Among the many, many nightmare scenarios we face as Donald Trump and his band of anti-government zealots march back into the White House is the looming threat of a constitutional convention.

The United States has not had a constitutional convention since 1787, which is the only time that representatives from each state gathered to work on the country's founding document. Still, the Constitution has a provision in it that allows for another convention to be called at any time if two-thirds of state legislatures — that would be 34 out of 50 — want one. The trouble is, the Constitution dictates almost nothing about how such a convention would work, leading to even more nightmare scenarios.

Fearing the worst if Republican-led states begin ticking off a wish-list of anti-abortion, anti-civil-rights, and stringent budget-balancing measures they'd like to see added to the constitution, Democratic-led states are making sure to rescind any past requests they may have made for a constitutional convention.

As the New York Times reports, California is among these states, with state Senator Scott Wiener introducing legislation today that would rescind all seven active calls that have been made by the state for a convention, with the earliest dating back to 1911.

That earliest call for a convention was calling for an amendment that would make senators electable by popular vote of state residents, rather than by state legislatures as they had been previously. This was taken care of two years later, in 1913, with the ratification of the 17th amendment — which was passed by Congress and ratified by three quarters of the states, which is the other mechanism for amending the Constitution.

Ten other amendments have passed this way, as the Times notes, the most recent being the 27th Amendment, passed in 1992, which prevents members of Congress from giving themselves pay raises.

"I do not want California to inadvertently trigger a constitutional convention that ends up shredding the Constitution," Wiener tells the Times. He suggests that Republicans could try, through some math, to claim that 34 states had called for a convention, centering it on one topic like balancing the federal budget, but then letting it become a "runaway" convention in which more and more amendment begin piling on.

One right-wing congressman has been crowing about holding a constitutional convention for a while now, and that is West Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington — who as recently as last week spoke out during a budget hearing saying that a convention should have been called in 1979, based on the number of states calling for one as of that time, calling this a "a constitutional travesty."

With 18 state legislatures currently led by Democrats and four others that are split between the parties, getting to 34 could prove difficult for the Republican side, unless they try to argue that these historic calls by states like California should still count. And any actual amendment would still require ratification by three-quarters of the states, or 37 of them.

New York, New Jersey, Oregon, and Illinois have all similarly rescinded their historic calls, the oldest of which dated back to 1789.

This very utilitarian website called Article V Library keeps track of all the applications by states for constitutional conventions, as well as recissions like those above (minus the one from New York). There have been 450 applications total, according to the site, including two each in the last three years by the states of Oklahoma, Missouri, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. These call for new congressional term limits, a balanced-budget requirement, a federal debt limit, and a repeal of the 16th Amendment that created a federal income tax, among other things.

As the Times further notes, if Wiener's legislation goes through, it would rescind a call for a constitutional convention made by Governor Gavin Newsom last year to discuss a gun-control amendment that would ban military-style assault weapons, and establish universal background checks. Critics have said this was just political grandstanding by Newsom and had no hope of getting anywhere given the country's current political divide.

Meanwhile, not all Democrats are heeding the danger warnings on the convention thing. Just last week, a Democratic assemblymember in New Jersey, Andrea Katz, introduced a resolution pushing for a constitutional convention to protect abortion and IVF access. It's not clear how much support that has in the legislature, given that New Jersey has already rescinded its earlier requests.

Top image: California State Senator Scott Wiener speaks at a "Just Majority" nationwide bus tour press conference to call for reforms to the U.S. Supreme Court on May 16, 2023 in Sacramento, California. (Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Demand Justice)