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LANSING, MI --Michigan's Republican-led Legislature may have inadvertently made history last month when it adopted a resolution urging a convention of the states for the purpose of drafting a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Article V requires Congress to authorize a convention when 34 states have called for an amendment on the same topic, but that threshold has never been reached.

Conventional wisdom suggests -- and supporters repeatedly stated -- that by adopting its resolution, Michigan had joined more than 20 other states with similar applications.

But Michigan may unknowingly have been the 34th state to call for a federal balanced budget amendment, according to at least one constitutional scholar. A

California Congressman is asking U.S. House Speaker John Boehner to consider the argument and explore whether a convention should be called.

The dispute hinges on an apparently untested legal question: Can a state rescind an application after petitioning Congress?

"There is a school of thought -- scholars are very divided on the subject -- that once a state Legislature has said 'yes' to an Article V Convention, it is without the ability to then turn around and change it's mind and say, 'No, we don't want that any more," said Gregory Watson, a constitutional expert who works as a staffer in the Texas House.

"The issue has never been brought before a federal court, and that's why I think perhaps, maybe, possibly someone somewhere -- not necessarily in Michigan -- could file a lawsuit in a federal court claiming that the 34-state threshold has indeed been met."

Watson, best known for spearheading

some 200 years after it was proposed, believes that Michigan became the 22nd state with a clearly active application calling for a

convention and balanced budget amendment. By his tally, 12 other states applied decades ago before they later changed their minds, but he's not sure they had the authority to do so.

"If a federal judge were to rule that the activities that occurred in Lansing on March 26, 2014, did indeed make it the 34th state, then it was a very historic day," Watson said. "If the judge ruled that, 'No, a state can repeal it's previous request,' then it was not a historic day."

Michigan's resolution made national headlines last week, with The Washington Times and Fox News reporting on the prospect of a constitutional convention and questions over how many states have active applications.

Citing published reports, U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-California) sent a letter to Boehner suggesting that the House "should lead an effort to ascertain whether 34 states have voted affirmatively" for a convention and asking the speaker to direct appropriate entities to make that determination.

"A balanced budget amendment is long overdue and remains an effective tool to address runaway spending and deficits," Hunter wrote. "With the recent decision by Michigan lawmakers, it is important that the House -- and those of us who support a balanced budget amendment -- determine whether the necessary number of states have acted and the appropriate role of Congress should this be the case."

Still, even some supporters are skeptical.

Rob Natelson, a constitutional scholar and former law professor, told The Washington Times that states have always had the ability to rescind applications and does not think Michigan's resolution is the 34th of its kind.

"I think it's unlikely that a request for Congress to call a convention at this point would get anywhere," said Natelson, who wrote an Article V handbook for state lawmakers published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative organization that supports the push for a balanced budget amendment.

State Sen. Mike Green (R-Mayville) said he was aware that there was some sort of dispute over the status of old applications when he introduced the balanced budget resolution in Michigan's upper chamber last year, but he was surprised to learn that Congressman Hunter raised the issue with Boehner in D.C.

"The latest count that I was getting back from the group of legislators that I've been working with is that we were going to be number 23," Green said Wednesday.

The issue may very well end up in federal courts, Green acknowledged, but he would prefer that other states sign on soon so that there is no question over active convention applications. Any proposed resolution would have to be ratified by 38 states.

"My goal is to get a balanced budget amendment done, and if it comes sooner rather than later, I'm all for it," Green said. "I'd like to see it get done right now, when for sure we'd have 38 states that would (ratify) it. After the next election, you never know."

If all this sounds hypothetical, that's because it is at this point.

An Article V Convention has never been called, and it's not even clear whether Congress or states or delegates would set the rules. The nation's last constitutional convention was its first, as the founding fathers drafted the document now under dispute.

Despite those unknowns, supporters say states must act and force the federal government to stop what they believe is a reckless and now-annual pattern of deficit spending.

Michigan Joint Resolution V, like those adopted by several other states, calls for an amendment limiting federal appropriations to estimated revenues in each fiscal year, allowing exceptions only in the case of a national emergency.

Critics argue that a balanced budget amendment would limit the federal government's ability to respond to fiscal crises or make strategic investments, and some have suggested the process could devolve into a "runaway convention" ruled more by public pressure, lobbyists and outside influences than sound policy.

"Government would become more beholden to artificial spending limits that would all but ensure that the shutdown of the federal government we just saw last month would become an all too-common occurrence," State Sen. Bert Johnson (D-Detroit) said in November during an early floor debate on the resolution.

"Congress already struggles to complete its most basic functions. Why would we bog down the process even further? This amendment wouldn't limit government, it would drown it."

The resolution passed the Michigan House with some bipartisan support, but the Senate vote split directly down party lines, with all Democrats voting against it.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder endorsed the push for a federal balanced budget amendment in his January State of the State address but the joint resolution did not require his signature for adoption.

Jonathan Oosting is a Capitol reporter for MLive Media Group. Email him, find him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.