Todd Jagger moves confidently through the Texas Capitol building. He knows the halls, and to many there he is a familiar face. He walks from office to office knocking on doors, greeting whoever answers with a smile, a crowd of more than 40 people following behind him. They are WolfPAC Texas, and they have come to the state Legislature to demand change.

“It doesn’t matter where you stand on the political spectrum,” Jagger said. “Your values are not being represented in Congress, and the reason that is, is because Congress is not dependent on us anymore.”

Jagger is the Texas director for WolfPAC, a nationwide group with chapters active in every state. WolfPAC is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that has a goal of reforming the campaign finance system through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“When you pop the hood on just about every other issue that I care about or the people I know care about you’re finding that powerful forces are affecting the policy and the outcomes,” Jagger said.

On April 1 Jagger was at the Capitol as the House Elections Committee held a hearing on House Joint Resolution 121. The legislation “would call a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution, to propose an amendment to the Constitution to ensure transparency in our national campaign finance system,” Rep. Philip Cortez, D-San Antonio, said during the testimony.

Under Article V, there are two ways to propose amendments to the Constitution. Either two-thirds of Congress can propose an amendment or two-thirds of the states can call for a constitutional convention on an amendment. WolfPAC’s goal is to rally states’ legislatures to take action on campaign finance reform.

“Over half of our current amendments, including the Bill of Rights, began with state legislatures passing solutions such as HJR 121 and resulted in Congress ultimately working to the will of the people,” Cortez said.

WolfPAC’s goal in addressing campaign finance reform is to make sure our political leaders are accountable to their constituents rather than to large corporate donors.

Currently five states have passed a resolution calling for a convention on this issue under Article V: Vermont, California, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

“There is broad agreement across the political spectrum, that the way elections are funded is broken and this doesn’t work for average Americans,” Cortez said.

Jagger has been fighting this battle since 2012 when WolfPAC was founded nationally by Cenk Uygur. Every year the Texas Legislature has been in session since, Jagger has made the long drive from his West Texas ranch with his wife and his dog to plead WolfPAC’s case before lawmakers. He was at the Texas Capitol in 2013, 2015, 2017, and now he’s back in 2019, because he believes what he is doing is important.

“Hard work is how things get done,” Jagger said.

This session, HJR 121 was filed by bipartisan authors and was successful in getting a committee hearing. The resolution was left pending in the House Elections Committee. This is the furthest the resolution has progressed in Texas.

WolfPAC Texas is completely made of grassroots volunteers with close to 10,000 members across the state. Jagger told House committee members that all of WolfPAC’s volunteers came at their own expense. No one at WolfPAC Texas, including Jagger, is paid. Not the teacher, the grandmother or the veteran.

“We are all united in the conviction that when the government actually represents the people, the people’s values will be represented in government,” Jagger said.

There are those, however, who oppose HJR 121 or any use of Article V of the Constitution.

Dave Jones, president of Clean Elections Texas, said, “We see it as just too risky. We think that it puts too much of our current Constitution at risk for change with a lot of uncertainty.”

“The rules are so broadly stated in Article V of the Constitution that it could involve all kind of issues,” Jones told the committee.

Jones and other opponents fear that taking this path is opening a door to a complete rewrite of the Constitution.

Jagger said that he does not understand where this criticism is coming from. He believes that Article V of the Constitution is very clear and the fears are unfounded.

“I believe in our Constitution, and I believe the framers knew exactly what they were doing when they gave the states’ lawmakers the rightful check to federal action or inaction,” Jagger said.

According to WolfPAC, the very nature of the Constitution and Article V prevents the risk of a runaway convention.

The “incredibly high ratification threshold ensures that only the most bipartisan, common sense proposals with widespread support among the American people will make it into the Constitution,” WolfPAC’s website reads.

“I trust this process,” Jagger said, “and most of all I trust that the American people are capable of using the tools of the Constitution”

“It makes zero sense to say that in order to protect the Constitution we should not follow it,” Jagger said.

He said believes that there is a need for change and Article V is the way to achieve that change.

“I didn’t come to campaign finance reform because I found it a fascinating subject,” Jagger said.

During testimony in the House WolfPAC members shared how major corporations and industries with deep pockets – oil companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and others –  influence policy in ways that touch all aspects of our lives.

Esther Martinez, who has lived in Texas her whole life, told the House committee, “When I realized my vote doesn’t matter to some people making policy as much as big campaign checks from special interest groups, I needed to do something to bring back real democracy.”

“This is the plan that makes the most sense to me to do that,” Martinez said.

“People often feel powerless and often are powerless against big special interests,” Martinez said. “We must act together while we can, we can’t wait any longer.”

Jagger said he believes these special interests exert forces over our political system to their own benefit.

“Congress is a captured body,” Jagger said. “They’re not capable at this point of acting on behalf of the American people.”

Jagger said that he believes that the only way the people of the United States can combat the issue of campaign finance reform is if every voice comes together.

“We can’t be afraid about having a conversation in the United States of America,” Jagger said. “We have to have conversations in this country, in order for us to fulfill the American dream, the promise of America.”