed
    9  Senate Concurrent Resolution 10 on April 21, 2010, and
   10         WHEREAS, Senate Concurrent Resolution 10 made application
   11  to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments
   12  pursuant to Article V of the Constitution of the United States
   13  for two purposes: to achieve and maintain a balanced federal
   14  budget and to control the ability of Congress and federal
   15  executive agencies to dictate to states requirements for the
   16  expenditure of federal funds, and
   17         WHEREAS, the Legislature of the State of Florida desires to
   18  conform to the single subject applications from Alabama, Alaska,
   19  Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland,
   20  Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New
   21  Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and
   22  Texas and limit its application to Congress for the sole purpose
   23  of proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United
   24  States to require a balanced federal budget, NOW, THEREFORE,
   25  
   26  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
   27  
   28         (1) That the Legislature of the State of Florida hereby
   29  applies to Congress, under Article V of the Constitution of the
   30  United States, to call a convention limited to proposing an
   31  amendment to the Constitution requiring that, in the absence of
   32  a national emergency, the total of all federal appropriations
   33  made by the Congress for any fiscal year may not exceed the
   34  total of all estimated federal revenues for that fiscal year,
   35  together with any related and appropriate fiscal restraints.
   36         (2) That this application is to be considered as covering
   37  the same subject matter as the presently outstanding balanced
   38  budget applications from other states and is to be aggregated
   39  with the applications from those states for the purpose of
   40  attaining the two-thirds number of states necessary to require
   41  the calling of a convention, but may not be aggregated with
   42  applications on any other subject calling for a constitutional
   43  convention under Article V of the United States Constitution.
   44         (3) That this application constitutes a continuing
   45  application in accordance with Article V until the legislatures
   46  of at least two-thirds of the states have made applications on
   47  the same subject and supersedes all previous applications by
   48  this Legislature on the same subject.
   49         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be
   50  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the
   51  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the
   52  United States House of Representatives, and to each member of
   53  the Florida delegation to the United States Congress.