# Citizens for Self-Governance The nonprofit founded in 2011 by [[Mark Meckler]] as the institutional vehicle for his post-Tea-Party project: shrinking federal power by amending the Constitution itself. CSG is best understood as the **organizational bridge from the Tea Party to the Article V convention movement** — the place Meckler landed after leaving [[Tea Party Patriots]] in 2012, and the parent of the movement's flagship effort, [[Convention of States Action]]. ## Leadership and Tea Party Lineage [[Mark Meckler]], co-founder and former coordinator of [[Tea Party Patriots]], serves as president. The board chairman is **Eric O'Keefe**, a veteran conservative operative with deep, long-standing ties to Charles and [[David Koch]] and a founder/funder of numerous right-wing groups — a connection that situates CSG within the broader [[Koch Network]]-adjacent ecosystem even though it is not formally a Koch entity. The leadership lineage is the analytically important part: CSG is a direct institutional descendant of the Tea Party's decentralist, anti-federal-power wing, carrying that energy from street rallies into constitutional mechanics. ## The Convention of States Project In 2013, CSG (with constitutional lawyer [[Michael Farris]]) launched what became [[Convention of States Action]], a nationwide campaign to trigger an **Article V convention** — the never-used constitutional provision allowing two-thirds of state legislatures (34 states) to call a convention to propose amendments. The COS campaign's stated goals: impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose **term limits** on federal officials. As of 2026 the COS resolution has passed in **roughly 20 states** — well short of the 34 required, but a substantial and persistent campaign that has made the once-fringe Article V idea a mainstream conservative cause. Critics warn that an Article V convention, once convened, could become a "runaway convention" with no enforceable limit on its scope — a structural risk that is the central argument against the project. ## Why It Matters Here CSG/COS represents one of the **two paths the Tea Party's energy took** after 2012. Where [[Jenny Beth Martin]] kept the [[Tea Party Patriots]] brand and steered it toward MAGA-era cultural politics, Meckler took the movement's *constitutional-structural* wing into CSG — pursuing a long-game institutional strategy to permanently constrain federal power through the amendment process. It is the Tea Party's most ambitious surviving structural project: not a candidate, not a rally, but an attempt to rewrite the constitutional rules of the federal government itself. (See [[Mark Meckler]], [[Convention of States Action]], and [[Tea Party Patriots]].) ## See Also - [[Convention of States Action]] — The flagship Article V campaign CSG runs - [[Mark Meckler]] — Founder and president - [[Michael Farris]] — COS co-founder - [[Tea Party Patriots]] — Meckler's prior organization; the lineage - [[Tea Party Movement]] — The movement whose decentralist wing CSG inherited