The building national movement for a constitutional convention of states to block President Obama’s executive orders got a huge boost Thursday when leading advocate Mark Levin urged state lawmakers to throttle all of Washington, including Republicans.

“Take your power back,” he demanded of the hundreds of lawmakers attending the American Legislative Exchange Council convention on Capitol Hill. “You are the last line of defense of liberty.”

Levin got star billing because a focus of the winter meeting of the limited government group is pushing for a convention of states, a project of the Citizens for Self-Governance, who sponsored the top talk show host who recently wrote a book laying out constitutional amendments the nation should consider. The process is offered in Article V of the Constitution.

He described a nation that is morphing into a “post-constitutional” crisis where state legislatures are “irrelevant,” and the president and Congress do whatever they want, and nobody in Washington provides checks and balances.

“We have a president of the United States who says, ‘Hey, Congress won’t act. I will.’ Excuse me? Well what’s that? Sounds like a runaway convention to me,” he said.

Ditto for Republicans. “Throw out the establishment Republicans and others who are stopping you from doing what you need to do,” Levin urged.

To applause, he pushed legislators to consider a convention of 2,000-3,000 delegates to review procedures for hosting a constitutional convention as a warning shot to Congress and the White House. “That alone would shake up this city,” he said.

While Levin and convention proponents have support, some at the ALEC event said it was too radical a move, and a few cited criticisms that a conservative-led convention would go too far.

Levin rejected the concerns about a “runaway convention,” noting that the Constitution requires many states to approve any action, making it unlikely that a radical idea would get through.

He dismissed critics, and added that proponents are simply trying to save the Constitution.

“Ignore these idiots,” he said of critics, adding about his backers, “we’re not some cult over here. We’re the majority.”

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.